MS DOS: A Eulogy

roadhog95 writes: "Love it or hate it, I'm sure everyone's got a love story or traumatic memory of the infamous MS-DOS. Byte magazine reports on the passing away of DOS in light of the recent Windows XP launch. Even Regis Philben stopped by to pay tribute: 'Bill... Is that your final command prompt?'"

Comments

Quick and Dirty Interrupt Handler

[klmth]

Calling MS-DOS an operating system is stretching the concept quite a bit.
DOS was nothing but a glorified interrupt handler. It wasn't unstable, since there was practically nothing to be unstable with.

It didn't protect itself from userland programs, which is generally considered a bad thing. Granted, this gave the programmer freedom to completely work around the operating system, but at the same time allowed said programs to royally mess things up.

From a single-task, single-user system, it was quite good, provided the programs behaved nicely. DOS Extensions even provided it with protected memory, making life a bit easier.
New command interpreters, like 4DOS, injected new life into the system.
If you accepted it as a single-user, single-task enviroment, it was adequate.

I find the decision to remove any and all CLI from Windows a bit odd, considering that Apple went the opposite direction with Mac OS X.

DOS was good

[ankit]

People keep complaining about DOS all the time... about autoexec.bat, config.sys, and what not. IMHO, DOS was and _is_ one of the best and cleanest operating systems to learn about the intel architecture. Where else can you issue BIOS interrupts, and play around with system memory? Linux doesnt let me do that unless I compile a kernel module, and what not.
Trey, DOS wasnt the best desktop/server/handheld Operating System, but it surely was a great learning experience for all who used and programmed for it.

I still use TurboC on DOS when I need to try out some small program, and dont want to wait for linux to load.

Another point, I dont think you can ever have a successful operating system without any command prompt. Copying and moving files can never be as easy using a dumb GUI file manager.

Re:16-bit, 32-bit, 64-bit...

[micromoog]

Oh wait, it's better to have /bin for programs, and /usr/bin for programs, and /sbin for, uh, programs . . . some of which depend on files in various subfolders of /lib (or was it /usr/lib?) . . . much cleaner.

Remembering DOS

[Delph]

Even through I now solely use Linux I will miss DOS. It was my first operating system and my lifeline whenever the users on the network screwed up with their Window$ boxes.

With DOS and Doom I learned syntaxsis, options and commands. It gave me the challenge and the boost necessary for me to head towards an IT career.

So long DOS, you were Window$ last hope!

Re:Remembering DOS

[stevey]

Even through I now solely use Linux I will miss DOS. It was my first operating system and my lifeline whenever the users on the network screwed up with their Window$ boxes.

I often think its funny how a lot of people cite the use of the command line as being a factor in slowing its spread.

Back in the "old days" everybody use DOS, and the command line ruled.

Maybe my friends weren't typical - but I remember in Windows 3.1 days many of them would say "Oh, that'd be easier in DOS".

Now with the GUI spread of Windows people are being taught to think of command line utilities as old fashioned - and less powerfull, which is clearly a mistake.

Re:Remembering DOS

[Rackemup]

Far easier to make a meanigful mis-click/drag/drop than it is to make a meanigful typo, and often easier to correct

You think so? I find it much easier to use a gui than a command line when moving/copying/deleting files. That right-click menu comes in handy, I can move entire directories across multiple networked drives in seconds with 3 clicks, while in DOS it would be much more convoluted, and you wouldnt have a recycle bin to hold those "mistakenly deleted" files...

I can't count the number of times I've tried doing some file management in DOS (usually while Windows was crapped out) and thought "man this would be so much easier in Windows".

Oh and let's not forget Scandisk... that oh-so-helpful windows tool to keep your drive in top-condition. The other day windows stopped working because of a faulty long-filename. I ran scandisk from the DOS prompt (because Windows would NOT load) and it told me "we found errors but couldnt fix them, run scandisk for windows". Gee thanks...

Now that I think back... weren't Win95/98/ME/2K all supposed to be "the death of DOS"... but years later and it's still around.

All the best games use DOS

[OmegaDan]

Im serious :) who is making games with *great storytelling* like the old dos games?

Dos games were great because the graphics SUCKED so you *HAD* to tell a good story to keep anyone interested ...

IMHO, 3d was the worst thing to happen to games. Kids buy games for "Awesome graphics" (tell me what that means someone)... because people are too stupid anymore to tell presentation from content! If you wrap a pile of shit in pretty box they'll pay for it ...

(end rant)