umcarls9@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Charles Carlson) (08/31/90)
Does anyone know if there is a man utility for DOS? It would be so much handier to go 'man xcopy' than having to dig under the papers for my DOS manual all of the time. Failing that, how about a quick reference chart I could run when needed that would list all of the DOS commands and switches??? Thanks, Charles
rreiner@yunexus.YorkU.CA (Richard Reiner) (08/31/90)
umcarls9@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Charles Carlson) writes: >Does anyone know if there is a man utility for DOS? It would be so much >handier to go 'man xcopy' than having to dig under the papers for my DOS >manual all of the time. Failing that, how about a quick reference chart >I could run when needed that would list all of the DOS commands and >switches??? There are several help systems for MessDOS on simtel20 in pd:<msdos.info>. None are `man' clones. One is a VMS help clone, and the rest use their own file structures and access mechanisms. My favourite is rbhelp, which is easily extensible, comes with a complete and accurate DOS help database, searches rapidly, and comes with C source. --richard
kdq@demott.COM (Kevin D. Quitt) (08/31/90)
In article <1990Aug30.175019.11219@ccu.umanitoba.ca> umcarls9@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Charles Carlson) writes: >Does anyone know if there is a man utility for DOS? There is DOS-HELP, from Flambeaux Software. (818) 500-0044 (1147 East Broadway Street, Suite 56, Glendale CA 91205) This is an excellent on-line help program. There is a companion, technical version called TECH-HELP, which includes much good information for programmers. As I recall, they're about $40 and $50, and have more than paid for themselves. -- _ Kevin D. Quitt demott!kdq kdq@demott.com DeMott Electronics Co. 14707 Keswick St. Van Nuys, CA 91405-1266 VOICE (818) 988-4975 FAX (818) 997-1190 MODEM (818) 997-4496 PEP last 96.37% of all statistics are made up.
ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi LASK) (08/31/90)
In article <1990Aug30.175019.11219@ccu.umanitoba.ca> umcarls9@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Charles Carlson) writes: >Does anyone know if there is a man utility for DOS? It would be so much >handier to go 'man xcopy' than having to dig under the papers for my DOS >manual all of the time. Failing that, how about a quick reference chart >I could run when needed that would list all of the DOS commands and >switches??? Not man, but there is a good msdos help utility /pc/pd2/help14.zip available by anonymous ftp from chyde.uwasa.fi, Vaasa, Finland. (Anyone seen a more recent version?) ................................................................... Prof. Timo Salmi (Moderating at anon. ftp site 128.214.12.3) School of Business Studies, University of Vaasa, SF-65101, Finland Internet: ts@chyde.uwasa.fi Funet: gado::salmi Bitnet: salmi@finfun
lfk@athena.mit.edu (Lee F Kolakowski) (08/31/90)
On 30 Aug 90 17:50:19 GMT, umcarls9@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Charles Carlson) said: > Does anyone know if there is a man utility for DOS? It would be so much > handier to go 'man xcopy' than having to dig under the papers for my DOS > manual all of the time. Failing that, how about a quick reference chart > I could run when needed that would list all of the DOS commands and > switches??? I ported a Unix man program by Chip Rosenthal and it works very well but..... You need to have the following executables to get man to work like unix's man tbl <- Not PD neqn <- Not PD nroff <- Not PD more <- PD compress<- PD sh <- not PD, but there is a bourne shell port from Minix that is But more importantly man pages for DOS tools do not exist. There is a help system that was posted to comp.sources.misc that is simpler than man and is a flat file and a lookup table Perhaps that would be better than man. -- Frank Kolakowski ====================================================================== |lfk@athena.mit.edu || Lee F. Kolakowski | |lfk@eastman2.mit.edu || M.I.T. | |kolakowski@wccf.mit.edu || Dept of Chemistry | |lfk@mbio.med.upenn.edu || Room 18-506 | |lfk@hx.lcs.mit.edu || 77 Massachusetts Ave.| |AT&T: 1-617-253-1866 || Cambridge, MA 02139 | |--------------------------------------------------------------------| | #include <woes.h> | | One-Liner Here! | ======================================================================
