 The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group Helping the Novice Get The First Screen Tom Coleman |
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This discussion is aimed at the novice. Not the person who has a low opinion of their computing knowledge but the honest to goodness beginner who may not even know where the big red switch is.
Regardless of what you know about computers it is frustrating to have someone come up, perform some feat of magic and leave you with know idea of what they did. The problem with being a new starter is that everyone can perform the magic except you.
Here are a few rules to keep you from having to ask the magicians the simple questions.
"Most of your problems are caused by a malfunction of your digital input devices. Your primary interfacing connections lack a communication protocol or parity check and rely on the optical interface of the primary output device to initiate corrective feedback."
What this means is that you make typos or enter the commands incorrectly.
The caps on the keyboard are made of a material that has the ability to accumulate computing knowledge. This can be absorbed through the tips of your fingers by tapping them on the keys. From here it flows along the arms and directly through to the brain.
However there is a reverse flow of assumptions which has the effect of blocking the flow of knowledge at the fingertip. As long as there is a supply of assumption, knowledge absorption is inhibited. In some cases a build up of assumptions causes paralysis of the fingers and hand muscles. This leads to inability to press keys and/or inability to recognize which key has been pressed.
Computing knowledge and assumption will, if brought into direct contact neutralize each other resulting in an situation where the operator no longer knows anything. The by-products of this are toxins that destroy self esteem.
This means that DOS commands mean what DOS commands mean. Not what you would like them to mean and certainly not what you assume they mean. The computer is not at fault because you would like a different outcome.
To reduce the effects of assumptions it may be necessary to use an alternative input device. There are a number of these excellent ROM devices available. They are accessed via the optical interface. Information is stored in a format that uses a variable length byte with various combinations of 26 different bits plus a number of protocol and data formatting bits. It is usually laid down on a vegetable based substrate but a number of electronic devices produce acceptable replicas.
The practice of transmitting this code over short distances by compression waves using a gas as the medium is well understood and in wide use in a variety of disciplines. Electronic enhancement of this signal is also very effective.
This means when you get stuck, have a look in a book or talk to some one.
There are thousands of ways of getting it wrong. There is only one way of getting it right. You do not learn by your mistakes, you learn by getting it right. It takes too long to make all the mistakes and is too discouraging anyway.
To assist the beginner, the first part of the interface has been prepared. In this case the signal has been coded in the traditional manner onto a vegetable based substrate, a sample of which is illustrated below.
DOS uses spaces to separate items. Except in a very few cases DOS does not care how many spaces you put in. So
COPY *.* A:
is the same as
COPY *.* A:
It is quite obvious the word FOR and the word MAT have no relationship. It would be difficult to get the two words together in a single sentence in that order. Now the word FORMAT is a useful
word. The sentence
FORMAT A DISK IN A:
makes sense.
But
FOR MAT THE DISK IN DRIVE A:
is nonsense. It is utter gibberish.
It might be that you are smart enough to realize that the space is a typing error but it is an invalid assumption to think that the computer is as smart.
All computers are as thick as two planks.
There are no spaces in a file name or a filespec.
If you type in COPY COMMAND COM A: it will fall over.
DOS regards spaces as separators. Each item on the command line is separated by a space. Each item separated by a space is regarded as a separate item.
The first item (read word) on the command line is a command.
Thus
TYPE AUTOEXEC.BAT
means to execute the TYPE command. The rest of the line, AUTOEXEC.BAT, is what the command, TYPE, is to use.
If you wanted to be nice to your computer and typed
HAVE A NICE DAY
DOS would go off looking to find a command HAVE. It would look in the environment and in
COMMAND.COM in memory first, looking for internal commands. If HAVE is not there (it will not be in COMMAND.COM and probably not in the environment either) then it will look first for a file with a .COM extension in the current drive/directory. If it does not find HAVE.COM then it goes looking for an .EXE file and then for a .BAT Me.
Assuming it hasn't been found, DOS then goes and looks at the PATH in the environment and searches for
HAVE.COM, then .EXE, and then .BAT in each directory in the PATH.
Finally having run out of places to look it says
Bad Command or Filename
Not many computers have an executable file called HAVE.anythtng.
Remember the first thing on the command line is a command. Your intention was to be polite but computers lack social graces. Greetings are not executable nor are anything but commands.
To summarize and emphasize. If the first thing on the command line is not a command it will fail. I will rephrase, The first thing on the command line must be a COMMAND.
The only commands DOS knows about are either the internal commands such as DIR, TYPE, COPY and so on and the external commands which are the files with a .COM, .EXE or .BAT extension.
ALL other files contain information only and need to be read or acted upon by a command. They contain no instructions and cannot be used alone.
Some commands get upset by leading spaces so the general rule is no leading spaces on the command line.
You may not think that there is much difference between / and \. You are pretty much alone in your opinion.
The admonition RTFM (Read the flaming manual) or RTFI (Read the
flaming instructions), depending on which branch of the services you were in, is paramount. If the book says the command is
COPY C*.* A:
that is what you must type. Non of the following will work.
Copyc*.*A:
Copy ** A:
Copy *.*A:
Copy *.* A;
Strangely enough this will
cOpY *.* a:
DOS is not case sensitive. A few DOS commands are case sensitive about parameters.
You can type anything you like on the command line and nothing will happen unless you press the ENTER key.
The enter key means DO THIS. Unless you press it nothing will happen. When you press the enter key whatever is on the command line gets done.
The command DIR is the one that lists the files. Often there are too many files to $t on the screen so you must find a way of reorganizing them into a more visually acceptable sequence.
DIR/W lists the filenames across the screen
DIR/P lists the files one screen at a time.
An asterisk in a filename means that anything will do here.
DIR *.DOC would fist all the files with a DOC extension.
DIR T*.* would list all the files that start with T
Here is a useful one.
DIR *.
lists all the files without an extension, which usually includes all the subdirectorIes.
The following does not work in D0S. (Other operating systems, like Unix, can make some sort of sense of it.)
DIR *D*
It appears to be looking for files that end with a D but the asterisk picks up everything regardless of the ending and the D is ignored.
Finally you will escape from the command line by firing up a program. Any program It could be Lotus 1-2-3 or Paradox or WordPerfect These programs do not always continually display the keystrokes appropriate to whatever you want to do next. To discover what options are available you need to call up Help or drop down a menu or display arrange of options. This is usually done with a keystroke, such as F10 in Paradox
Many programs display the range of choices available and the keys to access those choices.
Generally the information you want is on screen or just a keystroke away. All you have to do is to read it.
I repeat: A lot of the help you want is on the screen if you will only look at it and then read it
Reprinted from the Jan/Feb 1992 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
