Remember DOS?

Do you remember DOS? It stands for Disk Operating System - just in case you're not familiar with it. The reason I bring it up is because many people ask me - how do I take pictures in Doom? Well - you need the command line parameter -devparm of course. Command Line Parameter? I might as well be speaking French. Every PC on the planet would just be a lump of metal without DOS - even XP, NT, 2000, etc... Even though Microsoft has gotten further and further away from the older system, it is still at the base of all those operating systems. They still have a DOS prompt available. They still use many of the same commands.
These days, of course, people don't learn about DOS. They know Windows operating systems. Give them an instruction for DOS and they're lost even though they think they know alot about computers. If you don't know DOS you don't know computers. How do you fix a computer that won't boot into its os without having to reload the system if you don't know DOS? For that matter, how do you reload the system if your file system got screwed up and the os won't load again?
DOS is at the base of all PC's. Tons of games still on the market today are DOS based games. If you don't know DOS then its the equivalent of having the key but not knowing what to do if the car breaks down because of something simple that every owner should know how to fix. I encourage you to learn at least the very basics of DOS. Especially if you like the older games. If you know how to operate in DOS then you can do so much more than your counterparts who don't know how. Do you have an older set of wads that require about a half dozen files to be loaded? In DOS you can create a batch file to load the whole mess for you. That way you won't need to every time you go back to play. It takes all of 30 seconds to create a batch file. It can be created using notepad and will simplify your DOS work immensely when playing Doom.
I, and I suspect, many people reading this started on DOS. Windows is a nice toy but we learned how the computer works because DOS required us to make menu's using batch files and/or qbasic to make our computers a little more user friendly. We had to learn how fdisk worked and how to partition a drive and how to utilize memory managers so the bottom 640k of memory didn't leave us hanging. Some of that isn't necessary any more of course. XP blocks programs from using that bottom 640k, effectively preventing out of memory messages which will occur if that memory runs out. Ever wonder why, on your 98 machine with 256 megs of ram or more that you could possibly run out of memory? Thats why.
Anyway - enough of the rip van winkle stuff. All I'm saying is, take the time to learn the basics and you will be rewarded 10 fold.

I remember DOS all the way from DOS 3.0 to DOS 6.22.

However I don't have DOS installed at the moment and I need the damn APPEND util from it

There is a DOOM param that enables you to take pics. -devparms?

I love DOS! Here's the batchfile I use with Alio's quickbuild jobby to test DM levels for my review site:

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Trebuchet MS, Arial, Helvetica, serif">code:</font><hr width="100%" size="1" noshade><pre>@echo off
if "%1"=="help" goto HELP
if "%2"=="help" goto HELP
if "%1"=="test" goto TEST
if "%1"=="see" goto SEE
if not exist e:\dports\dischrge\wads\%2.wad goto NOWAD
if "%1"=="instagib" goto INSTAGIB
if "%1"=="skulltag" goto SKULLTAG
if "%1"=="easy" goto ACBOTEASY
if "%1"=="easysoft" goto EASYSOFT
if "%1"=="medium" goto ACBOTMEDIUM
if "%1"=="node" goto NODE
if "%1"=="see" goto SEE
if "%1"=="zdoom" goto ZDOOM
if "%1"=="zip" goto ZIP
goto END:
:HELP
echo.
echo.
echo Discharge! Level tester jobby v.1.1
echo.
echo First entry options:
echo.
echo - wad name goes in first entry, no ".wad" extension.
echo - it testing, 1-5 is skill level
echo.
echo Second entry options:
echo.
echo - "skulltag" launches level in Skulltag
echo - "zdoom" launches level in ZDOOM2
echo - "easy" launches level in ACBot1.41 in easy skill
echo - "easysoft" launches level in software mode ACbot, easy skill level
echo - "medium" launches level in ACBot1.41 in medium skill level
echo - "node" builds nodes on specified PWAD (in "wads" directory)
echo - "instagib" launches level in ACBot with insta-gib engine
echo - "test" launches acbot141.exe with test.wad, 1st entry is skill
echo - "see" launches level in single player mode for viewing
echo.
echo.
pause
goto END

:NODE
cd wads
zen %2.wad
goto END

:ZDOOM
cd e:\dports\dischrge\zdoom
zdoom -file e:\dports\dischrge\wads\%2.wad
goto END

