DOS is for lazy people

[Ole Juul]

One of my web pages is generally maintained from my main DOS box. To make changes to the page here is the sequence of commands.

q in            [Tab] [Enter]
(edit)          [Alt-X]
hop             [Enter]
put index.htm   [Enter]
quit            [Enter]

Explanation: The "q" is the name of the editor but any one of many could be started here. The tab expands "in" to "index.htm". Then, with the editing done and saved, the "hop" command automatically logs into the host and navigates you to the /public_html directory. The "put" command replaces the web page on the server and "quit" exits the FTP client. Done.

This list of commands could of course be shortened, but I like to have the ability to do other things on the server while I am there. But really, this is so quick that there's not much point. It takes about 30 key strokes which is 15 less than half of this sentence. Apart from needing to see the edits, there is not even any reason to look at the screen or perform other cognitive and ergonomically complex tasks involving navigating with a mouse. DOS is indeed the lazy man's operating system, which explains why I'm still using it.

 

[DOS lives on!!]

For people who have never used DOS before, C:\ may look very intimidating and scary. But for people with much experience with it, it's quite easy to navigate through because if its simplistic architecture.

 

[k2x4b524[]

I concurr, i can navigate a hard drive much faster using the command line than using the mouse. Plus with using the command line, SOOO many options are available to you that the GUI doesn't offer.

 

[Ole Juul]

For people who have never used DOS before, C:\ may look very intimidating and scary. But for people with much experience with it, it's quite easy to navigate through because if its simplistic architecture.

Indeed the simplistic architecture is the fundamental accessibility feature. I was thinking more about the amount of work it takes to operate an already configured machine.

On newer systems the amount of work I have to do involves considerable body action such as moving my arms to and from the mouse and making long reaches on the keyboard. Note the number of people with shoulder, neck, and carpal tunnel problems arising from that approach. That together with the constant need to visually peruse the whole screen carefully and watch the cursor placement exactly, is a lot of physiological interaction that is fundamentally superfluous to the task at hand. A carefully, and personally, configured DOS system will (as I tried to show) require effort on par with, and perhaps less than, a speech input system.

I don't have a big problem with hand eye coordination, but I prefer to avoid having to use those skills on a computer. To my brain it is easier to think when I don't have to consider the computer interface at the same time. Hence my "lazy" approach of just sitting back and "tinkling the ivories". Of course it has taken me a while to learn how to set that up, but even with some years work, I am unable to muster the skills to achieve the same level of physical ease on a modern OS.

I wasn't actually bragging (OK, a little ) but rather pointing out the practical elegance of DOS which modern GUI based systems seem to go out of their way to avoid.

 

[Maverick1978]

It's for these reasons and many more that I didn't actually use Win9x or higher on any of my personal PCs until 2002 when I bought a laptop with Windows ME on it. In fact, the only reason that I didn't immediately wipe the laptop's HD and copy over my DOS installation was because I needed to run Office for college, as well as having a game that I'd purchased from a bargain bin that needed Win95 or higher

 

[Caluser2000]

Preaching converted I feel. Of course just typing long term doesn't have any detrimental effect does it? Of course using a Gui you can run a number of CLI sessions at the same time on the same desktop if you want, compiling in one, playing a game in the other, checking email or carrying out a irc or telnet session in yet another.

Yip you're right dos is lazy people .

 

[Chuck(G)]

I really wonder how well humans can effectively multitask. Really.

I can't listen to music while I'm doing something else--I hear the sound, but I'm not aware of the finer structure of what I'm hearing. I can do something mindless like shell peas or scratch an itch, but that doesn't take any mental involvement. How many things can you do at once that require mental concentration?

I'm fine with developing code serially--editing the source, compiling it, giving it a test run and refine. But I can't even do too much of that--sometimes I may have to leave a problem for days before the solution dawns on me. Any attempts at brute-force lead to garbage results.

So how much is all of this multitasking really improving our productivity?

 

[Ole Juul]

Preaching converted I feel. Of course just typing long term doesn't have any detrimental effect does it?

