When choosing a new laptop, many users are faced with the term DOS or Free DOS. This term can be found in the characteristics of many modern devices, while almost no one explains what it really means. In this article, we will tell you what the DOS operating system is on a laptop, why manufacturers install it, and whether it is possible to buy computers with this OS.
The abbreviation DOS stands for Disk Operating System and denotes an operating system focused on working with disk drives, for example, floppy disks or.
Free DOS logo, the most popular DOS operating system on this moment.
The DOS operating system typically supports multiple file systems and allows the user to read and write data to files on drives attached to the computer. In addition, the DOS operating system provides other computer functions. In particular, it controls the display of information on the screen, ports, memory operations and running programs.
The appearance of the term DOS is due to the fact that the first versions of computers were not equipped with hard drives and worked on the basis of diskless operating systems. Such computers required loading data using magnetic tapes, punched cards, jumpers or keyboards, which meant that only experienced specialists could work with them.
The first disk operating systems appeared in the early 60s and were actively used until the late 80s. During this time, many different operating systems have appeared that fall under the definition of the term DOS. The most famous of them are:
In modern conditions, operating systems of the DOS family are hopelessly outdated and completely replaced by such graphical operating systems as Windows, MacOS and others.
Even though DOS operating systems are obsolete, it is still used in some areas. Moreover, Free DOS is most often used. She has an open source and distributed completely free of charge, which makes it handy tool for development. For example, Free DOS is often used to control industrial equipment.
Free DOS operating system interface. You will see something like this when you first turn on a laptop with a DOS operating system.
Another area where FreeDOS is used is in pre-built computers and laptops, on which Free DOS is installed from the factory as a standard operating system. This is done in order not to install the Windows operating system on the computer.
Rejection Windows usage allows the manufacturer to save some money and reduce the price of this device. This approach is used by many manufacturers of laptops and finished computers, such as Dell, Asus, HP, Samsung and Lenovo. In addition to Free DOS, some Linux can also be used as a standard operating system for a laptop. IN this case the goal is the same - not to use Windows and thus reduce the price.
For a laptop buyer, the DOS operating system means only one thing - you have to deal with it yourself, since using a computer with DOS in modern conditions is not realistic. Therefore, if you know how to install Windows, then you can not worry and feel free to buy a laptop with Free DOS. If you want to get a device that will be ready to work right out of the box, then you should choose a model with pre-installed Windows, or at least Linux.
Many of today's novice programmers grew up on Windows. And someone probably already does not know that before Windows appeared, users worked in the DOS operating system.
DOS is very different from Windows. Much stronger than Windows 7 from Windows 8. And therefore, when the need arises to work in DOS, for most users it causes shock and deep depression.
To save you from these consequences, I decided to write a short article about working in the DOS operating system.
operating system(OS) is a program that controls the operation of a computer. You can turn on the computer without an operating system - the BIOS is enough for this. But in this case, everything will end when it is turned on, since the BIOS will display a message stating that the disk is not bootable.
The very first operating system for the first IBM PC, created in 1981, is DOS - Disk Operating System (Disk Operating System). It was developed by MicroSoft and therefore had the prefix MS (its full name is MS-DOS). Other companies also developed similar systems, which differed little from each other, but had other prefixes in their names (PC-DOS, NW-DOS, DR-DOS, etc.). Usually these prefixes are not mentioned, and simply DOS is written.
Kernel, then Networking The bulk of MS-DOS is made up of three files:
At present, almost no one works in DOS, as more modern operating systems have appeared, such as WINDOWS 95/98/ME/2000/XP/7/8 and others, not only Windows, but also, for example, Android. In fairness, it should be noted that all of them (well, almost all of them) are based on the good old DOS.
Therefore, learning DOS will not hurt anyone - it will come in handy in life. Although, starting with WINDOWS XP, the DOS operating system is no longer used as a basis. This is partly the reason why some older programs don't work with newer versions of Windows.
But if you are going to get serious about programming, then learning DOS is a must. Then you will understand why.
Here we will only talk about the most basic DOS commands. Unlike, for example, Windows, where you can perform the same action different ways(using a mouse or keyboard, etc.), in DOS all commands are written on the Command line, and these commands are executed after pressing the ENTER key. After loading DOS, you will see the following line (prompt):
where C is the drive name. To change to another drive (for example, drive A), type
and press ENTER. The letter can be either large or small.