:SKULLTAG
cd e:\dports\dischrge\skulltag
skulltag -file e:\dports\dischrge\wads\%2.wad
goto END

:SEE
cls
if not exist e:\dports\dischrge\wads\%2.wad goto CHECKZIP
cd wads
zen %2.wad
pause
goto SEERUN
:CHECKZIP
echo.
echo %2.wad not found, looking for zip
echo.
if not exist e:\dports\dischrge\wads\0-9\%2.zip goto NOZIP
echo.
echo Found the zip! Getting ready to unpack!
echo.
cd wads
rem
rem *** clean wads directory ***
del *.wad
del *.txt
del *.diz
del *.lmp
del *.mid
del *.deh
del *.bat
cd checked
copy e:\dports\dischrge\wads\*.zip
cd..
del *.zip
copy 0-9\%2.zip
del 0-9\%2.zip
pkunzip %2.zip
cls
pkunzip -v %2.zip
pause
edit *.txt
echo.
echo List of wads in zip:
echo.
dir *.wad
pause
goto END
REM ***LAUNCH LEVEL***
:SEERUN
cd e:\dports\dischrge\acbot_p
acbot141 -opengl -file e:\dports\dischrge\wads\%2.wad -server -warp 01 -skill 1 -mb 128 -nomonsters
goto END

:TEST
cd e:\dports\dischrge\acbot
rem acbot141 -opengl -file e:\dports\dischrge\wads\test.wad -mb 128
acbot141 -opengl -file e:\dports\dischrge\wads\test.wad -server -skill %2 -mb 128 -nomonsters
goto END

:INSTAGIB
cd e:\dports\dischrge\acbot
instagib -opengl -file e:\dports\dischrge\wads\%2.wad e:\dports\dischrge\instagib.wad -deh e:\dports\acbot\hack\instagib.deh -server -mb 128
rem instagib -opengl -file e:\dports\dischrge\wads\%2.wad -server -mb 128
goto END

:ACBOTEASY
cd e:\dports\dischrge\acbot
acbot141 -opengl -file e:\dports\dischrge\wads\%2.wad -server -skill 1 -mb 128 -nomonsters
goto END

:EASYSOFT
cd e:\dports\dischrge\acbot
acbot141 -file e:\dports\dischrge\wads\%2.wad -mb 128 -nomonsters
goto END

:ACBOTMEDIUM
cd e:\dports\dischrge\acbot
acbot141 -opengl -file e:\dports\dischrge\wads\%2.wad -server -skill 3 -mb 128 -nomonsters
goto END

:NOWAD
echo.
echo.
echo %2.wad was not found!
echo.
echo.
pause
goto END

:NOZIP
echo.
echo.
echo Neither %2.wad nor %2.zip were not found!
echo.
echo.
pause
goto END
:END</pre><hr width="100%" size="1" noshade></BLOCKQUOTE>

Heh, kind of a long post but Alio might get a kick out of what I'm using his gadgets for. With this jobby I can just type in the name of the zip and it unzips the file, displays the text files, lists the wads, and cleans out the junk from the previous zip while moving the previous zip itself to a holding directory. Then if the .wad has the same name as the zip all I have to is hit RUN again to play the map. Has it speeded things up? Well I checked out 68 .wads yesterday, so something must be going right.

DOS is great!

------------------
DOOM Legacy Website Guy
Webmaster The Legacy Editing Resource.
Webmaster Discharge! DeathMatch Level Reviews.

I too, use batch files all the time. For instance, I use DETH to make my levels on a 486 which only has DOS on it - no windows.
So, after I'm finished with the map editor, I get back to the dos prompt and use a batch file which does the following:
copies the map to the bsp directory - line 1
runs the bsp program - line 2
copies the finished file to the doom directory - line 3
runs doom2 - line 4
If I really wanted to, I could add more so that it returns me to my deth directory and starts DETH.
I don't always want to go back so I don't do that.
Point being tho - all I have to do is type in 1 word and it does all of that for me.
When I'm trying the maps out on my XP machine I have another batch file with a replaceable parameter which allows me to input which program I want to use for testing so I type in the name of the batch file - in this case descent and the name of the program, be it doom2, zdoom, legacy, edge, whatever and it automatically loads the wad information, command line parameters and the program.
It took me all of 12 seconds to write the program and I type 2 words to make it work.
The beauty of DOS

