Smarter Dos.

Cmaza · Post by **Cmaza** » Tue Mar 16, 2004 9:14 am

I had this idea a while back about making an advanced DOS shell for gaming and such.

Though, where I'm stuck is, what the hell would I put in it?

What would you like to see in an advanced DOS shell?

Thanks.

*Download link modified. Read on.

Interon · Post by **Interon** » Tue Mar 16, 2004 4:29 pm

Scanned with F-Prot Antivirus 3.14d, March 16 2004 sigs, no viruses!

OK Job so far, Cmaza. If you programmed that in QuickBasic I may be able to help you.

Some suggestions:

AutoPath: When you type a command in AutoPath mode, it looks all over the hard drive for executables that match the name of your command.

Example: Type CHESS and press Enter

1. CHESS.BAT found in C:\GAMES\CHESS
2. CHESS.COM found in D:\CM4000
3. CHESS.EXE found in C:\GAMES\CHESS
4. CHESS.EXE found in C:\BACKUP\GAMES\CHESS
5. CHESS.COM found in A:\

Type 3 and press Enter, It automatically changes dir to C:\GAMES\CHESS and runs CHESS.EXE.

AutoComplete: If you type J and press enter, and there is only one executable file in the current dir that starts with J, run that executable.

If there are JOHN.EXE and JIM.EXE, typing JI and pressing Enter will run JIM.EXE.

If there are JIMMY.EXE and JINGLE.BAT, JIM will get you JIMMY.EXE and JIN will get you JINGLE.BAT. If you only type JI, give "Ambiguous command" error message.

Delete All Except: DAE FRED.TXT will delete all files in current dir except FRED.TXT

PC Speaker Silencer: QUIET command to prevent PC Speaker from making noise.

Advanced Power Management: Activate APM functions with something like

APM /STANDBY, go into Standby
APM /SUSPEND, go into Suspend
APM /HDOFF, turn off Hard drive
...and maybe more than that.

Color Changer: COLOR /BLUE makes the text turn blue. Do same for other colors.

Screen Adjustments: LINES 50 makes the screen 50 lines tall. COLUMNS 40 makes the screen 40 chars wide.

CPU Identification: Type CPU, and it will tell you what CPU you have

ATX Soft-Off: For ATX power supplies, have a command that automatically turns off the computer.

CMOS Killer: Command that clears the contents of CMOS RAM (to get rid of forgotten passwords and the like)

CD Player: Command PLAYCD to play music CDs

Display Reset: When you quit some DOS games, they mess up the screen. A command to reset screen settings to normal defaults.

Cold Reboot: Sometimes, CTRL-ALT-DEL is not good enough. Also, CAD is not runnable from a batch file. Have a command that reboots (cold or warm).

File Encryption: Encrypt text files with a password to decrypt them.

TSR Remover: Remove TSRs from memory (many TSRs don't offer a way to remove them without rebooting.)

Floppy Disk High Format: Integrate ability to fit more than 1.44 MB on a floppy disk.

ZIP File Directories: Allow ZIP files to be treated as directories

CD Burning: Allow the COPY command to burn CDs. Allow the DEL command to delete files from CD-RWs.

RAM Eater: A program that consumes some RAM to test a program's ability to run with less RAM.

RAM Tester: Tests RAM like Scandisk tests hard drives

Devices: Load SYS files from command prompt (something you can generally only do in CONFIG.SYS).

Partition Resizer: Make partitions smaller/bigger. Merge partitions.

Hard Drive Marriage: Make 2 hard drives like 1 big hard drive with 1 big partition.

Drive Overlay: Allow 486s and earlier to use all space on big hard drives. Allow Pentium 1's to use drives bigger than 8.4 GB.

Resolution: Allow DOS to use 800x600, 1024x768, etc.

Refresh Rate: Allow DOS to use refresh rates higher than 60 Hz on monitor.

Benchmark: Various tests to see how fast a computer is compared to other computers

Simple Network: Allow 2 computers to exchange files

Simple Virus Protection: Save a copy of the boot sector, and compare the current boot sector with the backup copy on every boot-up. If there is a difference, issue a warning.

Beep: Command to make the PC Speaker beep

That's all I can think of right now.

Cmaza · Post by **Cmaza** » Tue Mar 16, 2004 10:50 pm

I like.

Thanks for the ideas. I'll start working on it this afternoon.

Post by **Dogbreath** » Sat Mar 20, 2004 9:56 pm

Here are a few ideas for your DOS front-end:

1. Primitive graphical interface. Nothing special, just a clickable navigation so you can see all the files in your computer nicely listed, like in the original DOSshell.

2. A scroll down window with various commands in DOS-which should help people who are new to DOS. Included of course a help file and maybe commands which are easier to remember than the current ones. This would help ease the learning curve for newbies.

3. A separate window for writing batch files with all the operators and commands listed beside and a help for each one. Many people don't know how to make batch files, and a FRED 2 SEXP interface style for making them would really increase the usability of simple batches for everyday convenience.

4. A window that lists all your system stats (free memory of each type, etc) so you don't have to check it every time you want to play.

5. I know making a front end inside of a front end is stretching it, but maybe another option to change your system files and all the important memory ones simply by a graphical menu rather than hunting through notepad for half an hour and hoping that you don't screw your computer over. This would make it useful beyond belief.