NOTE
To practice working on the command line, it is not necessary to restart the computer in DOS. Windows also has a command line that "works" on the same principles. Click the START button and select the RUN menu item (for Windows ME). A command prompt window will open in front of you. In this line, you need to enter the command, after which, just like in DOS, you should press the ENTER key or click on the OK button.
Batch (command) files
With the help of DOS commands, you can create so-called batch files (they are also called "batch files", BAT files, or simply "batch files"). Because Windows supports DOS commands, these files will work on Windows as well. System administrators and programmers still make extensive use of batch files. To deal with batch files, download test on this topic.
The prompt type can be changed with the PROMPT command. To do this, on the command line you need to type the following:
PROMPT Text
where Text is any text message. For example, after entering the command:
PROMPT Hello
instead of the standard C:\>, the word Hello will be displayed.
Almost all commands come down to opening a file or program (actually, a program is also a file). General form command that opens the file:
C:\>Folder1\ . . . \FolderN\FileName
where C is the name of the drive; Folder1 . . . FolderN - these are the names of the directories (full path to the file): FileName - the name of the file with the extension. If there is no such file, an error message will be displayed.
NOTE
If you are working on the Windows command line, you can open almost any file this way. If the file extension is not specified, then the file with the EXE, BAT or COM extension will be opened. Well, if you are working in DOS, then you can only open executable files(programs). Therefore, the extension can be omitted.
For example, consider this option: we need to open a file called FILE.COM, which is located in the TEXT folder, and this folder, in turn, is located in the DOC folder. And the DOC folder is located on drive C. To do this, write the following on the command line:
C:\>DOC\TEXT\FILE
and press ENTER. If the file exists, it will open (more precisely, the program will start, since files with the COM extension are programs).
NOTE
If you want to work in "combat-like" conditions, then you can select "MS-DOS session" in the main menu ("Start" button). After starting the program, you will see a black window, where the DOS command line will be. Here you can try out all the commands in this article. If for some reason you did not find the above item in the main menu, then use the file search function to find the COMMAND.COM or CMD.EXE file (for Windows NT*). You can also just open a command prompt and type COMMAND.COM or CMD.EXE (for Windows NT*) there.
You can get short help about any DOS command by typing the command name on the command line with the "?" parameter. For example:
If you are not working in "pure" DOS, but under Windows control(See NOTE above), after pressing the ENTER key, you will get something like this:
Windows Millennium [Version 4.90.3000]
Well, if you are working in DOS, you will get information about the DOS version. As you understand, the VER command displays information about the version of the operating system.
This command, like most others, has several options:
CD\ - go to the root directory this disk. For example, if you are in
C:\DIR1\DIR2\DIR3
then after executing this command you will go to drive C:
CD \GAME - go to the child directory GAME from the root directory
СD GAME - go to the child directory GAME from the current directory
CD.. - exit from the directory (go to the parent directory). For example, if you are in
C:\DIR1\DIR2\DIR3
then after executing this command you will go to:
DIR - view a list of directories and files in a given directory
However, if there are a lot of files and directories in the current directory, then all of them will flash very quickly, and you will be able to see only the last ones that will fit on the page. If in this case you need to see all the files and folders, then the command is typed with the "P" parameter:
In this case, as many files as will fit on the screen will be displayed. To view the next "portion" of files, you need to press any key.
This command creates a new directory
MD PAPKA - Creates a RARKA directory in the current folder or on the current drive.
MD\PAPKA - the PAPKA directory is created in the root directory.
MD C:\DIR\PAPKA - Creates the PAPKA directory in the DIR directory.
This command renames the file
REN FILE_1.txt F_1.txt - File FILE_1 is renamed to F_1
This command copies files
COPY C:\MYFILE\TEXT.TXT A:\ - copy the TEXT.TXT file from the MYFILE directory to diskette A.
COPY C:\TEXT\*.TXT A:\ - copies all files with the TXT extension from the TEXT directory to diskette A.
COPY FILE_1.TXT A:\TEXT\FILE_2.TXT - copy a file under a new name from the current directory of the active disk to the TEXT directory of drive A.
COPY F_1.TXT+F_2.TXT+F3.TXT F_END.TXT - merge (merge) three files into one file (F_END.TXT). All four files in the current directory.
COPY FILE_1.TXT PRN - print (copy to printer) file FILE_1.TXT from the current directory.