No, but as someone with disabilities I have lots of experience with these kinds of ergonomics and have had to make adaptations. Yes, there are many people who have problems, but the ones I have seen have very bad technique. I usually recommend they see a piano teacher (or read about related technique) if they are serious about changing. I have a feeling that the aggressive promotion of the mouse for computing is mostly by people who have lots of strength and energy, but they too can benefit from efficient use of their resources. We all can.

As for the converted, I'm not sure. It seems that a lot of command line usage doesn't consider an easy sequence of key strokes and often is awkward when there is no need or direct gain from that awkwardness. Simply using the command line would not qualify as a "conversion" in my eyes. I encounter a lot of commands that require a difficult combination, but just a little care could have avoided that. Being both simple and batch file driven, DOS is good for that.

Of course using a Gui you can run a number of CLI sessions at the same time on the same desktop if you want, compiling in one, playing a game in the other, checking email or carrying out a irc or telnet session in yet another.

Yip you're right dos is lazy people .

That's exactly what I'm talking about. Can you imagine the extra work it would be to open and close all those things as you use them? I've seen people who close and minimize programs all the time and they just create more work for themselves. Indeed having a stack of open terminals with different projects (or computers) to chose from (Alt-Tab) is where a modern OS comes in. I also can't imagine using browsers and other large application with only a single desktop. I've currently got got 72 windows open spread over 10 desktops and that is to save the trouble of finding and/or opening stuff again. This is why we also want multitasking environments. Nevertheless, apart from multitasking functionality, for sheer "laziness" in the sense of avoiding extra ergonomic stress, I think DOS takes the cake.

PS: Alt-Tab is a very ergonomic way to move between open windows when it comes to a stack of terminals and that is probably what most of us use. However handy a GUI is for that, one can also use native terminals (Ctrl-Alt-F1 etc) as well, but that is a good example of an excessive forward reach. In this case the GUI does indeed save the day.

 

[Ole Juul]

I really wonder how well humans can effectively multitask. Really.

I think of this situation as being one where we have a specific amount of energy, strength, resources, and you make a choice about whether you want to put it all into one place or scatter it about. Generally there will always be some scattering, but really, how many Olympic competitors have you seen wearing a walkman?

So how much is all of this multitasking really improving our productivity?

Except as detailed in my previous post, where the computer is the one that is actually doing the "multitasking", absolutely none.

That darn "M" word. It gets thrown about rather loosely. I discovered years ago that I could multitask with DOS and run two different tasks with 100% efficiency. I set up two machines side by side! However, that's the computer. Me, I just switched from one to the other - as you might guess.

 

[Chuck(G)]

That darn "M" word. It gets thrown about rather loosely. I discovered years ago that I could multitask with DOS and run two different tasks with 100% efficiency. I set up two machines side by side! However, that's the computer. Me, I just switched from one to the other - as you might guess.

Exactly. I can see multitasking where one task is some enormous I/O bound thing, where there's lots of CPU left around, such as a backup or disk defragmentation, massive download or some such thing. But very few things that I regularly do fall into that category.

Mostly, I keep windows and tabs open as place-keepers--it's just too much trouble to find the information again. Occasionally, I want to compare two things and the GUI's useful, but it's not really multitasking--both windows are dedicated to the same task. The other open windows are, in fact, static when I'm not using them.

By and large, most of my best thinking is done away from the machine. When I'm thinking, I'm lost without a pencil and paper.

 

[Caluser2000]

That darn "M" word. It gets thrown about rather loosely. I discovered years ago that I could multitask with DOS and run two different tasks with 100% efficiency. I set up two machines side by side! However, that's the computer. Me, I just switched from one to the other - as you might guess.

Isn't that task switching? And of course everyone knows you don't need two machines to do that in dos 8).

 

[Ole Juul]

Isn't that task switching? And of course everyone knows you don't need two machines to do that in dos 8).

Well, two machines can each concentrate on different tasks while doing it continuously and that situation would then be true multitasking. However, a person operating both of them would be task switching. Now, if we expand that to two computers and two people, then everybodything would be multitasking unless they were doing identical things at the same time, or both people operating the same computer. (I've got a headache now.)

 

[DOS lives on!!]

