DOS users

[Jon Guck]

I know this is'nt mcam related,but

Does anyone know how to print a directory structure to a file in DOS? I.E ,if I have 5 files in a directory,I want to create a text file with those 5 file names listed in it.I've seen this done before,but cannot remember the commands,etc..

 

Thanks

Jon

[Mark H]

I think this is what you want, from a dos window type the following...

dir > test.txt

This will redirect the dir commands output to the text file "test.txt" instead of the screen.

Boy that takes me back a few years

[Jon Guck]

Worked great Mark H

DOS can still do some things Bill Gates

has yet to figure out!

[Bullines]

To add to Mark H's post, you can also force the output directly to a printer, if one is connected to your computer. The DOS command to do this would be:

dir >prn

Wasn't DOS great?

[JAMMAN]

Relatively stable also. I mention missing Dos in several of my posts. Bullines; wasn't IBM first with "pc dos" then Bill copied it and called it "ms dos"? The basic "command.com" was identical IMHO.

[Bullines]

Actually, the first version of DOS, v1.0, was developed by a company called Seattle Computer Products. They sold the rights to DOS to Microsoft. IBM used Microsoft's DOS on their PCs (MS-DOS did not exist yet). IBM found a tonne of bugs in DOS v1.0 from Microsoft decided to rewrite it. This is why PC-DOS is copyrighted to both Microsoft and IBM. Down the road, the two OSs split from each other, but for the most part were essentially the same anyway. And that was today's history lesson

[JAMMAN]

I do know there was one element missing from pcdos that I really liked- a little utility called "MSD". I'd hate to have to sign your paychecks, Bullines. But I'd love to have you on staff!

[Bullines]

MSD.EXE was great. Do you remember the DOS shell that shipped with some IBM PCs (PS/1 models, I think)? It made Windows 1.x and 2.x look pretty bad And then there's Deskview and I could go on for a while about my favourite old DOS apps...

[JAMMAN]

I had an old 486 with win3.11- however I had it boot to "Dir tree" and constructed a menu to load either win3.11, Mastercam 3.2, or autocad R12. Then I left that job and had to give 2 of the three back!

[Mark H]

I remember those apps...

MSD turn into WINMSD, but I think they dropped that with win95.

How about EDLIN, now that was a piece of ...um, work.

[ERIC14779]

OK seeing we are on Memory Lane who remembers Radio Shack Model I computers with the cassette tape player/recorder for data storage ???? and the operating system (BASIC) was burned into a EPROM chip..... And the memory was a whopping 16 Kilobytes yes kilo (1000) bytes you could build a 32 KILO Byte RAM expansion box yourself if you had the electronic skills...

that was in the late 70's thats when I started in computers I was about 10 or 11 years old.. I came home from Radio Shack and told my dad that they had a computer at the store... He did not believe me so I had to take him down to see it... the rest as they say is history...

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

My first computer was either the Timex Sinclair (Ths little jewel plugged into my TV) or the Commodore VIC 20. Both used cassettes for program running and storage. My first program I wrote was a password cruncher written in BASIC. Next was an Epson that used the VALDOCS Operating system. Ahhhh, then came the Kaypro 10, one of the first "portable" computers. Two floppy drives and a WHOPPING 10MB HDD. It would actually convert Apple to "PC" and vise versa.

Man that was a long time ago.

Thanks for the trip down memory lane.

[JAMMAN]

Woa James, I didn't want to mention my sinclair. Black and white only. I only had a vic20 for a couple of days then needed more power. I latched up with a c64SX which was the "executive" model with a 5" color monitor attached. I still have it.

I even had the expansion module that upgraded the language to "cbm basic v2" and added several useful commands. Remember the game crackout?

You don't look that old. Unless you are the one on the right- then you REALLY dont look that old.

[ 11-10-2001: Message edited by: JAMMAN ]

[Bullines]

How about the cassette drive for the Atari 2600? Nothing like waiting 10 minutes for a game to load. That's the way it was back then and we liked it 'cause it was good clean fun [in the voice of Dana Carvey's Grumpy Old Man character from SNL]

[Simtech]

Hey guys,

Since we are in memory lane. Wouldn't you think that from way back then, someone could have created a "STANDARD" black box that would contain the different elements that fit into a computer and just have to replace items as the technology grew.

I mean I'm looking at all my old computer casings, screens, and power supplys and keyboards and mouses and I'm saying to myself ... so this is engineering???

Make something always very unique so that interchangeability is a thing of the past.

Hum, I think I've bought over the years a few hundred pounds of computer equipement that is probably filling up some dump site somewhere.

What a waste of money and ressources.

I heard a while back that they were looking into leasing out software from ISP providers and users would no longer have to configure video cards, memory, CPU's and the works. You would pay an annual fee or a fee vs usage to use the software needed and the configuring part of it would be the responsibility of the software manufacturer themselves.

Hook up to www.mastercamV9.com and use Mastercam for a fee. Best configuration available in the world for the software, our computers would become terminals and storage space for files. Thats it!

Wouldn't this get rid of DOS, Win3.0,3.1,3.11,95,98,2000,XP,NT and whatever dear Bill whats to come up with?

Sorry, it's saturday morning and I've just spent too much time again setting up a new computer AGAIN and going thru the configuring nightmare ...

Have a nice weekend all!

Luc

[Bullines]

Ah, the thin client and ASP ideas. Both have thier pros and cons. On the one hand, something like Luc's idea would be great because you wouldn't have to worry about software/hardware upgrades. On the other hand, a lot of people like the idea of owning their software and not leasing it. I guess the first real litmus test of this idea will come with Microsoft's .NET idea, which won't be available to developers until next year and to consumers until the next version of Windows. Time will tell if something like www.mastercamv9.com will become a reality.

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

Supposedly there is already a CAD/CAM ASP out there. Don't know how it works, but I'm kind of skeptical due to the very nature of CAD/CAM Software. It(CAD/CAM) seems to need a fairly high horsepower box to run 3D stuff efficiently. Can you imagin what kind of horsepower a box would need to run like 50 or 60 SIMULTANEOUS hardcore 3D Surfacing Toolpaths? I'm thinking(more lik edreaming) about that box I was drooling over in the Micro Times rag a few months ago. 48 CPU's, , 16GB RAM (I think) . It was meant for HUGE Databases. I'd like to run that Puppy,!!!!!