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Comment by Tekker | Hacker News Reader

I have Windows 7 and still work in the DOS box daily. First tried DOS 1.0, have been using it consistently since 3.0, and it really took off after 5.0 (was a beta tester for DOS 5.0). Can't imagine functioning in Windows without DOS/command prompt, although I know it sucks, functionality-wise compared to Linux command shell.

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I could be wrong, but I think the command prompt (cmd.exe) is just a command shell sitting on windows SDK calls. There's lots of the DOS-typical commands still in there, but its not DOS as such.

This gets tricky. In windows 7 32-bit, you'll have cmd.exe and a DOS execution environment which will run a lot of actual DOS binaries. It's not as great or flexible as DOSBox because it can't give you access to actual (or simulated) hardware, which a lot of DOS programs demand, but it works for many things.

In windows 7 64-bit, you've got cmd.exe but no execution of DOS binaries (or win16 binaries, for that matter). Since you're almost always better off with DOSBox or the XP virtual environment, no great loss.

That's not really DOS, but the command-line (shell). A little geek cries in me, everytime coworker calls it DOS (I loved the DOS back in the days... Anyone remmember unreal mode, DOS4GW, Quemm, Process Killer, etc.)

You bet... Wacom C++, Softice, etc. Good old days but I have even more nostalgia for AmigaOS and the C64 ; )

I highly recommend Cygwin, which will give you a "proper" bash shell in Windows.

Also, Console2 makes working with the cmd prompt slightly more bearable (easier copy and paste etc).

As much as I don't want to, I think I need to point out that Cygwin has been so much of a bother to me that I now find it more convenient to just install Linux inside Virtual Box as a better free alternative. Cygwin was good before all these virtualization tools became so available, but now I find it incredibly frustrating and lacking compared to a traditional Linux OS, which is easily accessible now from a Windows environment.

EDIT: Console2 is nice, though. I can get behind that.

A VM doesn't let you use unix tools to operate on your Windows filesystem, which is my main reason for installing cygwin.

You can mount your Windows file system either through Samba or VirtualBox's shared folders feature.

I do agree, Cygwin is a nice fallback position though. Eg I can't use a Linux VM here at work because my local PC has bugger all memory and besides, their security policy won't allow it. (Don't try and apply logic, it's a megacorp).

I use cygwin but with FAR Commander (midnight commander-like app for the console mode of Windows). Sometimes I use it under the CMD.exe shell, but I have an additional one that uses the /bin/bash.exe as one (from cygwin).

I recommend ConEmu over Console2. It has tabs and lets me do fullscreen.

As someone so experienced with DOS, may I ask you something: Which script interpreters do you run from it? Is it sane for doing python development for example? And how do you glue that stuff together, using batch files? Isn't that ugly as hell?

One thing that I've come so accustomed to in unix environments is the ease of creating CLI tools in a nice language like python and then glue it all together with bash scripts. I can't really imagine being so productive in DOS, but maybe I just don't know it enough, hence the question.

It isn't DOS, DOS was an operating system. You're probably thinking of the Windows Command prompt, with a shell that is a descendant of command.com.

To your question, it is just as easy to write console Python tools in Windows as it is under Unix. I've written quite a few work on both.

Glue scripts (Batch files) are just fine too, as long as you don't try to do too much with them. When something gets too complex, move that part to Python, or really any language you like. To be honest I like that, I'd prefer people not write complex things in shell scripts that could be done more elegantly in a programming language.

For anything more serious than the occasional ipconfig, you should go ahead and download Powershell.

(Disclaimer: not the OP)

If you enjoy Unix shells, you will probably hate PowerShell. I use a bunch of GNU utilities compiled for Windows that are probably about ten years old. Cygwin is too much effort for an unnatural feeling environment and PowerShell was designed by people who may have been exposed to harmful influences such as the VAX DCL.

> DCL

Sadly, DCL had (some) use beyond VMS: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIGITAL_Command_Language

You should try powershell. It's a much better windows terminal, included with win7.

I can't wait for a *nix shell to pipe objects around, instead of text.

You already can. Shell redirection just connects file descriptors - they don't need to be text files.

Maybe what you mean, is you want a terminal that can display a number of well-know content-types, negotiate with an upstream process for the content, receive that as a stream of bytes, for display to the user. :)

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