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DOS 5 Upgrade Video

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the god-i-love-this dept.

Every now and then I stumble on something so ridiculous that I have to share it. This is a promotion video to upgrade to DOS 5 obviously made in a different era. Promoting features like mouse support, a graphical shell, and freeing up at LEAST 45k of memory, well, Gimme 5! Did I mention that it's all set to a hip beat? You'll love it. And by "Love" I mean "Stick forks in your eyes".

11 of 373 comments (clear)

  1. Re:News? by Aladrin · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Because CmdrTaco posted it and IT'S HIS SITE. Go make your own site so people can complain about what you post on it.

    --
    "If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
  2. Re:News? by Xiaran · · Score: 5, Funny

    I *will* make my own site. With Blackjack! And Hookers! In fact. Forget the site.

  3. Hey, DOS 5 was cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Much better than 4. And the memory management did help. I remember with the help of QEMM I was able to get something like 633K free, which was incredible.

  4. Forget Vista! by Billosaur · · Score: 5, Funny

    Can I downgrade to DOS 5 instead? Why, the productivity gains alone would be worth it! And I suspect it's not nearly as bloated as Vista.

    --
    GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
    1. Re:Forget Vista! by King_TJ · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It was just last year, I did an on-site service call for a small business owner. He said his printer quit working and he wanted it repaired. It turned out, he had an old Epson dot-matrix printer, and the reason he wanted it repaired, rather than just replaced, was because it was paired up with a 386 class desktop PC running MS-DOS. (I think he was actually "current" with version 6.22 though, not 5. Heh.)

      The only thing he did with this PC, since it was new, was business-related work, including Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheets and printing address labels from some address label software. (MyMailList Pro I believe)

      It was amazing how functional and productive this arrangement really was for him. As he pointed out, the old dot-matrix printer ribbons were FAR cheaper than inkjet cartridges, and he didn't need better print quality for address labels or for reports generated from spreadsheets.

      He could pull up his software and start working in less time than it takes Windows to boot, even on a really fast, modern PC. With no Internet connectivity, he had almost zero worry about a virus or spyware messing things up -- and running DOS, he didn't even have to mess with regular software updates, requiring reboots and all.

      (We actually did managed to fix his printer, by buying another broken one off eBay that had a different issue. His just had a dead power supply board in it.)

  5. Back when people could actually code.. by onion2k · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Coders today are right lazy bastards. 45kb was a lot. You had to think about organising things properly. Today I write code in languages (PHP mostly, some Perl) that hide all manner of management away from you. I'm certain that someone of my Dad's generation who wrote software in the olden days (1960s/70s/80s) would have a fit at some of the stuff I get away with.

    We shouldn't laugh at the idea of freeing up 45k, we should thank our lucky stars it's no longer something we have to care about. We have it easy.

    --
    http://twitter.com/onion2k
    1. Re:Back when people could actually code.. by lucifig · · Score: 5, Funny

      I know it, back in my day we coded by punching holes in little cards! In the snow! And we loved it!

    2. Re:Back when people could actually code.. by Opportunist · · Score: 5, Funny

      And uphills! Both ways, to and from work, too! And we didn't have those fancy things called shoes, today you wouldn't go into a server room without your boots, we went in there barefooted. And did it harm us? When we wanted to know if a computer is on, we had to touch its wire, no fancy flashing lights and all the other goodies you have today! When the modem died, I had to sit there for hours and whistle in 300 baud what was on the screen! Yes, 300 baud, and we were GLAD we had that kinda speed! And no fancy debuggers either, we just watched the code fly by and we knew EXACTLY what it did. Wasn't that hard when your whole code has to fit into less than what you got as cache on your CPU today. Oh, and there was only ONE program running at a time, and you had to wait for yours to run. What do you mean "on my machine"? You didn't have one, there was ONE machine for the company, and it was in the basement. Rather, it WAS the basement! When it was cold, and it was often cold because we couldn't afford heating EITHER, that was just after the war, remember, we had NOTHING (ok, except kickass expensive computers)... where was I? Right, when it was cold, we'd huddle together between the tubes (no, Timmy, not the Tubes of the Senator, that Senator didn't exist... ok, he did, but at least he kept his yap shut back then) to stay warm.

      Hey. HEY! Where d'ya think you're going? (muttermutter) Spoiled brat...

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  6. Still going strong... by Retron · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Scary stuff: 17 years later, if you're running Vista 32-bit, pop open a command window and type:

    command /c ver

    I bet MS didn't plan on it sticking around quite as long as that when they made that video!
  7. Re:News? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Do you always take your dick off before you offer a rebuttal?

  8. Brown is the kiss of DEATH by Dr_Barnowl · · Score: 5, Funny
    My wife's laptop drive died recently.

    After replacing it, I couldn't find her XP disk, so I just installed Ubuntu on it.

    Her first response on logging in?

    "This is crap, it's brown."