I have never seen so much code duplication in my life! Making interactive batch programs is like performing heart surgery while wearing oven mitts. But I suppose you have to start somewhere. Here's my timeline that I followed to learn programming:
Batch on DOS 3.21->QBasic->QuickBasic->Visual Basic 2.0->Visual Basic 6.0->Visual C++ 6.0->Visual Studio 2005
I don't really like .NET, but It seems to be the "thing" just like java was a few years back.
Oh yeah! I forgot- I also messed around with the Duke Nukem 3d CON files to do wacky stuff like make enemies appear whenever another type of enemy died, there was an explosion etc.
Also call me a nitpicker if you want but the windows XP command interpreter is not DOS. I can see the term DOS being used as a shorter form, but Console would be a better term here. DOS is an Operating System unto itself. Why, my 12 year old laptop hasn't been formatted since it was originally purchased!
"volume created 03-04-1996"
Now how is that for reliability! Still runs great!
. All you young whippersnappers today with your Rock & Roll and your Eight track tapes...
Well- nobody ever drove me to school when it was 90 degrees below
had to walk but naked, through 40 miles of snow
worked in the coal mine 22 hours a day for just half a cent
had to sell my internal organs just to pay the rent
hee hee.
If your starting with batch programs though it is an awesome beginning, since you really don't have to buy anything to make them or run them.
Would anybody be interesting in a program called BAT2EXE that converts a batch file to an executable? I'd be willing to send it to anybody that wants it. Keep in mind that it only supports older DOS syntax, so don't be surprised if it chokes on new parameters and stuff.
Also, out of curiosity, how is the command processor different on Vista as opposed to XP? You can resize the command processor in XP as well...