pjd@cwruecmp.UUCP (dr. funk) (05/17/86)
From the Rock'n'Roll city -- Product: DOS Shell Developer: MichTron, Inc. Address: 576 S. Telegraph, Pontiac, Michigan 48053 Phone: (313) 334-5700 Price: $39.95 (list) $25.00 (discount) This program is an MS-DOS shell. Supported commands are ? (help,) cls, chkdsk, date, time, ver, verify, path, run (to start GEM programs), exit, dir, copy, del, rename, type, chdir, mkdir, rmdir, path, tree, vol, prompt and set. Batch files are supported with the commands echo, goto, if, pause, remark and shift. Batch command file arguments are permitted using the "%1 %2 ..." convention. Conditions allowed in a batch if command are errorlevel, string equality and file existence. Conditions may also be negated. I/O redirection and filters are supported. Pipes are constructed from intermediate files (of course.) Three special filters (more, sort and find) are provided. Search paths and prompts are easily changed. The command line interpreter expands * and ? properly as file wild cards. The set command permits abbreviations. An abbreviation must be preceded by a percent sign when used, thus limiting the use of abbreviations for the creation of command aliases. All abbreviations must fit into a 1K string buffer. People who are used to typing "ls," "cp" or "mv" are in trouble here and may have to define batch file equivalents. At least AUTOEXEC.BAT is available to define all this stuff when DOS Shell is started from the GEM desktop. The program seems to work as advertised. Since DOS Shell resides on TOS, some surprising differences from MS-DOS may be expected. I wish that "ls," "cp" and "mv" were handled as acceptable command abbreviations. Documentation is fair to good. A little familiarity with MS-DOS is helpful as a few details get lost in the cracks. The diskette is NOT copy protected. Since most of the programmers at MichTron are students working their way through college, I would recommend buying a copy. At $25 (discounted price) I received good value. Further, DOS Shell will be supported by MichTron while public domain shells may go unsupported. -- paul drongowski decvax!cwruecmp!pjd case western reserve university pjd%Case@CSNet-relay