Navigating in MSDOS

Weasel · Post by **Weasel** » Thu Mar 11, 2004 8:44 am

A question that is most likely simple for the computer people. My time in computers has all been spent using "windows" with no thought to Dos.

Booting from the floppy (Game Boot disk) I have figured out how to swap directories...

example

a:\ (just imput) e: (or whichever harddrive I have the game installed in. c: , d: , f: , ect...)

Once I get the prompt though (E: ) my problems start. Having only one file in the whole drive, (Games) and having the game installed in a folder (example Weasel Game) inside the (Game) folder I tried to start the game.

Example. E:Games\Weasel Games\Weasel.exe

I get Bad Command line at this point. Any idea what I'm doing wrong?

Xandax · Post by **Xandax** » Thu Mar 11, 2004 10:10 am

The dos command for changing directories is "cd". (short for change directory)

So to change from your root (x:\) to games would be
cd games.

In your example it would then be

cd games\weasel games

Then you can type the command
weasel.exe

To change from a directory and "upwards" in the hiraky you can use two periods ..

So if you are in directory x:\games\weasel games and want to go to games, typing cd .. will change it to x:\games

cd \ will return you to the root of the drive (x:\)

Weasel · Post by **Weasel** » Thu Mar 11, 2004 12:44 pm

Thanks for the help Xandax

I also found out you can only have some many letters in the folder name as well.

DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD will not work....

where as

DDDDD will.

Ned Flanders · Post by **Ned Flanders** » Thu Mar 11, 2004 1:24 pm

Yes weasel, that the 8.3 nomenclature of the dos environment. 8 for the number of characters allowed in a file and 3 for the file extension. For example, if your exe file was theweasel666.exe, it would condense to thewease~1.exe The ~1 is the standard add-on for over 8 characters in a file name. If multiple files were to use thewease~x, the x would go up by 1 for each file encountered. Make sense, doesn't really matter anyway, does it? Just can't let a thread about DOS go without chiming in my own two cents.

KidD01 · Post by **KidD01** » Wed Mar 17, 2004 1:40 pm

Oh yeah the good old MS-DOS & IBM-DOS days.

No blue screen of death or that kernel 32 errors - Well for those who wonder what's DOS is keep in mind the DOS mention here is Disk Operationg System not the "other DOS" ya think.

Weasel, WB anyway

U can find more DOS commands on :
http://www.cs.unca.edu/~jkdawg/help/msdos.html
http://www.vfrazee.com/ms-dos/6.22/help/

Hope it helps