Questions tagged [ms-dos]
MS-DOS, the Microsoft Disk Operating System, its OEM-branded versions, and x86 DOS clones in general.
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How can I play QBasic Nibbles on a modern machine?
MS-DOS versions 5 and 6 come bundled with the QBasic interpreter and a handful of example programs written in that BASIC dialect. One of the programs is Nibbles, a variant of the well-known Snake game....
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String manipulation in MS-DOS 6.22 batch files
So I've been struggling to find any information about batch files in MS-DOS through all the information about CMD, but basically I'm trying to create a folder like 'Month-year'. I've managed to create ...
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Is there any virtual hard disk driver over serial port?
NOTE: I'm not looking for a way to transfer files from Linux to DOS over Serial cable
Is there any MS-DOS driver to enable a new hard-disk drive (let's say D:), using a disk image on another computer ...
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Why did some old MS-DOS games lack the ability to exit them?
While playing around in DOSBox-X, I'm reminded of some DOS games which appear to entirely lack the ability to exit/quit/close them.
One prime example of that is "Paratrooper" from 1982. I've ...
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What is the best way to obtain old versions of MS-DOS and Windows?
I'm wondering what the best way obtain old versions of Windows would be, specifically:
DOS
Windows 95
Windows 98/SE
Windows 2000/ME
Windows XP Professional
Windows 7 Professional
Microsoft Office for ...
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How does the BIOS distinguish Interrupt(08h-12h) from INT instructions, vs. actual exceptions inside the CPU?
This is purely academic, out of date, out of curiosity. Let's go back to the 1990s, before Windows, when real-mode DOS programs were common.
The BIOS assigned INT 08H+ for their own interrupt handlers,...
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What tools were used in late MS-DOS era for reverse engineering and patching binary executables?
In the late MS-DOS era, what were the state of the art software tools for reverse engineering and patching binaries, i.e. .exe and .com files?
A simple list of the tools that were "state of the art", ...
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How can I have the user input a string and then do comparisons on it in a batch file in MS-DOS?
I asked this question on Stack Overflow, people said it'd more appropriate to ask it here.
I've got to create a batch file that will run with DosBox. The program should change the color of the text by ...
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Early implementations of the `system()` call in a consumer OS
Nowadays, it's easy to take for granted the system() call (as defined in POSIX), which allows a user program to easily execute a child process and wait for it to complete. Obviously, this is a trivial ...
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Novell and DOS instant messaging
Long ago, there was a TSR that would allow instant messages to be sent and received between DOS based computers using a Novell network. I think it was called Noteworks.
It had a little airplane that ...
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XMS function 0Ch "Lock Extended Memory Block"
I have a question about this function that has bugged me for years, so I decided to let this community a try :) So, this function supposedly locks a XMS extended memory block in place, and returns an ...
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Any tools (that actually work) for viewing PDF files in FreeDOS?
I recently installed FreeDOS on an old laptop and then transferred some dosbox based GOG games I own to the FreeDOS installation. The problem is the manuals for these games is in PDF format and I ...
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How to get sound working in pure DOS with a CMI8330 card?
I have a tower PC from the early 2000's. I got this system second-hand and as-is so I do not have any original driver resources. I have installed Windows 95 mainly to play old Windows and DOS games.
...
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Disassembling Windows IO.SYS
Under the question How did Windows ME "cripple" DOS?, Ross Ridge's answer showed a section of his disassembly.
I would like to know, a) what disassembler was used and b) what adjustment or ...
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Did early versions of DR-DOS preserve more registers than MS-DOS?
The early Amstrad IBM compatible PC the PC1512 initially included DR-DOS, according to its page at Old-Computers.com:
It was sold with MS-DOS 3.2, DR-DOS plus 1.2 (an operating system from Digital ...
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Identify this spaceship fruit collection game starring a levitating fish
Okay this might be a long shot, but I've been looking for this game for over 7 years now and I'm starting to question my sanity. I played this game somewhere between 1998-2003 but it might be a tad ...
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Fooling a DOS in game timer
I'm curious if it is possible to fool an in game timers in an old DOS game. Specifically, King's Quest 3 makes you wait 15 minutes at one point. I don't know how that timing system works or how time ...
