[4DOS.INFO]

DOS (all flavours)

This is my links farm for general "vanilla" DOS and batch programming related material: Usenet groups, file collections, personal web pages and related programs...

Listings are mostly in alphabetical order, no ranking intended.

Links that seem to be dead.

Topics

  DOS Batch Magazines     DOS Batch Basics      DOS Batch Newsgroups   

  DOS Batch Help Sites      DOS Batch FAQs   

 Batch & DOS Related File Collections       Personal Homepages      Web Rings 

DOS Batch related Magazines

• Timeless Computing Magazine  is a new (July 2010)print magazine that focuses on
  older PCs and relevant operating systems, including DOS and PC/GEOS

DOS Batch Basics

Some foundation laying first:

• Wikipedia DOS         is the starting point today for most questions. this deals with DOS in all flavours and supercedes most other links here.
• Wikipedia other OS    Info about other Operating Systems
• MS-DOS: a definition  FOLDOC (Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing) definition... :-)
• MS-DOS Summary        What is DOS? Memory map, books...
• MS-DOS Version Info   Short MS-DOS Version history
• MS-Support            Microsoft has stopped supporting DOS and taken most pages, tools and knowledge base articles off their servers. On this page, you can search the few remaining KB articles dealing in some way with DOS.
• Books about DOS       List of available books about DOS from Amazon.
• Books about Win CL    List of books about the Windows command line
• Neal Stephenson       In the beginning was the command line, by Neal Stephenson. Download here.

DOS Batch Newsgroups

A good place to get help by knowledgeable people is the Usenet. Here are many DOS- and batch-related newsgroups, and people are glad to help as long as you post your question in the relevant newsgroup. Note that Google Groups or News-Reader.org allows you to read all Usenet groups and older messages in case they are not found on your provider's news server.  

Usenet can be a lively place, so be prepared: a necessary resource not to be without here is found at Flame Warriors Home and Andrew Heenan's Guide to Flaming. Also take a look at the Jargon File if unsure about the slang being used.

• alt.msdos             Usenet Group: MS-DOS and batch discussions and help
• alt.msdos.batch       Usenet Group: DOS batch discussions and help.
• alt.msdos.programmer  Usenet Group: General DOS programmer's  discussions and help, much batch related material.
• alt.msdos.batch.nt    Usenet group: NT batch discussions and help.
• comp.os.msdos.4dos    Usenet group. 4DOS discussions
• comp.os.msdos.misc    Usenet Group: General DOS problems.
• comp.os.msdos.programmer  Usenet Group: General DOS programmer's  discussions and help, much batch related material.
• comp.unix.dos-under-unix  Usenet Group: DOS emulation under Unix
• de.comp.os.msdos      German Usenet Group: DOS and batch problems
• ger.pc.dos            German Usenet Group: DOS and batch problems
• microsoft.public.win3x_wfw_dos     Usenet Group: DOS problems under Win3.nn and Windows for Workgroups.
• ms.public.win2000.cmdprompt.admin  Usenet group: NT5 command line problems.

There are a few Internet forums, too, and mailing lists:

• Batch World (Yahoo eGroup)  A batch oriented mailing list. You have to register to participate. They have a (small) file area (members only) for utils written by members.
• Computing Net´sHelp Forum   DOS and other OS´s help fora.
• Deutsches DOS Forum   German DOS forum, managed by T. Antonis.
• DR DOS Forum          German (unofficial) DR-DOS forum, managed by C. Fuchs
• FidoNet Echomail      Read the FidoNet echomails. There are echos for DOS/Internet and 4DOS, as well as some popular applications.

