Does anyone recall MS-DOS Shell, aka dosshell?

In My Humble Opinion
1

My first pc-type computer was a 286, when 486s were the biggest, best thing. What can I say, it was cheap. I think it was made by Zenith. Despite the fact it could only play the lowest graphic level of Jungle Jill, I still had lots of fun with it. After searching, and searching the internet at a library computer, I found a program that allowed me to strip the code from html files, leaving only spacing for paragraphs. I downloaded it, and took it home. This allowed me to download online discussions, fanfiction, etc. from onto a mostly readable at home format. It was great. Later, I found that some of the classic Interactive Fiction was available for free online, from http://www.ifarchive.org/

Now, trying to remember what name went with what file was quite hard, what with limitations on names, so I was quite pleased when I saw a copy of Dos at my local thrift store. It was still old , but newer than my current version. There was not too much crud on the floppies, so I took it home and successfully installed it. Amazingly enough, I actually took the time to read the help command. It told me there was a new mode called MS-DOS Shell, or dosshell, for short.

It was so amazing! I could easily press Tab to browse through sections, and Shift +Tab to go backward. (A skill I still use today to speed through forms , online.) Instead of typing a name, I could simply move the arrow to select which program I wanted to run. I could also do something to switch between the two programs allowed to run at the same time. Amaaaazing.

When I first switched to a computer capable of connecting to the internet, I searched, and found no info on how to enable dosshell for what was my current computer at the time, which could definitly run dos, just not dosshell. It seems that it was on versions between 4.0 and 6.0, but **not ** 6.22, for some odd reason. Today, I look and find this page, allowing me to download the program. Big help the net was back then, however. Anyway, does anyone else recall this?

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Source: http://users.cybercity.dk/~bse26236/batutil/help/DOSSHELS.HTM

I remember MS-DOS Shell. But I was already using Norton Commander so I didn’t use it much.

3

I remember Dos Shell. It was installed on a computer my mom handed down to me in 1986 maybe? My mom’s computer guy refused to install Windows because it was a “fad”…

4

Thanks for the responces, but perhaps I should restate my request. I would love to hear if people used it, and I would also love to hear as much of an account of if people loved it or hated it, and why, as people are willing to type.

5

I remember dosshell, too. But like Duckster, I was already using Norton Commander when I found it.

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Yeah, I loved dosshell! So much easier to navigate the directories of my 8088, and 286 and 386. I didn’t do Windows until version 3.1.

7

Norton Commander…Norton Commander …Hmmmm…, Now that I recall, the computer already had that on it, but I didn’t like it for some reason, and used plain old dos, till I got an upgrade. It had a feature to keep from erasing files by accident, and a cool looking defragmenter program.

8

Yeah, I used it on my old 8088. It wasn’t that convenient, and I only used the computer for about a dozen or so dedicated programs for which I mastered the DOS command line pretty quickly.

But I’d play with the shell a bit. No love, no hate, just the thought “this could be useful. I wish they’d done a better job with it”.

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It wasn’t as polished or have as many features as Norton Commander, PCTools, or XTree, but it was free where the others weren’t. I thought the others were better enough to justify the cost and so used them. PCTools was my favorite.

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Sorry for the hijack, but while I’m on memory lane does anyone remember the name of that DOS menu program that you configured with a list of program categories you could drill down through to start programs? I recall a blue background with red selection windows.

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Sorry Yo, that required skillz, lol. DOS allowed the display to be configured in a bunch of colors and displays. It was based on the person that set up he batch.

12

I found what I was thinking of: Easy Menu. It was pretty common back in the day.

Scott, there is a lot of freeware available. Almost makes me want to fire up a DOS virtual machine. Almost.

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For the fans of Norton Commander, check out FAR http://farmanager.com/ - like NC but integrated seamlessly with Windows XP (or below)

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And buried in the original boxes I still own an original IBM PC, with Amdex monitor (yellow screen), a Hercules graphics card and an AST Six-Pack. I later added an expansion case adding an AST RamPage card (with a whopping 2 MB RAM!) and a huge 30 MB full height hard drive.

Booting in DOS to the C:> prompt took about five minues.

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Oh man, at first I didn’t know what you were talking about, but now I know. My first computer was purchased by my dad when I was 7 or 8. I remember learning DOS and navigating my way round QBASIC before I was double-digits. I was impressed with myself cause I was able to figure out how to alter the physics and colors in Gorilla and Nibbler. I remember mine was in color, though. A light blue background and a yellow highlight bar. I usually didn’t use it, though, I just went right to DOS, because all I did was play games. I was also proud that I edited the autoexec.bat file to pop up list of all the games on the hard drive when I booted up, and all I had to do was select a number and I was playing it. Man, I miss DOS so much… :frowning:

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The jury is still out on that one. :smiley:

Stranger

17

I also used Norton Commander. It kicked ass. I much preferred it to Dos Shell. It was leaner, faster, and had a better UI, IMO. One of the classic programs.

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I used Dos Shell for a relatively long time. The first computer our family had that we could really do anything at all on was my uncle’s hand-me-down 286 IBM, and as a 13 year old or so I used the shell almost exclusively to operate in. This would have been probably 1994 or 1995. We used that computer for about three years, I guess, before getting one that was more or less contemporary.