COPY FILE_1.TXT CON - view file. Here, the word CON (short for CONSOL) is used as a command parameter. This word is reserved by the operating system for standard I/O devices. For data input, this device is the keyboard, for output, it is the monitor. A similar result can be achieved with the TYPE FILE_1.TXT command.
COPY CON FILE_1.TXT - creation (copying from the keyboard) of a new text file FILE_1.TXT in the current directory. After executing this command, you can enter any text from the keyboard. To complete the process of creating a file, you must enter a special control character "end of file". To do this, press the key combination Ctrl + Z, and then press the ENTER key.
This command copies directories.
XCOPY C:\TEXT\*.* A:\PAPKA\*.* /S /E - creates the PAPKA directory on diskette A (if it was not there) and copies all directories and subdirectories (including empty ones) into it.
This command deletes files.
DEL *.dat - delete all files with DAT extension from the current directory
DEL *.* - delete all files from the current directory
DEL C:\TEXT\FILE.txt - delete file FILE.TXT from TEXT directory.
DEL C:\TEXT\*.doc /P - deletes all files with the DOC extension from the TEXT directory. The P option means that you will be asked for confirmation before deleting each file.
This command removes empty directories.
RD TEXT - deleting the TEXT directory.
This command sets the search paths for files with executable programs.
PATH C:\;C:\Windows;C:\MyProg
If you enter such a command, then you no longer have to write the full path to the files that are on drive C and in WINDOWS directories and MYPROG. For example, if you have a program named PROGA in the MYPROG directory, then after entering the above command, to run this program on the command line, it will be enough to write PROGA and press ENTER. Note that when listing directories in the PATH command, there MUST NOT be spaces between them.
This command exits the COMMAND program (MS-DOS session). If you launched it from Windows, then back to Windows and return.
This is a simple and very convenient text editor. You may need it to look text files, which have DOS character encoding. (On Windows, you can open such files with notepad, but instead of normal text, you will see a set of "hieroglyphs"). To start this editor, type the word EDIT at the command prompt and press the ENTER key. This editor can also be launched from command line Windows.
NOTE
Here the names of all commands are printed capital letters, however, it does not matter - you can write in small letters.
And in conclusion, we mention two commands for working with the disk:
FORMAT - disk formatting
FORMAT A: - formatting disk A. Before formatting a disk, think carefully: is it worth it?
FDISK - division of the hard drive into logical disks. In this case, ALL information on the disk is lost. If you don't know what you're doing, don't use this command. In general, this command requires more detailed consideration. Someday I'll get back to her.
The purpose of this article is to introduce people raised on Windows to general principles work in DOS. As you can see, everything is not so scary. And if you do not want to be just a "user", then you need to know DOS. And in general, as one of my programmer friends says: "A hard drive in a computer is not the main thing." However, you won't run Windows without a hard drive - it takes up too much space, and the above three main DOS files can easily fit on a floppy disk (all together they take about 150KB - the size depends on the version). Therefore, I advise you to always have a boot floppy - suddenly you have to check a computer that does not have a hard drive or the hard drive is faulty. If you can't create a clean DOS boot floppy, then it's okay. Create a Windows boot floppy - it will still have the same DOS, only with a bunch of different useful programs(CD-ROM drivers, keyboard localization, etc.).
If you have Windows 95\98\ME and the like, then you can do it like this:
Start > Settings > Control Panel > Add or Remove Programs
Then select the tab Boot disk and click the "Create Disc" button.
To boot from a floppy disk, insert it into the disk drive and restart your computer. If your BIOS is set to the default settings, the computer will boot from the floppy disk. And it will load nothing but DOS. Well, if the computer loaded Windows, then you need to change the BIOS settings. But that is another topic...
And another helpful tip.
At the beginning of the article, I mentioned the command Windows line. This line is sometimes more convenient to use than to click on shortcuts. If there are too many different programs on your computer, then the entire desktop is "polluted" with shortcuts. This not only prevents you from admiring the beautiful "wallpaper" - it will not be easy to find the right label the first time. What if the mouse breaks? Therefore, programs that you often use are best run from the command line. However, you need to write the full path to the file on the command line, which is inconvenient. But this problem can be solved, for example, by making appropriate changes in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file. And if you have a vague idea what this file is and why it is needed, then there is an easier way. For example, you have the program "MyProg", which is located in the "Progy" folder on the "C" drive. In this case, you need to run it from the command line like this:
In order not to write the full path, you need to do the following:
and press ENTER. See also the PATH command.