DOS Batch Help Sites

• Admini               German batch tutorial and info
• Batch f. Einsteiger  German tutorial: BATCH für Einsteiger, erschienen im FIDO-Echo BATCH.GER, 1994 by Horst Schaeffer
• Bookcase             Lots of DOS apps and tools.
• CKNOW                Microcomputer and DOS Tutorial by Computer Knowledge
• Compulink Support    List of DOS error codes and their meaning. Another good source is here.
• Computer Hope        DOS command help, batch file info and batch help, a very complete and useful site by Computer Hope
• Computing Net        Still active DOS help forum.
• Dynamic Directory    Extensive link list for DOS in general, batch questions, FAQs, tutorials etc. Search for "DOS". By MaximumEdge
• EasyDOS              DOS command help, active forum. By Everett Murdock
• FAQTS                FAQTs.com is not very useful any longer for DOS topics.
• HelpFixMyPC          DOS command help. Sparse.
• i24.com              German site: tips and tricks, programs, IDEs and more for DOS and Windows. By Stephen Großklaß and Daniel Hauke, last updated 2001
• Kilowatt Software    offers Poof (135 command line utils) and more. Go and see!
• LabMice.net          has a Batch File Command Reference for Windows 2000. They want you to register first :-(
• Lame Industries      has a lot of tutorials. Relevant here are DOS Tutorial and A Power User's DOS. At this time only reachable through the Wayback Machine, but promising to be back...
• LDP                  The Linux Documentation Project has a few tips for "Converting DOS Batch Files to Shell Scripts". - by Mendel Cooper
• Learnthat            DOS tutorials. Not very useful any longer.
• Microsoft            MS on using batch files under Win XP. A XP command line reference from A-Z is here, additional commands for Windows Server 2003 are here.
• MUF17 MUF16 MUF15    Microsoft's  Undocumented "Features", a Batpower generated list, and other useful DOS information in these collections.
• Nukesoft.co.uk       DOS command reference, history, tools...
• Open Directory       Extensive link list for DOS in general, batch questions, FAQs, tutorials etc.
• PCXT-Micro           DOS utilities, tools and command help for people who are new to computing and would like to gain some knowledge of command line functions and the ability to create batch files for DOS and Windows based environments.
• ss64                 A guide to Windows XP CMD commands, also Powershell, BASH, Oracle 8i and SQL Server. - by Simon Sheppard
• Technet Archive      Microsoft Technet Archive, for older contents that is still of interest to some users... Articles and downloads.
• TechTutorials        Links to several good DOS batch tutorials.
• The Useful Site      DOS help, utils, links. Gone, see Archive.org.

DOS Batch FAQs

• T. Antonis' FAQs     Seven german DOS and Batch tutorials plus batch examples
• FIDO BatchFAQ        Download the official BatchFAQ from the FIDO BATPOWER echo.
• T. Salmi's BATFAQ    Prof. T. Salmi's BatFAQ is often referred to in the alt.masdos.batch usenet group. Many batch, Pascal and AWK solutions for batch problems. Each new version has a new name, so download from the ftp site, look for TSBAT??.zip. See my 4DOS FAQ answer to this here.
• Programmers FAQ      Huge 5-part FAQ with code, sources and links for all aspects of DOS life from the usenet group alt.msdos.programmers
• DOS FAQ              Another DOS FAQ by Christoph Fuchs
• FreeDOS DOS FAQs     Links to several FAQs and comparisons. Not available?
• Windows IT Pro FAQs  Lots of batch and scripting related FAQs by John Savill
• Win32 Scripting      FAQs, COM objects, scripts for all flavours of Win32 scripting. Nicely designed site! By C. Washington (?)

Batch and DOS Related File Collections

These links are by what seems to be mostly company sites...

• BBS Files            FIDO and freeware files of the old Fido BBSs (Bulletin Board Systems).
• BFDS Files           FIDO Batch File Distribution System: lots of batch utils and tools collected by the time-honored FIDO Batchpower group.
• CNET DOS Downloads   Mainly demos of old DOS games now.
• Cyberia              Interesting collection of DOS software, with a few german programs.
• DOSWARE.DE           German site with a collection of interesting shareware and freeware tools
• Externet             A mirror of the SAC FTP server. Collection of useful utilities. This one´s from Hungary.
• FAQS.ORG            Immense list of anonymous FTP sites with content descriptions. Try this if all else fails :-)
• Garbo PC collection One of the biggest and most useful PC file collections at the university of Vaasa
• GDS                  Goodie Domain Service Open Source Software collection.
• Kostis               Batch helpers, network tools, character table tools... (German page)
• MetaCollection       Good link collection for DOS and batching with much overlap to this site :-)
•  
• NFBnet               The National Federation of the Blind has a huge file collection of interest not only to the blind.
• PC-Tools.net         DOS Freeware and batch utilities.
• Powerload            DOS Resources download at the Oldfiles Network
• Pricelessware        The best of the best in Freeware as determined by the readers of alt.comp.freeware with a few DOS progs. No longer maintained.
• Rinet FTP Server     Huge repository of useful DOS progs and games in the msdos/ directory.
• Simtel collection    Another huge and venerable collection of DOS freeware and batch utilities. Sadly Simtel has become very slow and riddled with ads. Much more useful and faster is access via mirror of their FTP server.
• Short.Stop           Reviews, descriptions, links to 1000+ DOS programs (no games). Freeware and free-for-private-use shareware listed. See here for still more DOS programs.
• Slovak Antivir C.    Homepage of the Slovak Antivirus Center (SAC), non-commercial project of AVIR and ESET companies. You can find here the latest shareware and freeware programs from the collection on the SAC FTP server.

