Subj : Re: Copy to file or directory? Help? Calling MS-Dos? To : R.A.G. Seely From : meirman Date : Thu Feb 07 2002 09:26 pm From: meirman@f3.n342.z1.cereal.mv.com (meirman) Subject: Re: Copy to file or directory? Help? Calling MS-Dos? From: meirman@invalid.com In comp.os.msdos.4dos on Fri, 08 Feb 2002 06:14:55 GMT "R.A.G. Seely" posted: >Jasen.Betts@xspamp42.f531.n640.z3.fidonet.org wrote in >news:f0a4c6.4735fc@mach2.ab.ca: > >> Hi R.A.G.. >> >> 05-Feb-02 15:25:50, R.A.G. Seely wrote to Rolf Jentsch >> >> RS> My first post in this debate explicitly mentioned "cassette >> RS> basic", which was the CLI one got with the original "MS-DOS" (then >> RS> PC-DOS) unless one hooked up an external floppy drive to one's PC >> >> How could one load ms-dos without a floppy drive? >> it was a user interface, but not to ms-dos. > >Well - this was indeed before my days but my collegue told me that those >first PCs came with a cassette drive installed, and you could indeed boot Yes, a friend of mine had one of those. I visited him at Cambridge Mass and I think he was a grad student at the time, the first half of 1971. Rather than get the very expensive casette recorder that was made for the computer, he bought a standard casette recorder. I think used they were about 10 dollars then. And through the plastic lid to the space the tape went, he had hooked up a foot meter that he took out of some other tape device. I think he said the foot measurements weren't exactly right but he could still find the place he needed to be. I guess most of time that was the start of the tape. And he may have been using a tv for a monitor. That probably was so common it wasn't worthy of comment. It would have been one with vacuum tubes. >up dos from that and not from an external floppy drive (of course there was >no hard drive). If you did so, you got a user interface to cassette basic >- and that was as much an interface to dos as command.com was (of course my >point is that neither is really - each is an interface to a set of commands >appropriate to the task at hand). And as has been pointed out, the >accompanying documentation went on at considerable length describing how >other command interfaces could be programmed by the user to replace >command.com, other interfaces that is to dos. Which makes it pretty clear >that originally at least, command.com wasn't viewed as an integral part of >dos, but rather as one of many possible interfaces to it. I guess we agree >about that at least. > >Disclaimer: this is second hand (I had no PC of my own then), and I may >have misunderstood some of what my collegue told me. I think the essence >is correct, however ... Well I suppose I could call my friend it is really important. It's been about 10 years. >-= rags =- meirman@QQQerols.com If you email me, please let me know whether remove the QQQ or not you are posting the same letter. -- |Fidonet: meirman 1:342/3 | | Origin: The Cereal Port BBS (603)899-3335 199.125.78.133 (1:132/152) --- # Origin: (1:132/152.4) * Origin: Baddog BBS (1:218/903) .