If for some reason the program does not start, try restarting your computer. If it doesn't help, then you did something wrong.
The main advantage of the command line is that it can be used to launch programs fairly quickly without using a mouse. If you don't know how to open Command Prompt without a mouse, here's one method for Windows that works for most versions of Windows:
Second way:
If you have an old keyboard that does not have a WIN key, then you can open the START menu with the CTRL + ESC key combination.
DOS... A blank DOS filled the screen with a black veil.
The mouse... The mouse suddenly became square, the mouse lost its shape.
I broke the window... "Windows"... Hateful, damned window.
I installed DOS and then I saw - this is happiness, here it is!
Modern operating systems require more and more resources: random access memory, disk space, performance CPU… Old computers simply have to be thrown away, and even units with Pentium or Pentium II processors with 14-15” monitors are practically worth nothing today. It is especially a pity to part with laptops based on i386 and i486 processors, which are no worse than modern PDAs, but it is unlikely that they will be able to add memory to run a more or less modern operating system. Windows families.
Is all this stunning computing power really necessary for an ordinary user who, in fact, only wants to access the Internet, send email, edit texts, listen to music and play simple computer games occasionally? And is it worth switching to new technologies, where the speed and reliability of a computer largely depends on the power of the power supply and on the efficiency of the cooling system, and the difference between old and new versions of programs is often clear only to specialists?
Q: How many Microsoft employees does it take to change a burned out lamp?
Answer: None, since Microsoft standardizes on darkness in such cases!
Joke
More recently, as it sometimes seems, that is, literally some 10-15 years ago, most users had the MS-DOS operating system on personal computers. This system was quite simple and quite suitable for many purposes, and for some applications even optimal! By the way, many specialized programs did not gain anything fundamentally from the transition to new operating systems and increased capacities, but, on the contrary, lost in the convenience of the interface (which had to be standardized) and in ease of development.
The main advantage of DOS (as well as its main disadvantage) is its close interaction with the hardware. Operating systems of the Windows family, as well as various variations of UNIX-like systems, are nevertheless fenced off from the hardware by a number of standardized high-level interfaces and, towering above the hardware, often complicate working with it, which is inconvenient, in particular, for developers of any non-standard hardware. DOS, on the other hand, encourages interaction with hardware directly. For example, easy access to hardware allows you to work with disks on physical level, which means that you can organize the copying of partitions regardless of the types of their logical formatting. However, various pitfalls lurk here, which lead to collisions when working in this operating system with careless programming. In general, the DOS system required programmers to be careful, and in this case, the programs worked with maximum efficiency. Hundreds of thousands of programs have been written for DOS, and there are no analogues of some of them in other operating systems and, perhaps, never will be. In addition, the hardware requirements for running DOS were minimal.
However, in the mid-90s, Bill Gates said: "DOS is dead." Indeed, after the release of MS Windows 95 and the first Linux versions it became clear that the days of DOS as a mainstream operating system were numbered. And although theoretically DOS will still find use in cheap solutions for creating electronic microprocessor systems for a long time to come (some variants of DR-DOS and PTS-DOS have ROM versions, and there are also special ROM versions of such systems as Datalight ROM-DOS and General Software DOS-ROM for technical applications), these applications are very narrow and unlikely to support the existence of such operating systems in the future.
Keys for editing commands in DOS
As the 21st century began, the last commercial versions of DOS ceased to exist. The latest version of IBM PC-DOS is dated 2000 (it sold for $60), and the last full version of PTS-DOS came out at the same time (this domestic development firm "Phystech-soft"). The version of PTS-DOS, released in 2002, introduced support for FAT32 and work with large amounts of memory, but some useful utilities that were not adapted to the mentioned support disappeared. The latest version of DR-DOS 8.0 (supporting FAT32 and long filenames) dates back to 2004 (it retailed for $40). By the way, now this system is called Caldera OpenDOS, distributed free of charge as part of the project open source(that is, the source texts of this system are available), and you can download it at: http://www.opendos.de/download/ .
Finally continues to exist free version FreeDOS, also open source, but rather a public project of enthusiasts scattered around the world. The latest version of FreeDOS appeared in 2003, but since the various parts of FreeDOS are developed independently, it still resembles Linux more than DOS in its classical form (in particular, a full installation of this system is the same difficult operation). However, none of the alternative systems is 100% compatible with MS-DOS, and FreeDOS has the most compatibility issues. It turns out that the best DOS is still the "dead" MS-DOS. Officially, the last version of MS-DOS was version 6.22 from 1994, but MS-DOS versions 7.x existed with Windows 95/98/Me - they could be separated from the Windows shell and used separately.