Personal Homepages

...while these links seem to be mostly by interested individuals. The distinction isn't always easy and may be in error in some cases. This section has the most dropouts, not so surprisingly.

• William+Linda Allen   Interactive batch course. Excellent.
• Charles Angelich      DOS, the ghost in the machine: various DOS flavours, downloads, freeware, links... Awesome site by a true believer.
• Thomas Antonis        Excellent german site with tutorials, FAQs, downloads, links, forum and more. Also recommended for Quick Basic interests.
• Axcel216              MS-DOS "secrets", tools, links...
• Axel Beckert          A great german collection of useful DOS Software and links.
• Richard Bonner        Great site from one of the last remaining active fans: batch tutorial (from Dr. DOS Betamax), tips, links, examples, relevant literature incl. magazines, Dos related stuff incl. humour, ... Recommended!
• George Campbell       DOS info, faqs, tutorials, help for the students of the Dakota State University
• Mendel Cooper         Converting DOS batch to Unix bash shell scripts
• Ted Davis             Shell scripts on the PC: DOS batch, NT scripting and more
• Norman L. DeForest    A list of useful batch and utility tips
• Dirk van Deun         A TSR that provides copy/paste in DOS and a library for object-oriented Batch programming
• Charles Dye           A small freeware list
• Laura Fairhead        A nearly unreadable (thanks to idiosyncratic colour choices) site with really breathtaking DOS batches
• Vincent Fatica        Some utilities for NT. Mirror here.
• Jason Faulkner        is admin of OldOS.Org. Old OS retells the origins of DOS and other operating systems, has some downloads and how-tos, several forums.
• Markus Fischer        German DOS installation guide, command overview, 1st steps in batch programming...
• Vernon Frazee         Batch file programming links and files and MS-DOS 6.22 help
• Brian Friesen         Useful 16 and 32 bit console batch helpers
• Hermann Fritz         Batch programnming: some undocumented features and 2 pages of ingenious batch files.
• Christoph Fuchs       Unofficial DR-DOS resources with downloads, links to fora etc.
• Olaf Gobruen          The World of DOS, batch writing Tutorials for DOS and other script languages, Boolean Logic, and more.
• Fran Golden           Tutorial on how to use DEBUG.EXE
• Dan Gookin            is the guy who wrote DOS for Dummies. Here are the disks that were included in his other books:
  • Advanced Ms-Dos Batch File Programming: External commands and utils for batch programming
  • Enhanced Batch File Programming: the second edition archive works whether you have the first or second edition of the book. In a nutshell,the archive contains more interesting DOS utilities than the Advanced book's archive, plus a few batch file compiling utilities. Nifty, huh?
  • MS-DOS to the Max: a handful of interesting DOS utilites, batch files, plus the AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS Wizard programs. Pretty keen, really.
  • The Concise PC Notebook and Laptop User's Guide: Cool DOS programs for older laptops. Note that many programs are out-of-date and may not be compatible with today's laptops.
• Bruce Guthrie         A number of command line utils like AV, BFIND, CHANGE, CONVERT, COPSINCE, DATES, DIRCOMP, DIRTOTAL, EUMAIL, FILL, FILUPDAT, FIXTEXT, FORTUNE, HTMSTRIP, PAGINATE, READ, READY, READINIT and TXTABLE. Free for personal use.
• Henrik Haftmann       Interesting german freeware site with lots of proggies for DOS, programmers and a few Windows utilities.
• Steve Hardy           NT / Win 2000 scripting
• Russel D. Hoffmann    "Unauthorized and Unsanctioned Net Guide to DOS". A nice tutorial.
• Marcus Houlden        Marcus' Nukesoft website features a DOS command reference, some utilities and a DOS version listing.
• Jason Hood            DOS and Win32 command line tools
• Mitchell A. Hoselton  10-part batch text tutorial, batch file utility package
• Paul Hsieh            Batch links, DOS progs etc.
• Kevtronics            Text file of undocumented DOS commands and switches.
• Burkhard Kirste       German basic DOS tutorial
• K. Phillips Konn      DOS Solutions, a very comprehensive link farm similar to this one :-)
• Theodor Lauppert      Return to DOS. A small DOS overview with a few downloads
• Tom Lavedas           Batch tips 'n tricks for DOS by a master. His newer site for scripting is here.
• Ritchie Lawrence      Batch function library and utilities
• Benjamin David Lunt   Programming DOS with power: batch writing, undocumented DOS, Dos secrets, and NewBasic, a compiler / interpreter / assembler for DOS.
• Andrew Malek          The Malek Tips, general DOS hints and help.
• Craig McFetridge      How to make DOS menus
• Prashant N. Mhatre    Another quite ambitious DOS link list
• Ashley J.S. Mills     Introduction to Win32 shell scripting.
• Dave Navarro          Very useful command line tools, now found on Sharetool.com
• Terry Newton          Batch FAQ and batch related stuff, Batch Guide 
• Matthias Paul         German and english: DOS and 4DOS Resources, a huge tip collection and some of his programs.
• Benny Pedersen        A very complete help system for all DOS commands plus other batch help and utils, links,
• Eric Phelps           Windows 95 / DOS 7 batch  tips and tricks, examples etc.
• Leonardo Pignataro    Batch FAQ, simple and advanced, tips, edlin. Mirror here.
• RazTK                 Some interesting looking batch files on a site that looks a little sinister..., but the exe-files are only archives, and help texts seem to be hebrew :-(
• Gerd Roethig          German step by step howto for using a Windows/Linux net under DOS
• Clay Ruth             Another useful batch site
• Paul R. Sadowski      Some nifty command line utility programs
• Timo Salmi            Very comprehensive list of useful links
• Mike Sandells         Tutorial "Overview of Modular Batch Files".
• Horst Schaeffer       Famous german batch utils
• Frank-Peter Schultze  Batch collection, german howto, bookmarks, downloads, forums and Ultraedit syntax highlight code.
• Simon Sheppard        An A-Z Index of the Windows NT command line.
• Uwe Sieber            Utilities, drivers, tools for DOS and Windows and nice new DOS fonts here.
• Laurence Soucy        Batfiles: The DOS batch file programming handbook & tutorial plus tips and tools and an awesome linklist.
• Marc Stern            MS-Dos batch file tips and tricks, plus a few other useful links by the author of XSET, a tool to put info into environment variables.
• Bill Stewart          Windows Admin Script Tools is a set of utilities that to assist Windows system administrators with support for the legacy platform. Also a set of Batch Script Tools and miscellaneous other tools.

