The Start of an Empire: MS-DOS Celebrates 30th Birthday

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The Greater Good

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@ echo off

echo I remember back in the day of editing the autoexec and the command.com files just to load the programs that needed all of my 2 megs (yes, two 2 megabytes) of memory. Computers sure have come a long way since my 386 SX-15 (15 MHz) with Windows 3.1 and DOS 5.0.

 

dalethepcman

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2megs.. it was all about getting as much out of the first 640k as possible and still having sound and joystick function in your dos games.

Playing jokes like...
prompt I know your going to just play strip poker again
and...
edit autoexec.bat
@echo off
attrib +h config.sys
attrib +h command.com
echo stop touching me!!!
 

passingcomment

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I was able to tinker with DOS as a youth on an old workstation my father had lying around. I still remember the hours planning and making file structures, then the hours moving files around until everything was where I wanted them to be. It was fun, and it helped me comfortable with command.
[citation][nom]pbrigido[/nom]ah, the good old days of computers. I wouldn't trade in my rig I have now, but I do miss those nostalgic years.[/citation]
 
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config.sys
Add LASTDRIVE=Z so then MS-DOS recognizes some CD-ROM drives like Creative :)
 

davewolfgang

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I still have a book that has every MSDOS command in up to 6.1 (.2?).

I found it useful even in XP for some office network mapping on boot (net use lpt3: \\*server name*\hplj4050 - because this old lawyer still likes to use WordPerfect 3.0), but I haven't touched it since 7.
 
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I rememeber being poor and getting software meant going to the library, taking out a book and spending days/weeks copying programs out them. The books always had a couple of typos and errors in them which was always fun if someone had not pencilled in the correct character. Machine code was always fun to type.
 
I remember having that old MS-DOS book that could double as a booster seat... rofl...

I don't remember exactly how old I was, under 10, and so impressed with myself learning how to partition a 20MB HDD and unzip files! :D
 

cmcghee358

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I started learning MS-DOS around 5.0, when I was about 13. My mom had bought a 486DX50 when was a big deal. Had 4 MB of RAM and I think a 120MB HDD. Cost $1500.

Used to BBS it up in Davis CA!

But all that time spent tinkering then, really impresses people when you open the command prompt and start flying around doing dir /s /ah /p commands and finding all kinds of files they didn't know existed.
 
I remember using both MS and PC DOS on an XT with 640kb of ram and a 20mb harddrive. Things sure have changed. To be honest, I found PC DOS was faster and more stable than MS DOS, but PC DOS was not advertised as much.
 

mchuf

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Didn't use it much, so I don't really miss it. I prefered the machines from Commodore and Apple. PC's didn't become the superior platform until DirectX gaming.
 
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I remember using Z-DOS (Zenith PCs) on a Zenith Z100 and MS-DOS 2.1 on Sperry PCs. The Zenith Z100 was similar to a Radio Shack TRS-80, with monitor, keyboard and floppies all in one unit. No hard drive, just 2 5.25" floppy drives. Later on there was an addon card that allowed Z100s to run MS-DOS.

On the Sperry PCs I had to move the format.com to a different folder and create a format.bat because people kept trying to format the floppy drive and were formatting the 10mb or 20mb hard drives instead.

Were those the "good old days"? LOL
 

MrBig55

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I still use a lot of features of MS-DOS in my programs, and all support Windows Xp (all service packs), vista/vista sp1, Windows 7, as well as 32/64 bits for every of them. Of course there are differences in the way each OS interpret some commands so I need to install the latest version of these on the different systems. I cannot do half of what my programs are doing without MS-DOS. Even though it's not capable of doing too sophisticated things, I do use the most powerful functions to accomply a lot of tasks. Next I have to acquire SSL commands to add to these DOS programs since DOS

I remember using DOS since Windows 3.1. It brings a lot of souvenirs back into memory ^^ Just prior Windows 3.1, I did not have any way to stock data other than the ridiculous amount of ram available. Playing Sim City 2000 would have been an overkill but also better game than those I had on my Commodore 64/128 (owned both)!! Oh well time has changed quite a bit.
 

thebigt42

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ok my 2 cents....My dos machines (I only started using windows for Internet in 1994)

1st 8088 1983 Leading edge Model M (not D) 8 Megtz 540k ram Dos V2
2nd 8088 1990 Clone (1st assembled) 10 Megtz 640k ram dos 3.30 & 5.0
3rd 286 NEC MB rest added 12 Megtz 2048k ram dos 5.0 and 4DOS
4th AMD 386 40 Megtz 4096k ram dos 6.2 and 4dos
 
I remember playing DOS games. They installed from a single 3.5" Diskette (later games had multiple disks!). Then you had to use another 3.5" Diskette to create a customized "Boot Disk" in order to get memory settings (config files) and such right in order to make that game run.

The next game you installed needed it's own "Boot Disk" because it needed different memory settings and such. Oh the joys of DOS back in the day...

Some of my fondest gaming memories were DOS based games though. Aces of the Pacific by "Dynamix" (later bought by Sierra).
 
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