However, every year the problem of driver support for new hardware becomes more acute - we are talking primarily about USB devices, DVD-R/RW drives, etc. A similar problem exists for network protocols and new data formats.
Grunted HDD and the iron rustled softly under the table.
Loaded up right away. Hey, let's see what's what!
Come out under DOS and better work your head!
See for yourself: after all, DOS is not a fairy tale, it's true, it's with you!
In recent years, some excellent DOS developer software has also become freely available, including the Watcom C, C++, and Fortran compilers (known high quality generated codes); Borland Turbo C; Free Pascal (fully compatible with Borland Pascal and partially with Delphi); the excellent, fast-growing macro assembler FASM (the quality of the code it generates is higher than that of some currently known commercial assemblers), as well as Internet browsers such as Arachne and Bobcat. And thanks to the DJ Delorie system, almost all basic Linux tools (gcc, g++, gdb, bash, grep, etc.) are available for DOS.
Tears on the glasses ... Strange glasses, or maybe these are tears on the face?
DOS cleared everything! Everything that was superfluous on my C drive.
I pressed "F8", and the cheerful "Norton" deleted everything for me:
Forty megabytes, maybe more... maybe even sixty...
Using a USB disk (flash drive) as a bootable one (see the article “Many Faces of USB Flash Drives”) provides an interesting opportunity: if you distribute some program on such a disk along with DOS, then it can be used on any computer, regardless of the installed operating system. system on the hard disk (for this, however, it is necessary that the BIOS of the motherboard supports booting from USB devices).
However, not all motherboards support booting from USB disks (and if they do, then on computers with a processor not lower than Pentium III), and in the days of DOS support USB Flash Drive was not there at all. Therefore, even if you just want to read from a flash drive under DOS (for example, by booting from a rescue floppy), you will need special drivers for this, which were written much later than the period of active use of DOS.
There are several similar drivers for USB support- devices written by various companies for their own purposes, since the basic support for USB devices is not in any alternative DOS system, even in FreeDOS. The most popular are the drivers from the Japanese company Panasonic (Matsushita), and although the company wrote them for their devices, the drivers turned out to be universal and work with most USB drives that meet the UHCI- (old USB devices 1.x), or OHCI- (next generation USB 1.x devices, where work is done not through I / O ports, as before, but through memory areas, which is faster), or, finally, the EHCI standard (USB 2.0 ). Panasonic's drivers are 16-bit and work with any version of DOS.
To support USB drives, the first thing you need is an ASPI driver, which retains its name from the Advanced SCSI Programming Interface. The main driver is the file USBASPI.SYS (Panasonic v2.06 ASPI Manager for USB mass storage), which you must copy to the system floppy and call when booting DOS from config.sys with the following line:
DEVICE=USBAPSI.SYS /v /w /e /noprt /norst
In this case, the /v (Verbose) option means using the device verbose display mode, and the /w (Wait) option will stop the download until the device is connected to the USB connector and the Enter key is pressed.
In addition to these parameters, USBASPI.SYS has others. The general call line will look like this:
DEVICE=USBASPI.SYS ] /r]
However, all other parameters, except for the /v and /w mentioned above, are of little interest, and their default values can be used. If you have any problems recognizing the USB device, you can try using other options. So, sometimes the /noprt switch helps. Note that the /l[=n] option explicitly specifies the logical unit number (LUN), so setting it can speed up boot (n = 0 by default). In addition, it is sometimes useful to explicitly specify the USB specification (/e is EHCI; /o is OHCI; /u is UHCI).
Thus, if the USBASPI.SYS driver recognizes your USB device, it will provide it with an ASPI interface. However, in order to access a USB device from DOS, you will also need the DI1000DD.SYS (ASPI mass storage driver) disk driver from Novac, which will assign the corresponding letter to this USB device in a number of other drives (for some reason this driver is called Motto Hairu USB Driver by the manufacturer). In the config.sys file, write it on a separate line:
Panasonic's USB package also includes the RAMFD.SYS file, which creates a RAM disk and copies the entire boot floppy to it to speed up DOS operation.