• John R. Stockton     Several useful pages:

  • Batch files

  • Batch programs

  • Batch introduction

  and some tools, all in a strange color and layout scheme :-)

• Mark D. Stotzer      Windows, Dos and Mac help. DOS memory optimization tips.
• Gerhard Strangar      Useful DOS tool, eg. NOOFF.COM (prevent Windows 9x from turning off power after shutdown) and VBEHZ 2.22 which allows you to set your own refresh rates for DOS-progs that use VESA Video Modes.
• Dev A.Teelucksingh    "Dave Central", lots of links to interesting DOS programs
• W+M Thelen            Nice DOS command help on the "Thelen Channel".
• Claus Tøndering       Everything and more than you ever wanted to know about calendars. Useful if you`re into programming these things.
• Michael E. Valdez     Basic batch file tutorial in PDF format.
• Bob Watson            Very complete help system for all MS-DOS 7 commands, drivers etc. Later maintained by Laurence Soucy.
• Wendos               Wengier's (author of DOS 7.10) interesting file and OS collection. Many versions of DOS, Miniwin, languages, tools, many of them hard to find, on this Chinese website by the author of Wengier DOS. Use Google's translation to get the fist of that site :-)
• Rob van der Woude     Batch tips 'n tricks and examples, regular expressions, WSH etc. Rob also has a Wiki entry for Command.com here.
• John Zanette          The System Guard / Booming or fuming? Basically interesting site with over-the-edge hysterical-sounding religious overtones. Some cross-system batch scripts seemingly written by someone continually in overdrive :-)

Web Rings

Webrings were a fad for a time, but not any longer. Small wonder some seem to be in disrepair...

• DOS Internet Webring   Off-topic sites, broken links...
• DOS Games Ring         This webring claims to contain the best sites about DOS games. Includes 16 sites.
• DOSNET                 This ring is not for a special DOS like FreeDOS or DR-DOS, it's for all DOS - related sites out in the web. Includes 41 sites.
• FIDONET WWWebring      Fidonet is the first and largest amateur dialup BBS network in the world! The Fidonet webring is open to active Fidonet sysops listed in the nodelist, points, ans BBS software authors and support sites. Sites must contain directly relevant Fidonet or BBS information. Includes 46 sites.
• Abandonware Ring       Good place to start looking for that old game or app you remember from way back. Includes 57 sites.
• Oldfiles Network       Collection of old DOS, Windows and PC sites, e. g. Lightspeeds reference page.

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