Macmillan Modern Office into Easlpt DOS Gosling Peter M MACMILLAN © Peter Gosling 1989 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended), or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 33-4 Alfred Place, LondonWC1E 7DP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. First published 1989 Published by MACMILLAN EDUCATION LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Gosling, P. E. (Peter Edward) Easily into DOS.-(Macmillan modern office) 1. Microcomputer systems. Operating systems. M-S DOS 005.4'46 ISBN 978-1-349-10472-7 ISBN 978-1-349-10470-3 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-10470-3 - - - - - ._... - - - _. '-' - - - - - - - - - - - - --- 0 CONTENTS Biography v Acknowledgements Vl About this Book 1 What is DOS? 2 Lesson One File names and extensions, the DIR command, DIR/W, DIRIP, changing disks, wildcards 4 Lesson Two The COPY command 12 Lesson Three The DEL command 16 Lesson Four Directories, sub-directories, the CD command, the MD command, the RMDIR command 19 Lesson Five The DATE, TIME, TYPE and REN commands 24 Lesson Six Changing the DOS prompt using PROMPT 30 Revision of DOS Internal Commands 32 Lesson Seven The FORMAT program, FORMAT/S, FORMATN, FORMAT/Band the SYS program 33 Lesson Eight The DISKCOPY program, the DISKCOMP program 38 Lesson Nine The CHKDSK program, CHKDSK/F 41 Lesson Ten The EDLIN line editor, editing, listing and creating files using EDLIN 45 Lesson Eleven The TREE program, TREE/F, the MORE filter 50 Lesson Twelve Using SORT, sorting directories, sorting a file 55 iii Lesson Thirteen Creating a batch file, using EDLIN to create a batch file, using COPY CON to create a batch file, running a batch file, the AUTOEXEC file 60 Lesson Fourteen Editing DOS command lines 65 Common DOS Error Messages 68 Summary of DOS External Commands 69 Index 71 lV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ------ - - 0 BIOGRAPHY Peter Gosling has been working in computer education since the late 1960s. He was a lecturer at Peterborough Technical College until 1981 when he took early retirement having been Principal Lecturer in charge of the Computer Centre since 1974. In that year he inaugurated the first educational time-sharing service in Cambridgeshire and taught Computer Science at GCE A Level as well as working for the Open University as a part-time Tutor in Mathematics and Computing. For a number of years he was a member of the joint City and Guilds/NCC Committee for Computer Programmer Training. Since 1981 he has devoted his time to writing books on computer programming and software. These books have been translated into Indonesian and Hebrew as well as the major European languages. During this time he has also carried out computer training for a large number of local and national companies. In 1986 he was joined by his daughter, Joanna, who had inherited his enthusiasm for the written word and they have already produced one book jointly for Macmillan Education-Mastering Word Processing (2nd edition). This partnership is continuing in the current Macmillan Modern Office series. v 0 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS IBM is a trademark of IBM Corporation PC-DOS is a trademark of IBM Corporation MS-DOS is a trademark of MicroSoft Corporation vi - -- - - ------------------ - 0 ABOUT THIS BOOK Every Personal Computer (PC) you buy has to have an Operating System. This is the master program that enables the machine to carry out the routine, usually very simple, functions that make it work and enable it to run the programs you purchase. The most popular operating system is called MS-DOS. When you have finished this training course you should be able to use the important DOS commands and will then be able, should you wish to do so, to use some of the more complex and sophisticated commands that you will find in the DOS handbook that comes with every PC you buy. DESIGN OF THE LESSONS Each of the fourteen lessons in this book is designed to give you experience in using one or more of the DOS commands. The lessons contain a brief description of what the command does together with a step-by-step set of instructions designed to lead you easily into the use of that command (hence the title Easily into DOS). These instruction sessions are displayed in a two-column format where the keys for you to press are listed in the left- hand column and the results that you will see, usually in the form of a screen display, appear in the right-hand column. Most lessons are fairly short but by the time you have worked through any one of them you should feel competent to use the commands dealt with in a real-life situation. The later lessons incor- porate commands used in earlier lessons - thus enabling you to have constant revision. The course book, as you will have noticed, is accompanied by a floppy disk. This is your practice disk and you will find that you will be using it constantly. It is a good idea for you to copy the disk and preserve the original. You can then work on the copy, safe in the knowledge that if you do any damage to the disk all is not lost. We hope that you find the course interesting, stimulating and above all useful. In fact, a computer can be fun even if you do not play games on it! 1 • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 0 WHAT IS DOS? DOS stands for Disk Operating System and is the computer program no personal computer can do without. It exists in two forms. The one supplied for IBM Personal Computers is known as PC-DOS. All other compatible personal computers use MS-DOS. The commands used in most versions of DOS are identical and their purpose is to enable the otherwise useless electronics that go to make up a personal computer to operate as a computer. All personal computers require at least one disk drive on which are stored "files". A file can be either a set of computer instr- uctions, a program, or files of data in either numerical or alphabetical form. The purpose of a disk operating system is to enable the computer to transfer the data stored on a magnetic disk to another part of the computer: its main memory, known as RAM (Random Access Memory), the video screen or the printer. The computer proper is contained on a microchip called a "micro processor" and its main purpose is to act like a telephone switchboard, controlling the flow of information through the computer in accordance with the instructions that are currently held in its RAM. In addition it has the ability to perform very simple arithmetic. A set of instructions that are understandable by a micro processor constitutes a computer "program''. The disk operating system is the program without which the computer will not work at all and the first thing that has to be done when starting your machine up is to load that program into the RAM. It will stay there until you switch off when you have finished your work. BOOTING UP THE SYSTEM The operation of loading the disk operating system into memory is known as "booting up". It is a contraction of the phrase ''boot strapping DOS". The origin of the phrase is from the term "lifting yourself up by your bootstraps" - bootlaces in English. The way that this is accomplished needs a course in Computer Science to appreciate, so suffice it to say that at the point of switching on, all the computer can do is to read one instruction into its memory; this action leads it to perform a slightly more complicated instruction and this snowballs until it has a very sophisticated set of instructions "in its head", actually in its RAM. It is then ready for work. The disk drives fitted to your personal computer are known by letters of the alphabet. If you have a single floppy disk drive only, this will be known as drive A. If you have two disk drives for floppy disks, these will be known as drives A and B. If you have a hard disk drive then it will be known as drive C. A hard disk system will always have at least one associated floppy disk drive. DOS will allow you to fit extra disk drives, if your system is physically capable, that can be assigned letters up to the letter P. When you perform the booting up process the drive containing the disk with the operating system programs is known as the "default" 2 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - drive. For a floppy disk system this is drive A and for a hard disk system this is drive C. Then you switch the computer on. You should note that it is not good practice to keep switching the computer on and off with the main switch. Should you wish to restart it - perform a "warm boot"' - while the main switch is on press the Alt, Ctrl and Del keys simultaneously. After the bootstrap operation has taken place DOS will indicate the name of the default disk drive by displaying its identifying letter on the screen. This will either be A: or C: 3