From DOS to the golden age of Windows

Travelling back in time

Those of us who grew up with computers have witnessed great change: from the hulking tower PCs of yore to the pocket-sized smartphones of today and from blinking green screen cursors to 4K graphical displays.

For those old enough to remember wrestling with a command line or battling Windows' blue screen of death, it's never been easier to relive those early memories of computing.

These virtual trips down memory lane come courtesy of emulators that run directly in the web browser: offering the chance to experience everything from the birth of personal computing in the early 1980s to the golden age of Windows in the late 1990s.

Here are some of the classic operating systems you can run in your browser...


Read more: From DOS to the golden age of Windows: The classic operating systems you can run in the browser - TechRepublic
 
Some things just never die...... like good ol' DOS. I use it every day in batch files, to do repetitive tasks, that help me to maintain my PC, and back up my data.

And, I use it on my Boot Disk from which I run GHOST 11.5, (the last DOS version of the program) my backup program of choice.

But the history of computing certainly didn't start with the PC..... that only came after years and years of computers that would fill a large size room, and even heat a multi-story building, during an Iowa winter. Those were what I started out repairing, way, way back.
Remember those vacuum tubes, and VTVOM's ? And the first hard disk I ever set up, had to be adjusted using an O'Scope.
Today, the SSD technology takes us away from mechanical hard drives, with moving parts that can wear out.
But, even on my SSD, there are several DOS batch files that I use every day.

Ah, the good ol' days! :geek:

:cool:
 
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My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Win-8.1/Pro/64
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Acer X-1200
    CPU
    AMD 2 Core
    Motherboard
    Acer
    Memory
    Crucial, 4GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    NVIDEA GeForce 9200
    Sound Card
    On Board
    Monitor(s) Displays
    24" Acer
    Hard Drives
    Sandisk, SSD 500GB
    PSU
    Acer
    Case
    SFF Slimline
    Keyboard
    emachines 101 key
    Mouse
    Logitech Wireless
    Internet Speed
    5 Meg
    Browser
    Firefox
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender
    Other Info
    Using Classic Shell on Win-8.1 /pro/64
I kinda miss the early to mid 90s, taking programming classes at college and many of the labs had 386 and 486 computers with MS-DOS 6.2 and some sort of Borland editor and compiler. I love the different ANSI colours of text on the screen (especially purples and blues)
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 x64 Professional
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    HP xw8600 Workstation
    CPU
    Two Intel Xeon Core2 Quad 3.2 GHz Processors
    Motherboard
    Proprietary
    Memory
    16 GB DDR2 800 MHz
    Graphics Card(s)
    nVidia Quadro FX 3800 PCI-E
    Sound Card
    Realtek HD Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Samsung SyncMaster 213T 21" 4x3 Flat Screen
    Screen Resolution
    1600x1200
    Hard Drives
    Two Seagate Cheetah 300 GB SAS Disks
    PSU
    Proprietary
    Case
    HP xw8600 Workstation Case
    Cooling
    Two CPU Fans and a Larger Case Fan
    Keyboard
    PS/2 Keyboard
    Mouse
    Logitech USB Optical Mouse
    Internet Speed
    7 mbps
    Browser
    Firefox ESR 102
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender
    Other Info
    Two LSI 3000 SAS Adapters
Ah yes! Good ol' Ansi Colors. Way back in the 70's, I knew how to write a batch file and make a text menu, but it was a Bank President who showed me how to incorporate Ansi Colors into my menus.

Here's the text menu for my old (DOS) ME Utilities disk. Each number is the name of a batch file that runs the appropriate program. That disk has gone through many updates, from the ME days, till now, but I still use it often, more out of nostalgia than necessity.


With escape codes, you could also create a stair-stepped menu. It was a lot of fun, that the new guys today will never experience.
MS Windows killed the creativity of most PC operators.
When I taught "Basic Computer Concepts" years ago, it was all DOS and Ansi basics.

Technically, we still have DOS today....because D.O.S. does stand for "Disk Operating System" and what is Windows, but a D.O.S., with a GUI sitting on top of it. The GUI's change from one version of Windows to the next, but the underlying D.O.S. pretty much remains the same.

Happy Computing!
TechnoMage :cool:
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Win-8.1/Pro/64
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Acer X-1200
    CPU
    AMD 2 Core
    Motherboard
    Acer
    Memory
    Crucial, 4GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    NVIDEA GeForce 9200
    Sound Card
    On Board
    Monitor(s) Displays
    24" Acer
    Hard Drives
    Sandisk, SSD 500GB
    PSU
    Acer
    Case
    SFF Slimline
    Keyboard
    emachines 101 key
    Mouse
    Logitech Wireless
    Internet Speed
    5 Meg
    Browser
    Firefox
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender
    Other Info
    Using Classic Shell on Win-8.1 /pro/64
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