I was wondering, what do people still use DOS for? I've heard that people really like using DOS, but what I'm wondering is, what do they use it FOR? And, where can I learn a lot about using DOS -- all the commands, what I can do with it, what I can do IN it, etc?

[brendandonhu]

DOS is ridiculously reliable, and is part of windows so if Windows breaks or crashes you can troubleshoot through DOS. On the forums people quite often have to boot into dos and run programs such as scandisk and hard drive checkers. Search for "DOS Commands" and youre sure to find a guide that show the common commands and syntax.

yes, but i also wanted to know, what can I do in DOS? besides troubleshooting, I mean. What can I do in DOS that's interesting and fun?

[brendandonhu]

Well you can do some windows mods/tweaks in DOS. There are also DOS based games but they arent being made anymore as you cant use your mouse in them or have good graphics.

ok, but can you tell me specifically what I can do, can you recommend anything? thank you.

[brushmaster1]

Keep your eye open at yard sales, thrift stores, etc. for used floppies. There are lots of old DOS games and programs available that way, and some of them are still quite fun and/or useful...

yes, but I meant that -- do you use any dos programs, do you do anything in DOS that you can recommend?

[MacFromOK]

Originally posted by brendandonhu:
Well you can do some windows mods/tweaks in DOS. There are also DOS based games but they arent being made anymore as you cant use your mouse in them or have good graphics.

Not entirely accurate Brendan...

You can use the mouse in some DOS games
(Warcraft for example...), but for the most
part DOS games were keyboard controlled
only.

Also, DOS programming can do anything with
graphics that a Windows program can, it's just
that computer speed was much slower before
Windows 9x, and Windows 3x added way too
much overhead. Quake 1 (the first fully 3D
rendered game I'm aware of) was a DOS
program (a Windows 9x Open GL version was
written later).

Windows 9x finally allowed the programmer to
have much more direct hardware access than
Windows 3x, so DOS was abandoned as the
main game platform. Most users prefer GUIs,
and consumer preference rules...

Cheers, Mac

[brendandonhu]

Yeah thats what I meant to say.

[Lurker1]

Yes DOS is useful.
You usually need DOS to FORMAT and FDISK your hard drive (Those are dos commands) and its much better for making multiple floppy disk copies as you don't need to insert the first disk to be copied each time. Its good for deleting files that windows won't let you delete. (be sure to delete the right files or else.)

thanks lurker, for the suggestions. any others?

[MsPCGenius]

I still rely on DOS for the DIR and NDIR (directory) commands when I want to find specific files to do DEL (delete) operations on more than one file - I usually use it with wildcards. Works better for me than Explorer or Find for this usage....

But then, I learned DOS before Windows

[anglin_fool]

While you are surfin the net, you can test your connections with a tracert command:

C:\WINDOWS>tracert www.helponthe.net

Tracing route to www.helponthe.net [24.137.3.11]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 124 ms 137 ms 110 ms nas1.ijamsville1.md.us.da.qwest.net [63.152.0.24
2]
2 123 ms 110 ms 138 ms 65.134.103.190
3 137 ms 123 ms 110 ms wdc-edge-06.inet.qwest.net [63.147.15.85]
4 123 ms 137 ms 138 ms wdc-core-01.inet.qwest.net [205.171.24.117]
5 151 ms 137 ms 124 ms dca-core-02.inet.qwest.net [205.171.8.209]
6 124 ms 151 ms 124 ms dca-edge-06.inet.qwest.net [205.171.9.30]
7 151 ms 164 ms 124 ms 208.46.127.106
8 261 ms 247 ms 193 ms ns1.cermak.com [24.137.3.117]

Trace complete.

C:\WINDOWS>

<hr>

You can see what your IP address is if that tickles your fancy too:

C:\WINDOWS>ipconfig

Windows IP Configuration

0 Ethernet adapter :

Media Status. . . . . . . . : Disconnected
IP Address. . . . . . . . . : 0.0.0.0
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . : 0.0.0.0
Default Gateway . . . . . :

1 Ethernet adapter :

IP Address. . . . . . . . . . : 65.130.105.131
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . : 255.0.0.0
Default Gateway . . . . . : 65.130.105.131

C:\WINDOWS>

You can do a whole lot of other stuff with DOS

ok, thanks

[Fyzbo]

May favorite thing to do in DOS is to play a game called JumpBump. It's great!