08-18-2022, 02:20 PM
(08-18-2022, 01:37 PM)mnrvovrfc Wrote: Before v4 of MS-DOS, there was no such thing as a "file manager" (except payware or shareware) which had a GUI like you've known so well with File Explorer on Windows, or Files/Nautilus/whatever-it-wants-to-call-itself-now on GNOME, or my least favorite one on XFCE which is almost named for the god of thunder in Norse mythology.
It's OK to call "shell" whatever is seen most of the time when somebody uses a computer. It took me a long time to realize that "explorer.exe" on WindowsXP was responsible not only for the file manager but for the desktop launchers, task manager and many other things. The thing is that a lot of people took in the phrase "shell to DOS" which is a bit confusing. In my experience, it could involve using Turbo C++, and its having to write a swap file to a RAMDISK so I could use the MS-DOS terminal. I was using this on a Tandy computer with very slow Seagate hard disk in the mid-1990's. I've used other language products especially M$QB v4.5 and didn't run into that issue, so I didn't care a lot about "shell to DOS" just as long as I was able to open that terminal. I almost didn't use "SHELL" statement until 32-bit OS and GUI programming which started becoming necessary to get a list of files into a string array, just one example of some BASIC statements becoming outdated at that point.
Aha, yes a file explorer is something we take for granted. I wasn't sure when MS introduced that, DOS v4 eh? I had run DOS on an old 8088 that I found on the curb in NYC in the 90s (back then it was a goldmine if you were into old PCs!) but I only used it to run Ultima 1 before giving it to a friend.
Good times!