Subj : Re: Copy to file or directory? Help? Calling MS-Dos? To : Jasen.Betts@xspamp42.f531.n640.z3.f From : R.A.G. Seely Date : Fri Feb 08 2002 06:14 am From: R.A.G..Seely@f3.n342.z1.cereal.mv.com (R.A.G. Seely) Subject: Re: Copy to file or directory? Help? Calling MS-Dos? From: "R.A.G. Seely" 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 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 ... -= rags =- -- To reply by email, use "@" not "__A@T__" Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem. -- |Fidonet: R.A.G. Seely 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) .