Ah yes, the mighty MS-DOS. Those who don't know how to use it are true fools
I use a batch file for testing out my maps. It copies the work.wad file, runs zennode on it and then runs legacy. Try and beat that with any other (Windows) program
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Trebuchet MS, Arial, Helvetica, serif">code:</font><hr width="100%" size="1" noshade><pre>
@echo off

set basepath=c:\doom\projects\p4

cls
echo Copying wad file...
copy work.wad compile.wad

cls
echo Compiling map...
zennode -bc -n -r compile.wad

cls
echo Running Legacy...
cd c:\doom\legacy
c:\doom\legacy\legacy.exe -file %basepath%\compile.wad -opengl -warp 27 -skill 3 -coopsound
</pre><hr width="100%" size="1" noshade></BLOCKQUOTE>

------------------
WhackEd 1.23.199

And he said: "Je suis le King du Fromage!"

i too love dos. Nowadays windows is like that damn aol grandma 'NOW EVERYONE CAN FEEL LIKE A COMUTER GENIUS!' Fuck i hate that now people can just buy computers without knowing a damn THING, feeling like a computer genius, and cluttering it up with useless CRAP like gator and Bonzi buddy and then spending more money from their bottomless pits of cash to pay people to clean their comp for them cause they dont know how, nor do they care. There is part of me that there is no windows and some sort of motivation for people to LEARN the computer, not just get a brand new fast comp so they can download the mp3's off the KaZaA and install a crapload of viruses at the same time.
gah i HATE aol grandmas...

LOL
Good point. But people not knowing anything about computers keeps me in business. By them not knowing anything, I can fix easy problems quickly and make some cash.

DOS isn't at the base of all PCs. Newer versions of Windows (anything NT based) just have a sort of DOS emulation and a command prompt which happens to work the same way (almost). DOS no longer runs in the back where we can't see it and It's now impossible to boot into DOS mode.

In fact, you can't even use a boot disk to startup in DOS and fix stuff on a lot of newer computers. Lots of new Windows installs don't use FAT32 for a filesystem so you're screwed if you start mucking around with your HD from a DOS disk.

Using batch files is a great way to simplify doing stuff but most people using a computer will never need them. They're only good when you want to do a pile of things at a time, and often when you want various conditions applied.

As for those silly AOL people, they're just cluelesss like 99% of people. The only real way you could be a computer genius is if you can program - and program really well at that. Well, hacking might count too. Other than that, you're usually just a very adept user of a rather complex appliance/toy.

Since the point of creating things like batch files was to make big tasks easier and faster and the point of creating Windows was to make things easier and faster, it might be good if we came up with a graphical replacement for batch files that's also easier and faster.

------------------
"Once in a while a programmer really writes something he's proud of, a slick, elegant, blazingly fast routine that stands as a benchmark against which other code will be judged by. However, this is not the case with TED's fill routine. This slow, stupid algorithm will casually fill one plane of data in a painfully creeping manner. Press ESC when it gets confused." - John Romero on TED (Tile EDitor)

Aliotroph?.postCount++;

What About Linux PCs? They dont stem from DOS at any point along the Progression. I know a few of y'all run Linux, and It is getting to be viable for a Home PC system.

------------------
Don't try to play doom. Instead, only try to realize that there is no doom, and it's you that is Played
------------------
"arguing on the internet is like running in the special olympics, even if you win, you are still retarded" - Doom Rampage
------------------
AKA @Palladium, AKA @BfgWhore, AKA Many More
On AIM: Cyborphreek2
on MSM: elemental_palladium@hotmail.com
on YIM: Cyborphreek
on ICQ: 102670148

DOS, Unix (I know its different from Linux) they both use a command prompt. And yes DOS, my first OS and have yet to abandon it, even if a certain rich guy did.
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Trebuchet MS, Arial, Helvetica, serif">quote:</font><hr width="100%" size="1" noshade><font face="Trebuchet MS, Arial, Helvetica, serif" size="2">It stands for Disk Operating System </font><hr width="100%" size="1" noshade></BLOCKQUOTE>
And also Denial of Service buts that completely different.