In addition, the package contains special USBCD.SYS drivers that allow you to connect external CD drives with a USB interface.
The corresponding lines in the config.sys file of your boot floppy should look something like this:
DEVICE=HIMEM.SYS
DEVICEHIGH=DI1000DD.SYS
DEVICEHIGH=USBCD.SYS /d:USBCD001
If you have a CD drive with USB interface, then in the autoexec.bat batch file you need to add the following lines:
REM Mount USB CD-ROM
LHMSCDEX /d:USBCD001
Now, even if you don't want to run under DOS, but are just going to boot from a rescue floppy, do backup hard drive to a USB drive using Paragon Drive Backup, copy system disk using the Powerquest Drive Image program or using the Norton Ghost tools, you can do this by loading the appropriate drivers to support USB Flash Drive under DOS.
Difficulties in using Panasonic drivers may arise when using EMM386.EXE (memory manager under DOS). If you are getting a mapped memory error, then you need to disable loading EMM386.EXE or use third party USB drivers. In addition, it may happen that your flash drive may not be correctly recognized by the USBASPI.SYS driver, or that the DI1000DD.SYS driver will report invalid data in boot sector USB drive - in these cases, you can try to prepare the flash drive directly in DOS: run, for example, the fdisk.exe program, create a primary DOS partition on the flash drive and format it in FAT. However, some flash drives cannot be formatted, because after that they may not work correctly or will no longer be recognized at all. Therefore, before such a procedure, be sure to check with the manufacturer about the possibility of formatting a USB drive and look for a special proprietary utility for this operation. In any case, it is better to first try all possible drivers and their settings for connecting a USB device in DOS, and only then, if none of the methods work, resort to more risky experiments.
In addition to the Panasonic drivers, there are Cypress USB drivers that work with EMM386.EXE without conflicts, so you won't need to disable the memory manager (if you need it) in this case. In addition, Cypress DUSE has only the DUSE.EXE (ASPI mass storage driver) disk driver, which assigns the corresponding letter to the USB device, so the ASPI manager is still needed: you can take the same USBASPI.SYS described above and replace only the DI1000DD driver .SYS to DUSE.EXE. The DUSE.EXE driver can be written in the config.sys file as a device driver (DEVICE), for example:
DEVICE=HIMEM.SYS
DEVICEHIGH=EMM386.EXE
DEVICEHIGH=USBASPI.SYS /v /w /e /noprt /norst
REM Assign a letter to the device
DEVICEHIGH= DUSE.EXE
Or you can simply call DUSE.EXE in the autoexec.bat batch file as a program using the special DUSELDR.EXE loader:
DUSELDR.EXE A:\ DUSE.EXE
To access the Internet, you can use not only a regular phone, but also an ADSL modem (of course, it is better to use an Ethernet modem in router mode), as well as connect via local network. Recall that in DOS there is no network support at the operating system level, so you will need to install the so-called packet driver for your network card, which can be taken from the website of the Ethernet card manufacturer.
If a text browser is not enough, then you can install the powerful graphical Arachne Web browser ("spider"), which is launched from the DOS command line (http://www.cisnet.com/glennmcc/arachne/). Applying it is not much more difficult than Internet Explorer. To set up a connection, Arachne has special master(PPP Wizard) - almost the same as in Windows programs. "Dialer" Arachne supports the PPP protocol for communication with the provider's modem and performs automatic authorization (login and password).
To connect to the Internet using this wizard, you need to set the following options:
If you correctly answer all these questions to the connection wizard, then accessing the Internet will not be difficult for you, and the page loading speed on a Pentium processor will be no lower than under Windows XP on a Pentium 4. The only disadvantage of this program is that it single-window, that is, you can visit only one site at a time. However, the entire history of your visits is saved, and returning to the previous page is very fast. By the way, to speed up work in Arachne, you should create a RAM disk and define a temporary folder on it (unless, of course, you have enough RAM for this):
Graphic pages are displayed quite correctly (VESA resolutions are supported up to 1024S768 in full color mode), graphics are loaded, tables are supported, etc. Moreover, Arachne supports page scrolling with the mouse wheel: to do this, you need to use the CTMOUSE mouse driver that comes with Arachne (\SYSTEM\DEVDRVRS directory).