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Can DOS 6.22 recognize more than 504MB when the BIOS only supports CHS?
My CMOS setup correctly recognizes the geometry of the drive, (but does not support LBA). And FDISK in DOS 6.22 only recognizes 504MB. FDISK even shows the size of the primary partition as roughly ...
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How was the CLOCK$ device used in MS-DOS?
Related to another question about CLOCK$ device name, I began to wonder if and how this device was actually used in MS-DOS. I have seen some references how to specify a clock driver when creating a ...
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Why was the DOS clock device renamed from CLOCK into CLOCK$?
From the Wikipedia article on reserved device names
... and the CLOCK$ (still named CLOCK in some issues of MS-DOS 2.11) clock device were introduced with DOS 2.0, ...
Why was is necessary to add a $...
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Why did CP/M and MS-DOS use the BIOS instead of their own drivers to access hardware?
Modern versions of Windows (and other modern operating systems I suppose) have their own drivers to access hardware.
But as I have read, in the old days, if CP/M or MS-DOS wanted to access hardware, ...
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How were sprites in DOS games programmed?
I would like to know how sprites in DOS games for vintage video cards like Hercules, CGA, EGA and VGA were programmed.
I mean how was the duration of each sprite timed and how they were blitted on ...
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Why are the out-of-bounds areas of Doom distorted on MS-DOS?
Why do the OOB (out-of-bounds) areas of Doom look so unusual?
As seen in the image above, the Doom engine not only incorrectly renders the scene, but also renders slices of other scenes that aren't ...
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Assembler where output file was executable WHILE including the source code
I seem to remember using an assembler with the following interesting workflow: You'd write an assembly language file and assemble it. The output overwrote your source code by placing the executable ...
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What was the first two-panel file manager for DOS?
I'm trying to settle a debate between me and some colleagues about two-panel file managers in MS-DOS/PC DOS.
According to my own recollection the first was DV.EXE (see EDIT below), but some of my ...
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Installing MS-DOS 6.22 on a 386-class laptop with an SD/IDE adapter fails at 99%. How do I fix this?
I'm using an AST Premium Exec 386SX/20 laptop. I have installed a new BIOS battery and it does retain settings when the machine is power-cycled.
I'm attempting to install MS-DOS 6.22 from a set of 3 ...
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What is the memory layout in MS-DOS
I know that when an .COM file is loaded, DOS loads its contents into memory, sets the segment registers (CS, DS and SS) to point to the 64KB segment and then performs a jmp to the starting address. ...
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Are .COM executable binaries real mode or protected mode?
Windows and DOS binary executable files with the .EXE extension have an MZ header in them and nowadays also a PE header.
But before these there used to also be .COM binary executable files and they ...
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Is there any public documentation of the LapLink protocol?
Is the protocol used by the DOS Laplink software publicly documented?
I seem to remember there were Linux tools that could use it.
I cannot find anything useful on their website.
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Commodore Mouse not recognized by a Commodore PC30-III 286 machine
I have Commodore PC 30-III 286 machine with a serial port at the back labelled "mouse". If I plug my Commodore mouse 1900 serial mouse then execute mouse.com at the DOS prompt then I get the ...
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Hardware for higher resolution VESA modes
What computer hardware was needed to run something like Duke Nukem 3D smoothly at the 640x480 or 800x600 VESA modes at the time (1996-1997)?
I was wondering if this was possible with contemporary ...
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Which MS-DOS program implemented the "Methinks it is like a weasel" evolutionary algorithm?
In the late 1980s I had a set of 3.5″ floppy disks which contained some games like Sleuth, Centipede, Space War, and Sopwith. Also present was a program that I think was called "weasel", ...
CommunityBot
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How do I connect a command prompt to a serial line in MS-DOS 6.22?
I am currently experimenting with DOS and am trying to run the command prompt on the serial terminal through QEMU. This is the command I have been using.
command >COM1 2>COM1 <COM1
This ...
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How do you start a minimized MS-DOS session on Windows 98 SE?
How do you start a minimized MS-DOS session (i.e., launch a Command Prompt window that is in the minimized state) for Windows 98 [version 4.10.2222]?