Overall, this project has incredible potential and may totally transform the currently difficult to use DOS interface already. While most of this has already been done with windows, those games which can't be reliably played in windows makes this application excellent. I'm sure if you finish it it'll be added to most major DOSgames sites-anyone would be a fool to refuse it.

P.S. There are a lot of us who'd be willing to help you make this-you should release it as open source (at least here) if you don't have any qualms about it "not being your sole project." Keep up the good work!

Cmaza · Post by **Cmaza** » Sat Mar 20, 2004 10:21 pm

Well, I have no problems making it open source, and the more people working it, the quicker it'll be done -- plus it will probly result in different variations of the project, with the best becoming more popular, making it a better application in the long run.

The code language is PASCAL, and I wrote it to be compiled with Turbo Pascal 7.

This is the basic shell of the program without any functions other than version information and help. Feel free to change as you wish.

Just two things I'd like to ask when editing though.

1) Include a version history before redistributing. This will help users determine what version and release of the program they are using, who last modified it, and where it came from. It will also help other developers that modify your modification know what they're doing.

2) Ofcourse, when distributing it, it would probly be preferred to add your own update address for your version, but I'd like to ask that you also keep mine in there.

Have fun.

I've got a lot of homework and stuff to do this weekend, so I probly won't work on it again until sometime next week. Still, be sure you will see a few of your suggestions in there when I start working again.

Kazer0 · Post by **Kazer0** » Sat Mar 20, 2004 11:25 pm

Why not apply irt for sourceforge?

Cmaza · Post by **Cmaza** » Mon Mar 22, 2004 4:56 am

What's that?

Kazer0 · Post by **Kazer0** » Mon Mar 22, 2004 7:38 am

www.sourceforge.net

Open Source Projects. You can apply for a team to help work on it with you.

Cmaza · Post by **Cmaza** » Tue Mar 23, 2004 5:47 am

Thanks for tip. Might try it out a bit later if I feel I need to.

Interon · Post by **Interon** » Wed Apr 07, 2004 6:55 pm

I'm trying to make a command line in QuickBasic. So far it includes an HTML Color Calculator and an ASCII Number calc.

JMS Commander! I don't know how far I'll be able to take it though. I guess I'll see how it goes.

Cmaza · Post by **Cmaza** » Sun Apr 11, 2004 7:14 am

*Updated*

Still not much done due to a lack of time.

Changed text colour a bit and added functionality to open files.

Nothing special.

Anyhow, yeah..

New download/source link.

http://www.shiftx.edgehost.net/~cmaza/projects/

johpower · Post by **johpower** » Mon Apr 12, 2004 2:53 am

Just curious: any hints come from 4DOS in your SmartDOS? Some of the things you discuss sound similar. It was a damn good concept, short circuited by Windoze (another: Geoworks). There were even some aps written for it. May still be a few tricks in that bag if you look.

I only touched programming but made some fair batch files in the day (and have forgotten much of that minor magic from unuse). I'll be watching and routing for you.

Cmaza · Post by **Cmaza** » Mon Apr 12, 2004 3:03 am

4Dos? I've honestly never heard ot it.

Anyhow, thanks m8.

johpower · Post by **johpower** » Mon Apr 12, 2004 3:09 am

For a good overview try: http://homepages.tesco.net/~J.deBoynePo ... -4dos.html

This guy has some other good tricks if you back up a page or two.

And if you've never seen 4DOS, yes, it has some very good tricks.

Cmaza · Post by **Cmaza** » Tue Apr 13, 2004 6:54 am

Thanks m8.

*saves page*

johpower · Post by **johpower** » Thu Apr 22, 2004 6:43 pm

I noted he's now charging for 4DOS (shareware). You can find older versions and related items at these sites:

http://www.ing-steen.se/share/pcprog/dos/app/share.html
http://www.notetab.com/scripting.php
http://www.gci275.com/websites.shtml (good site!!)
http://homepages.tesco.net/~J.deBoynePo ... -4dos.html
http://www.mirror.ac.uk/collections/hen ... os/system/

In fact, here's some direct links for Google:

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&q=4DOS
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=n ... 4DOS%2Ezip
http://www.google.com/search?num=30&hl= ... tnG=Search

johpower · Post by **johpower** » Thu Sep 01, 2011 7:02 am

These are still good links:
http://www.ing-steen.se/share/pcprog/dos/app/share.html (many good files!! And DOS 6.22 upgrade!)
http://www.gci275.com/websites.shtml (good site!!)
http://homepages.tesco.net/~J.deBoynePo ... -4dos.html

And of course Google links never die...

Post by **dosraider** » Thu Sep 01, 2011 9:30 am

Also :
http://www.4dos.info/v4dos.htm

4DOS FTW!!! Best MsDos functionality addon evah.

NOnUseraggrement · Post by **NOnUseraggrement** » Thu Sep 01, 2011 11:21 pm

So... This project dead?

Or is it completed, anyone know.

Post by **dosraider** » Thu Sep 01, 2011 11:59 pm

NOnUseraggrement wrote:So... This project dead?.

WHAT...??????

Scroll down on the page I linked.

TCC/LE 11.00 2010-02-08 - 11:21 3245 KB current build Version 11.40

TCC/LE is a freely available light version of JP Software's command processor for NT / XP / Vista type of operating systems, formerly known as 4NT.

Graduate to NT / XP / Vista / Windows 7

Sooooo yeah, WHAT...??????