AAh! Good ol'DOS! Fastest way to uninstall Windows.

Quick .bat uninstall program

cd /windows
attrib *.* -a -h -r -s
cd ..
deltree windows

Whee!

------------------

Heh, killing Windows with DOS seems funny.

------------------
DOOM Legacy Website Guy
Webmaster The Legacy Editing Resource.
Webmaster Discharge! DeathMatch Level Reviews.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Trebuchet MS, Arial, Helvetica, serif">quote:</font><hr width="100%" size="1" noshade><font face="Trebuchet MS, Arial, Helvetica, serif" size="2">Exl: ...Try and beat that with any other (Windows) program</font><hr width="100%" size="1" noshade></BLOCKQUOTE>

I beat that and every BAT file with zero effort.


------------------
THE KING DOOM EXPERIENCE

DOS? Ah yes, I refer to as the DOS & Wolfenstien era. Like all of you, I began with Dos. Playing games on my parents computer, editing the autoexec.exe and the config.sys, trying to specify amounts of memory(high/low/buffer), loading mouse drivers, joysticks, soundbaster variables. Then I'd mess up the computer so it wouldn't boot. Then I'd scramble for hours reading the huge dos manual, trying to fix it. After it was all said and done. I'd do something else, and go through it all over again. That led me to batch files, and the from there a little hex editing, and the to the mighty Qbasic.
Where does Wolfenstien fit in all of this? Well, I'd played it of course, but that and DooM pushed me to sit hours in front of my computer, programming with Quick & Qbasic.

I think now, I know so much about computers because of the problem solving from back in the day. The Memories. I'm glad you guys spoke about it. It's good to remember your roots.

------------------
You can call me Props

Well there are several flaws with dos compared to unix. The main 2.
Dos isnt re-entrant, unix is.
Dos cannot multitask as a result of the above as well, but unix can run multiple applications and multitask them from the command line.

Actually I'm supprised people choose DOS over Linux, given that the shell is relativly similar (but unix has more functions and features available to it). I suspect more Microsoft fowl play here.

But assuming unix/linux doesnt exist....DOS is cool. I use DOS a lot even under Windows 2000. I belive that no matter how good the OS gets, there has to be some kind of command shell.

Recovery of Windows 2000, by the way, is done using the recovery console, or using the start CD and selecting the repair option
And if ypu cant fix windows 2000 by those 2 methods, it is very unlikely that a command shell will help you.

I used to be king of the hill with DOS scripting (Bat files).
But with linux, I'm hardly a toddler. And thats the challange i like about Liinux. There so much to do you will never get bored!. But ocne you use up 50 odd commands that DOS has, its fairly boring after that.
Recently i wrote a shell script in Linux(shells cript is similar to dos Bat files). The script goes through the entire drive and picks up files of similar extention (lets use .mp3 for practical purpose), It then took the first letter or number of the filename, made the directory in a given location with that letter as the dir name, and copied al the files with that starting letter, into the wppropriate directory. If it found a numberm it owuld put the file in a directory i assigned called "numbered". After moving a large number of data, i was quite satisfied witht he power of linux shell(!bin/bash) over DOS


CIAO

------------------
An Artist must convince others of the truth of his lies....Pablo Picasso.

The lack of power in DOS compared to Linux/UNIX has really simple reasons really. UNIX was designed in the days when big mini-computers were everywhere and common OS's were rare and crappy. It was designed to be a robust (for it's day) time-sharing OS comprised of small simple tools. Multi-tasking was one thing it always did well though. DOS was designed in the early 80's for personal computers. At the time the average personal computer speed was probably about 1.5MHz and the average amount of memory was between 32 and 128k. There weren't resources for the fancy stuff in there. UNIX was still only used on big workstations. Of course, M$ tried for a long time to make sure DOS was always as compatible as possible with all the stuff for it. That may have contributed to the lack of UNIXish features.

Micro$oft did make their own version of UNIX in the 80s though. It was called Xenix. I don't know what happened to that though.

Linux is awesome except that open-source apps written for it have a habit of being inconsistent with each other and they're always far less stable than the OS itself for some reason. A big part of that problem may just be that it's underused, so it's not supported as well as it could be though.