I thought the solution would be:
start /min
But ...
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What is 'Adaptive Tile Refresh' in the context of Commander Keen?
The question Did John Carmack really invent "Adaptive Tile Refresh"? asks about the origins of the scrolling and drawing techniques used to allow an MS-DOS PC to provide a NES console-like ...
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Why did the MS-DOS API choose software interrupts for its interface?
Access to the DOS API was done through the INT 21h x86 instruction. This was always counter-intuitive to me, coming from 8-bit systems that accessed system services by calling subroutines through a ...
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"GAZE" GUI Organizer program?
In the early-to-mid '90s there was a GUI-based DOS organizer-like program, called GAZE, from which you could launch software and games which had an eyeball in the corner that followed the cursor as ...
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Are there any other historical traces of the earlier versions of the Alternate Multiplex Interrupt Specification by Ralf Brown?
I'm a fervent user of the Alternate Multiplex Interrupt Specification for 86-DOS systems, a method using a common set of multiplexer interfaces over interrupt 2Dh. It was originally developed in the ...
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How did large .COM files work?
An MS-DOS .com file is just raw code/data without header, thus no linking information, and was limited to be loaded into just one segment (64kB). That's the reason corrupted binaries would print "...
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How did DOS games manage to have multiple background layers?
Seems like VGA only has one background layer, it appears to be a typical bitmap screen like most home computers of the 80s (Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64 etc.) where each pixel's color is stored in a ...
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Spin HDD up/down in DOS App?
Is there a register I can write to using a DOS based C app to spin the IDE HDD down after the app boots then back up upon the app close? Specifically I want to just put spin down/up commands in the C ...
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Identify QuickBASIC Game involving launch, navigation, and landing of rocket on the moon
I recall playing a game that I had from source in QuickBASIC (probably 4.5, but maybe it was earlier QBASIC) during the mid-to-late 90s that I keep wanting to revisit. Unfortunately, due to the ...
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Why did the monsters have "infinite invisible pillars" of hitboxes vertically in all versions of the DOOM engine?
Even in the last version of the DOOM engine, v1.9, used for Final DOOM, there is this strange limitation in which all the monsters have an invisible, infinitely tall "pillar" above and ...
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Name of MS-DOS program that shows realtime update of light/dark map of whole planet
Years ago (circa 1996-1997 maybe?) I ran a MS-DOS program that showed a map of the whole earth, updated once a minute with the time, timezones, and light/dark areas of the planet, taking up the whole ...
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How to use "AND," "OR," and "XOR" modes for VGA Drawing
I've been trying to implement a blitter in MS-DOS, but before I do that I wanted to test the various graphics modes of the VGA graphics card. (I'm emulating using DOSBox.) According to this paper on ...
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Looking for MS-DOS clip art (possibly Lotus 123?) [closed]
As a kid, I was given a 286 with 640k of RAM and a 20MB HDD, that had Lotus 123 and WordPerfect (v5?) installed. MS-DOS (v3 or v5) only - No Windows. As the machine was very limited, I tinkered and ...
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Did IBM encourage Bill Gates to retain the rights over PC-DOS?
As is well-known, Microsoft's negotiations with IBM to deliver PC-DOS 1.0 with the original IBM PC resulted in:
IBM licensing the OS from Microsoft, as opposed to purchasing it outright.
Microsoft ...
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What are the differences between MS-DOS and DR DOS FASTOPEN?
OS/2 Museum's history of DOS mentions the FASTOPEN.EXE TSR was introduced in DOS 3.3. Its entry on DOS 4.0 adds some implementation details.
It reminded me of the DR DOS FASTOPEN=nnnnn directive in ...
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Monitor can't display boot/DOS video mode making dual boot impossible
I have an HP ZR24w monitor connected via HDMI input to a newer custom machine running Win7, and via VGA input to an older Micron machine running Win98SE. I use the monitor's "source" setting ...
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Why the DOS extender and DPMI were unavailable to DOS programs on 286 standard mode of Windows 3.0
An old article on Windows 3.0 from PC Magazine (June 11, 1991, page 348) said that:
Using standard mode, the Windows DOS extender and DOS Protected Mode Interface (DPMI) are available to Windows ...
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