The Arachne program is universal, like Bobcat / Lynx - it includes a PPP dialer, a graphical browser, and mail program, and much more. And all this in a packed form takes one megabyte and fits on one floppy disk. To Russify the interface, you need to download a special module (Plug-in) from the site http://386.by.ru - FULLRUS.APM, and to support Russian fonts (encodings) you need CP1251.APM and KOI8-R.APM files. Both the PPP master and the setup menus are Russified, and helpful tips etc. Additional modules are installed from a special Arachne installer in the program utilities section.
At its core, Arachne is a powerful graphical shell for DOS and has many additional modules and easily customizable interface. In short, despite the "death" of DOS, the Arachne program continues to improve!
Arachne's low system requirements are also pleasing: it requires an i386 processor, 4 MB of memory, a CGA/EGA/VGA/SVGA video system, and only 5 MB of disk space. In addition, for non-commercial use the program is distributed free of charge (freeware).
Thus, Arachne can be configured on a USB flash drive and get a mobile Internet connection that can be used directly from DOS. In addition, other Internet features such as IRC, ICQ, etc. are available from under the DOC.
Keyboard commands for controlling operations in DOS
A simple DOS IRC client is Trumpet (http://www.trumpet.com.au) - it is both a newsreader, an IRC client, and an independent dialer. There are also ICQ clients under DOS, and one of these programs is implemented by LADsoft as a special module for Arachne - Lsicq (http://members.tripod.com/~ladsoft/lsicq/), which allows you to work with the console chat room simultaneously with browsing the web. Of course, the browser windows and ICQ are called in turn, but in one program and with a simple switch between them.
It is not difficult to listen to any music under DOS - there are plenty of players for this operating system. And MPxPlay (http://www.geocities.com/mpxplay/) stands out among them - a unique player for almost any sound files, which continues to improve until now (the latest version is dated May 16 of this year). The player provides standard set functions, including mouse and keyboard control (as well as a joystick or a device connected to the serial port), playlists, and even has a built-in spectrum analyzer.
Of particular note is such an MPxPlay feature as connecting an LCD indicator to a parallel port, which allows you to work even without a video adapter and monitor. MPxPlay allows you to play MP3, MP2 (MPG), OGG, CDW, WAV, MPC and AC3 files. A bootable CD can act as a file medium, eliminating the need for a hard disk and reducing the size and power consumption of an MPxPlay-equipped device. In addition, the program takes up very little disk space and consumes negligible CPU time. The program supports long file names (LFN), performs sound correction and converts files to various formats. MpxPlay is also a CD grabber, which means it lets you rip tracks from audio CDs and save them in WAV format. IN new version support for playing MPEGPlus (MPC) files and improved support for the OGG format.
And what is absolutely surprising is full support for playing video discs under DOS (including watching DVD movies). In this area, the most popular player is Quick View Pro (www.multimediaware.com), which impresses with its system requirements and the number of supported graphics and multimedia formats and codecs. The program runs on a computer with an i386 processor, with any VGA-compatible video card (preferably VESA-compatible) and with DOS 3.0 or higher operating system. In this case, it is desirable to have a SoundBlaster-compatible sound card.
This program quite successfully spins full-screen movies in MPEG-4 format even on i486 processors, although, of course, it is better to use Pentium processors for watching movies, and on i486 you need to watch movies in black and white or in half resolution. In addition to movies, Quick View allows you to view almost all graphic formats and play music (including MP3).
You can learn how to properly configure this program depending on the configuration of your computer in a very detailed documentation, and there are much more launch keys than visual settings. In addition, the Quick View interface is very simple and straightforward.
Basic DOS Commands
This company also has an even simpler DOS MPEG and VideoCD player - MPEGone (http://www.multimediaware.com/mpeg/), which works without GUI, launching full-screen playback directly from the command line, and it occupies a little more than 100 KB on disk.
Hundreds of thousands of programs have been written under DOS, and enthusiasts still support them and develop new ones. So, on the website of the aforementioned Bobcat/Lynx developers (http://www.fdisk.com/doslynx/) there is a large archive of useful programs and utilities, which contains everything that can be useful for effective work on the Internet. A voluminous collection of USB drivers and various utilities is located on the website and http://nostalgy.org.ru/.
And if you want to play under the DOC, then an archive of old popular computer games is at your service.
MS-DOS(English) Microsoft Disk Operating System- disk operating system from Microsoft) - Microsoft's commercial operating system for IBM PC-compatible personal computers. MS-DOS is the most famous operating system from the DOS family, previously installed on most IBM PC-compatible computers. Over time, it was superseded by the Windows 9x family and Windows NT.
