The Operating System is the program which provides organized services to the computer user and the application programs that they wish to use. These services consist mainly of access to the hardware resources such as the disk drives, keyboard, etc. The MS-DOS Operating System is an operating system created by Microsoft Corporation.
The MS-DOS Operating System has three main parts:
a. System Files
b. Command Interpreter
c. Utility Programs:
PART ONE IS THE SYSTEM FILES.The system files, which are hidden, perform such basic tasks as reading the keyboard, displaying characters on the screen, opening and closing files etc. We're not going to learn much about the system files here. Just remember that they exist and are needed by the operating system to get to all the hardware.
PART TWO IS THE COMMAND INTERPRETER.
The command interpreter, COMMAND.COM (or, on a 2000 or XP machine CMD.EXE), reads commands typed at the keyboard and attempts to obey them. COMMAND.COM (or, on a 2000 or XP machine CMD.EXE) has some simple commands built in - these are known as internal commands. We will learn several of these built-in commands. When MS-DOS starts up, it evaluates its environment and hardware and then runs COMMAND.COM (or, on a 2000 or XP machine CMD.EXE). This gives you a DOS PROMPT (usually something like: C:\> ). The user must then use MS-DOS built-in commands or external commands to run applications or manipulate the machine.If you haven't done it yet, read How To Run Videos Used In This Tutorial NOW!
TIME TO PLAY: You can get to COMMAND.COM by clicking on Start, Run, and typing in the word COMMAND
(or, on a 2000 or XP machine CMD). Do that now - see the video below this paragraph for an example of what to do. Come back to this page after you run the interpreter and then exit it (by typing 'exit' from the command line). An example of an internal command is DIR which lets you see the files and directories on your hard drive.
Click
Here To See Movie of Starting MS-DOS From Windows 98 Start Menu
Click
Here To See Another Way To Get To The DOS Prompt From Windows 98 Start Menu
TIME TO PLAY: Try out the 'DIR' command now. First, look at the video below for an example. Then, go to the MS-DOS prompt on your machine and use the DIR command.
REMEMBER, if you are on a Windows 2000, or XP machine, use 'cmd' and NOT 'command'. Depending on which directory you are put in when you open MS-DOS, you may see a variety of different file types. Don't worry about that for now. We will explain as we go along.
Click Here
To See Movie of Using The DIR Command From Windows 98 Command Line
PART THREE IS THE UTILITY PROGRAMS.
The Utility Programs are a collection of programs covering functions not handled by the internal commands. The exact number of utility programs vary between different versions of MS-DOS but there are dozens. Examples of utility programs include EDIT (a text editor) and FORMAT (to format disks). We will learn several of the utility programs that are common to most versions of DOS that you will use at Bellevue University. These commands are sometimes called 'external' commands because each one of them has their own executable file. On Windows 95, 98 and ME machines these external files are in the C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND directory. On XP or 2000 these external files are in the c:\winnt\system32 directory (for Windows 2000) or the c:\windows\system32 directory (for XP).
Click Here
To See Movie of Using The Edit Command From Windows 98 Command Line