------------------
"Once in a while a programmer really writes something he's proud of, a slick, elegant, blazingly fast routine that stands as a benchmark against which other code will be judged by. However, this is not the case with TED's fill routine. This slow, stupid algorithm will casually fill one plane of data in a painfully creeping manner. Press ESC when it gets confused." - John Romero on TED (Tile EDitor)

Aliotroph?.postCount++;

I think that Bill gates wanted to re-invent the wheel. And it worked. IT got him famous and quite rich.
People are only just now realising that Linux is far superior.
But, unfortunatly for linux, this knowledge or awareness has come alittle too late. I think the real problem with Linux is, funnly enough, windows. But microsoft had it lucky when it sprang up because at that time there was no mainstream gui. This let Microsoft to evolve DOS . People actually took the time to learn DOS becaue...what choice did they have?
if somone said Unix in the 1980's, instantly, another would think of a middle aged man, tie, coffee stained shirt and thick glasses.
The unix os itself isnt over huge, but i think DOS was not made to compete with unix, but more to do what microsoft wanted it to do and no more. So It stuck with commands users will need, and no more.

Today, Linux is struggling to find a market because, since it didnt have so many years of tried and tested GIU and a mass market, its GUI's were kind of shoddy. It worked, but it looked ugly and get an ordinary user to figure out why a rpm doesnt install. Companys like RedHat and Mandrake are startign to fnd ways to make things easier for ordinary users so they can start usning linux. A freind recently let me VNC into his machine running mandrake. I must confess...it looked quite nice.
But the problem stil remains.....when things go wrong, you need to use the linux shell to fix it. Look at the irony. This procefure is EXACTLY the same as when something goes wrong with windows 3.1....only this time...with thelikes of windows XP and windows 2000, people would give up in half a second and switch to microsoft.
Thats sad because the power of linux remains undiscovered. I mentioned somewhere about linux cluster. not sure if it was this forum. But....essentially, i was saying....if Games were made for linux. MADE not PORTED.....the makers could write code to use the beawulf cluster. Imagine the Artifical inteligence in games if it had say a 2x2 cluster available to it? Thats just one of many advantages we could have seen(or see) if linux is sucessful in gaining popularity.
People wouldnt throw their old machine. Infact they would be glad they bought it! Because they would just add it to the cluster when they upgrade to a new machine. It certainly wouldnt stop the speed race for computers. We woudl stil have the 3 GHz processor of today, today. Of course, as clusters would graw, you would need less and less reasons to upgrade.

Ithink that i am drifting off topic here..this IS about DOS

CIAO

------------------
An Artist must convince others of the truth of his lies....Pablo Picasso.

Bill Gates originally didn't do OS's. M$ only did DOS because IBM needed an OS and the CP/M guy wandered off somewhere. M$ originally bought DOS from another company in Seattle though.

Part of the problem with building good stuff for Linux is it takes big teams to make a lot of modern software and that can be tricky in an open-source community. That said, there are a lot more good teams around now than there were before. Funny how lots of new Linux distros come with 3 word processors, two office suites and piles of redudent software.

------------------
"Once in a while a programmer really writes something he's proud of, a slick, elegant, blazingly fast routine that stands as a benchmark against which other code will be judged by. However, this is not the case with TED's fill routine. This slow, stupid algorithm will casually fill one plane of data in a painfully creeping manner. Press ESC when it gets confused." - John Romero on TED (Tile EDitor)

Aliotroph?.postCount++;

that emulated dos in xp is horrible, a buddy of mine's boot record fucked up and i forget how but we manged to access the hard drive through emulated dos and it was horrible, it wouldnt let us copy folders or use wildcards so he had to back up files one at a time, it sucked. I think we used my computer to access his hard drive or something, it was like a year ago.

Hehehe, better to just install cygwin and do it via some emulated UNIX.

------------------
"Once in a while a programmer really writes something he's proud of, a slick, elegant, blazingly fast routine that stands as a benchmark against which other code will be judged by. However, this is not the case with TED's fill routine. This slow, stupid algorithm will casually fill one plane of data in a painfully creeping manner. Press ESC when it gets confused." - John Romero on TED (Tile EDitor)

Aliotroph?.postCount++;