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Author Topic: MS-DOS turns 30  (Read 6392 times)

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BC_Programmer

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MS-DOS turns 30
« on: July 28, 2011, 03:52:32 AM »
http://www.reghardware.com/2011/07/27/ms_dos_turns_30/

Let us all remember the good times- and the bad times. Mostly the latter, I presume.
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Transfusion



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Re: MS-DOS turns 30
« Reply #1 on: July 28, 2011, 04:36:56 AM »
Sadly, I have never experienced the advent of DOS and 16-bit machines in my life. :'( :-\ :)
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Geek-9pm


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Re: MS-DOS turns 30
« Reply #2 on: July 28, 2011, 01:18:32 PM »
Quote from: Transfusion on July 28, 2011, 04:36:56 AM
Sadly, I have never experienced the advent of DOS and 16-bit machines in my life. :'( :-\ :)
You missed nothing.
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Computer Hope Admin

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Re: MS-DOS turns 30
« Reply #3 on: July 29, 2011, 03:06:26 AM »
Quote from: Geek-9pm on July 28, 2011, 01:18:32 PM
You missed nothing.

I disagree, I think that growing up on a command line helped me a lot over the years. I still always recommend those really interested in computers at least learn the basics of navigating and operating a command line interface.

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Computer_Commando



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Re: MS-DOS turns 30
« Reply #4 on: July 29, 2011, 12:36:23 PM »
Yes, command line helped me too, and still does.
I still remember many of the DOS commands and many still work today.
Learning to touch-type was and is still ia an asset.
It sure beat typing on an electric typewriter & using correction fluid.  A manual typewriter was worse.  Wordstar & Lotus 123 changed everything.
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truenorth



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    Re: MS-DOS turns 30
    « Reply #5 on: July 29, 2011, 07:43:59 PM »
    I know it is NOT an O/S but you have not experienced the high of sheer ecstasy unless you input data to a computer in Fortran on teletype punch tape. truenorth
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    Geek-9pm


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    Re: MS-DOS turns 30
    « Reply #6 on: July 29, 2011, 07:59:13 PM »
    Quote from: truenorth on July 29, 2011, 07:43:59 PM
    I know it is NOT an O/S but you have not experienced the high of sheer ecstasy unless you input data to a computer in Fortran on teletype punch tape. truenorth
    After buying the computer kit and the Teletype, I could not afford a paper punch and reader.
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    BC_Programmer

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    Re: MS-DOS turns 30
    « Reply #7 on: July 29, 2011, 09:09:12 PM »
    The real user interface was toggling the set of switches on the front of the Altair 8800 to fill up it's whopping 256 bytes of RAM, every single time you turned it on. And if you wanted to get fancy you might even buy a $264 kit to add a whopping 1K of memory to the machine.
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    immental1200

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    Re: MS-DOS turns 30
    « Reply #8 on: July 30, 2011, 08:25:58 AM »
    Transfusion - As you have missed this just get yourself the Instruction Manual...

    http://uk.ebid.net/for-sale/user-guide-to-windows-msdos-6-manual-9069879.htm?from=googlebase
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    BC_Programmer

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    Re: MS-DOS turns 30
    « Reply #9 on: July 30, 2011, 08:51:38 AM »
    Quote from: immental1200 on July 30, 2011, 08:25:58 AM
    Transfusion - As you have missed this just get yourself the Instruction Manual...

    http://uk.ebid.net/for-sale/user-guide-to-windows-msdos-6-manual-9069879.htm?from=googlebase

    I still have my DOS 6 manual, myself.
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    patio

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    Re: MS-DOS turns 30
    « Reply #10 on: July 30, 2011, 09:07:49 AM »
    Ditto...
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    Geek-9pm


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    Re: MS-DOS turns 30
    « Reply #11 on: July 30, 2011, 02:00:28 PM »
    Mine is the DOS 5 Manual. Never know when I might need it.  ::)
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    soybean



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    Re: MS-DOS turns 30
    « Reply #12 on: July 30, 2011, 02:27:10 PM »
    I have DOS 6.22, the last retail version, on 3.5 inch diskettes and a DOS 6 "manual" that came with a Packard Bell computer.  Knowing some DOS commands was helpful when I was working at a Defense agency where I had some access to a UNIX system which involved working from a command prompt, or whatever it was called in UNIX.  For example, the ls command in UNIX listed the files in a directory like the dir command in DOS. 
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    rthompson80819



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    Re: MS-DOS turns 30
    « Reply #13 on: August 01, 2011, 10:35:15 AM »
    I too knew DOS fairly well and when my job required me to work on some UNIX machines knowing DOS made the transition to UNIX very easy.  And when I took FORTRAN I used punch cards rather than paper tape.  I'm glad we don't have to do that anymore.
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