mlord@bwdls58.bnr.ca (Mark Lord) (09/01/90)
umcarls9@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Charles Carlson) writes: >Does anyone know if there is a man utility for DOS? It would be so much >handier to go 'man xcopy' than having to dig under the papers for my DOS It's not exactly man(1), but 4DOS comes with reasonably extensive help for both itself and MSDOS, built-in to the 'help' command. You could always 'alias man help' for ease of use. Of course, there are about a zillion other good reasons to install 4DOS, but this gets covered often enough in this group. -- ___Mark S. Lord__________________________________________ | ..uunet!bnrgate!mlord%bmerh724 | Climb Free Or Die (NH) | | MLORD@BNR.CA Ottawa, Ontario | Personal views only. | |________________________________|________________________|
hartung@amos.ucsd.edu (Jeff Hartung) (09/02/90)
JP Software's 4DOS has a help utility that puts a pop-up menu on the screen from which you can select help on all the MSDOS and 4DOS commands, internal and external. (There are _many_ other reasons to check out 4DOS as well! :-) For the other utilities, you could put short readme files and doc files in some directory and write a batch file (e.g., MAN.BAT) which executes something like: more < %1.DOC of course, you have to rename the README and DOC files so they are saved as <progname>.DOC. :-) -- --Jeff Hartung-- Disclaimer: My opinions only, etc., etc., BLAH! BLAH! BLAH!... InterNet - hartung@amos.ucsd.edu UUCP - ucsd!amos.ucsd.edu!hartung BITNET - Hartung@UMass
GRZ004@DBNGMD13.BITNET (09/02/90)
Why don't you get 4DOS? It contains a lot of stuff you always wanted; among others a great DOS help function.
sonny@charybdis.harris-atd.com (Bob Davis) (09/04/90)
If what you seek is help for the DOS internal and external commands, then by anonymous ftp to Simtel [26.2.0.74], in tenex mode, get: PD1:<MSDOS.INFO>DOS33HLP.ARC For other things, write a batch file named "man.bat" which includes this command: LIST C:\document_directory\%1.doc LIST is your favorite DOS file viewer or pager. In the directory, C:\document_directory, put an xxx.doc file on any command or subject, xxx, for which you want help (or to consult the man page on). I generally pitch the manual for most software into the directory -- making sure it has the .doc extension. The batch file is, of course, in a directory which is on your PATH. You can also include the help command out of DOS33HLP.ARC in your man.bat file to get the benefit of the "man pages" there. To "read a man page", one then needs only to type: man xxx and the info appears on screen. And you can play like you're running UNIX... :-) Peace, ______________________________________________________________________________ Bob Davis \\ INTERNET : sonny@trantor.harris-atd.com | _ _ | Harris Corporation, ESS \\ UUCP : ...!uunet!x102a!trantor!sonny |_| |_| | | Advanced Technology Dept.\\ AETHER : K4VNO |==============|_/\/\/\|_| PO Box 37, MS 3A/1912 \\ VOICE : (407) 727-5886 | I SPEAK ONLY | |_| |_| | Melbourne, FL 32902 \\ FAX : (407) 729-2537 | FOR MYSELF. |_________|
jian@prodix.liu.se (Jian Hu) (09/12/90)
mlord@bwdls58.bnr.ca (Mark Lord) writes: >It's not exactly man(1), but 4DOS comes with reasonably extensive help >for both itself and MSDOS, built-in to the 'help' command. >You could always 'alias man help' for ease of use. When using 4DOS you can also, say, alias man if exist %manual%\%1.man list %manual%\%1.man provided you put the .man files (ASCII) in the dir. pointed by the env. var.
andy@mks.com (Andy Toy) (09/13/90)
If you have awk for DOS you may want to look in comp.sources.unix
for the recently posted awf. It is a formatter written in awk to
format nroff files which use the man macros or a subset of the ms
macros. You can use this as a basis for a man command. I suppose the
reason you want to do this is that you already have a collection of man
pages written using man macros which you want to format. Otherwise it
would probably be easier to use an alternate man or help command that
already exists such as some of the ones already mentioned. Those of
you who have an MKS product can create your own helpfiles to be used
its help command.
--
Andy Toy, Mortice Kern Systems Inc., Internet: andy@mks.com
35 King Street North, Waterloo, UUCP: uunet!watmath!mks!andy
Ontario, CANADA N2J 2W9 Phone: 519-884-2251 FAX: 519-884-8861