DOS Tutorial

Intermediate Standard 1 Assignment 3 Value: 75 points for standard INT1 this assignment is part of the standard What you should learn: Basic components of the MS-DOS operating system. Common commands that are routine to the operating system. Utilities that come with the operating system that can keep your system tuned up. How you will learn it: Reading: Carefully read the text below under Basic Instruction Research: Use your favorite search engine on the internet to find information. Instruction: Your teacher or another student will instruct with mini-lessons periodically. Peer Instruction: You will teach others about the standard. How you will show your mastery of the standard: To demonstrate your mastery: 1) Answer the following questions with enough detail so you can perform the task if asked. 2) Prepare to be tested by practicing each of the concepts where applicable. (remember, dont change your system permanently.) 3) Teach a formal mini-lesson with at least two other students in attendance 4) Cut and paste the question and answer portion of this standard and submit it. Be prepared for an oral or hands-on quiz at the time of submission.

Basic Instruction:

A quick and simple DOS tutorial.

*** Questions are at the end.

What is DOS?
MS-DOS is a "Disk Operating System". That means it is simply: "a System for Operating the Computer from a Disk", (but MS-SOCD doesn't sound as nice). In practice however, just as Windows does more than just print windows, DOS does more than just operate the disks: It enabled the user to organize data files, load and execute (run) program files, and control the input and output devices attached to the computer. There were other historical brands of DOS besides the most well known "MS-DOS", ie: PC-DOS, DR-DOS/OPENDOS. Generally speaking, they all functioned in the same way, especially at the most simple level. Most current

operating systems still use disks (hard disks) but have dropped the D from DOS, and its now called just Operating System (OS).

What is Booting?
To run DOS on a computer, it should be the first program to be executed when the computer is switched on. This led to a problem for the designers: "How can DOS be loaded and executed when there is no DOS program running to load and execute *it*??!!". Well, just as the fictional Baron Munchausen managed to pull himself up by his own bootstraps, the computer manages this seemingly impossible trick, and the term "bootstrapping", or "booting up" is applied to this process. Okay, so it really isnt impossible just remember booting is the initial process of loading and executing the operating system on the computer.

How do you communicate with DOS?

The original DOS was an entirely text based system. All it provided for the user was a command prompt: "C:>" or "A:>", where the user would type in commands from the keyboard. The system was entirely case insensitive: so either "ForMAt C:" or "format c:" would erase your hard disk. The latter example is of course a small warning: with DOS or OS comes power, you can very easily mess up your system if you use powerful commands in the wrong way. The commands you should be careful of are: "Format", "Recover", and "Del". All of these perform useful functions, when used correctly, and all the others are pretty much safe to use. All modern Operating Systems including Windows continue to use, and have available some form of the command prompt (C:\>). There are times when it is easier or quicker to issue a text-based command then to open and use a graphical-based window, especially when the response to a command is a single word or phrase or only text-based information.

How does DOS organize disks?

DOS works within a file, directory and disk drive structure. This means that all program and data files are named, and grouped together in named directories (folders) on disks. 'Directories' are just lists of files.

How are files named?

While newer versions of DOS support longer filenames, the standard DOS filename format or rather the naming scheme remains: 1-8 letter name, period, 3 letter extension eg: MYPROG.BAS MYPIC.JPG LETTER.DOC The extension to a file's name is there to allow files of a similar type to be grouped together. IE. all word processor files might have the extension .DOC, while all picture files might have the extension .JPG While these extensions can be specified by the user, many programs have used them to differentiate between formats, and so they have gradually become standardized. For example you would expect a ".TXT" file to be a file containing unformatted text, or a ".BMP" file to be in a bit mapped graphics file format. You sometimes will see a .BAK file which stands for backup file. When you create programs in QBASIC you need to add the extension BAS To completely specify a file on your computer you must specify its drive , its directory path, and its filename. However a file does not always have to be specified in this complete form: If it is in the current directory, then you can just enter its filename.

How are directories named?

Every disk drive has a root directory which can have subdirectories which are named in the same format as filenames, (though generally without any extension). The subdirectories can have subdirectories and so on. Eg: a floppy disk might contain the following directory structure: PICTURES [a directory] HOLIDAY [a subdirectory] ITALY [a subdirectory of a subdirectory] FRANCE [a subdirectory of a subdirectory] FAMILY [a directory] PETS [a subdirectory] TEXT [a directory] LETTERS [a subdirectory] EMAIL [a subdirectory]

A directory path name includes the disk drive and all subdirectories needed to specify a directory on a disk. The disk drive is specified by a single letter. Eg: The floppy disk drive is A and the hard disk drive is C. The drive letter, is followed by a colon, the directory path names are separated by backward slashes (\), (*Not* forward slashes like Internet addresses). Eg. In the above example "A:\PICTURES\HOLIDAY\FRANCE" would be more than likely to contain pictures of a few baguettes and onions.

How is DOS used?

When you type anything at the DOS prompt, and press enter, you are telling DOS to run a program. It will first look to see if there is an internal command program which has that name, and if it does not find one, then it will look to see if there is a file on disk with that name. If it finds an external file with the extension .COM (command), or .EXE (executable), then the program is loaded and run. At this point DOS looses control of the computer until the program has ended. However parts of it are still used by the programs as they are running, eg to load and save files etc.

Some very useful internal DOS commands:

A: - Change current directory path to the floppy disk drive C: - Change current directory path to the hard disk drive DIR - Display current directory (show all files and sub-directories). MD - Make a new directory, eg: MD C:\EMAIL CD - Change current directory, eg. CD C:\EMAIL COPY - Copy file(s) from one place to another. Del - Delete/erase a file Any other text on the input line after the file name, is passed to the program. This means that in the command "Copy help.txt help.bak", the text, "help.txt and help.bak" is passed to the copy program which will in this case use it to specify source and destination files for a copy.

DOS usage examples:

DIR [enter] Displays the current directory listing. DIR *.txt [enter] Displays any files in the current directory with .TXT as their extension DIR A:\PICTURES[enter] Displays a directory listing for the path, A:\PICTURES A: [enter] MD PICTURES [enter] CD PICTURES [enter] DIR Change to the floppy disk drive A:, make a directory called PICTURES, change the current directory to PICTURES, and then list (display) all the contents (files and subdirectories) in the directory PICTURES. COPY letter.txt letter.bak [enter] Copy the file "letter.txt" to a file called "letter.bak". (Creates "letter.bak" if it does not exist, and overwrites it if it does). COPY A:\pictures\*.pic C:\ [enter] Copy any file with an extension PIC from the A: floppy drive, in the PICTURES directory to the root directory of the hard disk.

Answer the following about DOS:

1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) What does the MS stand for in MS-DOS? What does Booting have to do with DOS? What is the C:\> ? What is the naming scheme in DOS? How would you make a Directory in DOS? If you are at the C:/> show the commands you would type to make and get into a directory called CATS.