MS-DOS was created in 1981 and during its development eight major versions (1.0, 2.0, etc.) and two dozen intermediate ones (3.1, 3.2, etc.) were released, until in 2000 Microsoft stopped its development. It was the firm's key product, providing it with significant revenue and a marketing resource as Microsoft grew from a programming language developer to a major software company.
The last boxed version was 6.22, but MS-DOS continued to serve as the bootloader for Windows 95 (versions 7.0 and 7.1), Windows 98 (version 7.1), and Windows ME (version 8.0).
Until the mid-90s, one of the most common operating systems was Microsoft's MS DOS (Microsoft Disk Operating System).
In modern Windows operating systems, to work with DOS commands, the command line is used, which can be called: Start / run, enter cmd in the dialog box and click OK. Another way to call the command line is Start/Programs/Accessories/Command Prompt.
Composition of MS DOS
The MS DOS operating system includes the following main modules:
Basic input-output system (BIOS);
Boot Record block;
BIOS expansion module (IO.SIS);
Interrupt processing module (MS DOS.SYS);
Command processor (COMMAND.COM);
driver files, which, after being loaded into memory, ensure the operation of devices such as a mouse, CD-ROM, etc.
OS utilities that perform various service functions(formatting disks, etc.).
The base BIOS is hardware dependent and resides in the PC's ROM memory. This part of the operating system is built into the PC.
It implements the following main functions:
Automatic check hardware components when turning on the PC;
Calling the OS boot block (loading the operating system program into the memory occurs in two stages: first, the boot record block (Boot Record) is loaded and control is transferred to it, then other modules are transferred using this block).
The Boot Record is a very short program (about 512 bytes) located in the first sector of every DOS disk. Boot Record loads two more OS modules into memory ( system files io.sys, msdos.sys) that complete the DOS boot process.
The IO.SIS BIOS expansion module is a ROM add-on to the BIOS. It configures the OS for a specific PC configuration and allows you to connect new drivers to non-standard I / O devices.
Interrupt processing module MS DOS.SYS - implements services related to the maintenance of the file system and input-output operations.
Command processor COMMAND.COM - processes the commands that are entered by the user.
After turning on the power of a computer on which the MS DOS operating system is installed, the following processes automatically occur:
PC testing (BIOS performs a set of programs for initial testing of a computer);
Configuring MS DOS (OS configuration is performed by the commands recorded in the files config.sys and autoexec.bat.).
After loading the OS, the monitor screen displays an invitation to the user to enter commands, which consists of a disk name and symbols:
A:\> or C:\>.
This means that DOS is ready to receive commands.
The DOS prompt contains information about the current drive and the current directory. For example,
A:\> - drive A:, root directory:
c:\windows>- C: drive, \windows directory.
The disk that the PC is currently working with is called the current disk.
The system was created as a full-fledged alternative to the existing MS-DOS, which is distributed under a paid license. The development of the Free DOS project began back in 1994, but the system was released in stable version 1.0 only by 2006. The OS is free and can be run on almost any new and outdated hardware, as well as using emulators to run the necessary applications under DOS. The system code is open, which means that if desired, it can be modified by any developer for their own needs.
To date, the system in version 1.1 can be downloaded from the official website of the developers as a CD image for installation. The system is used by manufacturers of computers and laptops as free alternative MS-DOS and other products from Microsoft, which can significantly increase the cost of a particular device, which as a result may negatively affect hardware sales. Dell, HP and ASUS provide users with the opportunity to buy computers on FreeDOS.
OS running in file system FAT32. She supports the work of all basic operations over files that are available on other operating systems. Free DOS also supports opening archives (ZIP, 7-ZIP), editing text documents using additional programs, viewing HTML pages, working with mouse pointers that have a scroll wheel. Also a feature of Free DOS is a large number of programs ported from Linux. The system has its own browser, BitTorrent client, and even antivirus software.
Free DOS supports any modern computer, supporting the x86 architecture. In this case, the device must have at least 2 MB of RAM, and about 40 MB may be required to install the system. The system can be started not only after installation, but also through virtual machines(like VirtualBox) that can be installed on standard Windows, Linux or Mac. It is also possible to launch the system directly in a browser window using a Java emulator, which is available for download from the official website of the developer. To directly install Free DOS on your computer, just download latest version system and burn it to a blank CD media, then restart the computer and boot from the disc.