Well, two machines can each concentrate on different tasks while doing it continuously and that situation would then be true multitasking. However, a person operating both of them would be task switching. Now, if we expand that to two computers and two people, then everybodything would be multitasking unless they were doing identical things at the same time, or both people operating the same computer. (I've got a headache now.)

Computers can multitask easily because they have a continuous power source and don't know the term "coffee break." Skilled humans can do it because patience, knowledge, motivation, and the ability to distinguish things combine to multitask and get things done.

 

[MikeS]

Well, two machines can each concentrate on different tasks while doing it continuously and that situation would then be true multitasking. However, a person operating both of them would be task switching.

Not necessarily; a lot of tasks in the 'real world' involve working with several screens simultaneously, just as we're often looking at several pieces of paper or books simultaneously. I have 4 screens in front of me connected to 4 computers, 2 running XP (one in portrait mode) and 2 running DOS6.22. The XP boxes have individual mice but share a keyboard through a KVM; that lets me scroll through a document on one screen while commenting on it on another, look through data on one or even two screens while entering some of those figures in a spreadsheet on another, refer to a datasheet on one and the schematic on the other, or even just have itunes up on one to select my music while working on the other. Having to switch windows instead of just looking at a different screen is a huge time waster.

I think that any of the "my OS is better than yours" discussions are a boring waste of time, but particularly one comparing DOS to Windows (since Windows has always included DOS or a much more powerful CLI). In the 'real world' people are using applications, and (hopefully) never have to deal with the finer points of the OS. For low-level stuff that involves fooling with ports or disk drives directly, DOS is often more convenient, but for pretty well everything else a GUI is probably more efficient (not to mention that most apps require one these days). Seems to me that OJ's DOS example could be done just as easily with a batch file in Windows, clicking on a labelled icon to start the process instead of having to remember (and possibly misspell) the magic key or keys instead.

I think the key is "once properly configured"; if a Windows system's tasks are properly configured then you can be even lazier than in DOS; I usually read my email while relaxing on the couch, cordless mouse in hand, occasionally switching into itunes' library to select some different music, switching to Chrome to check into various forums, etc., never needing to pick up the cordless keyboard except to occasionally enter a search term into Google.

Bottom line: I've seen very few systems that are truly efficiently configured but when they are, in the DOS vs. Windows comparison I think Windows comes out ahead as the most versatile in most situations; still, it really depends on what you want to do.

 

[barythrin]

DOS supports TSRs if you're writing in assembly. You can get things to still be there or run in the background. Given, I'm not sure what version first supported TSR interrupts.

 

[Chuck(G)]

DOS supports TSRs if you're writing in assembly. You can get things to still be there or run in the background. Given, I'm not sure what version first supported TSR interrupts.

1.0, as INT 27H.

 

[Maverick1978]

So how much is all of this multitasking really improving our productivity?

This sentence is the key to Ole's way of thinking, and the root of his assessment of DOS as being the OS for "lazy people." - though obviously that's tongue in cheek. DOS is simple, streamlined (once configured correctly), and devoid of distraction, allowing one to be more efficient at their tasks.

With "multitasking," in most cases, we're simply dividing our attention between many different things, and as often as not, with things that have no real bearing on the task at hand (i.e. we're looking for an excuse to goof off). How many people do you know that keep their personal email, Facebook, or favorite other site up and running in a window to click back to at a moment's notice - while they're supposed to be working!

*raises hand* - Guilty. As I type this, actually

"Multitasking"..... with most people using a computer in today's world, that's a misnomer at best.

 

[Chuck(G)]

"Multitasking"..... with most people using a computer in today's world, that's a misnomer at best.

Thanks for that. I was beginning to wonder if everyone else knew some trick for multitasking that had escaped me.

 

[glitch]

I really wonder how well humans can effectively multitask. Really.

...

So how much is all of this multitasking really improving our productivity?

Does it make you do more things? Sure. I think it has a negative impact on productivity though, especially now that computers are powerful enough to keep all of your media-driven distraction running full-speed in the background, popping up alerts and worsening the SNR. I don't think I can hold a conversation for 5-10 minutes with a colleague at work without some popup, message or alert distracting them from the conversation.

I use a multitasking OS (Linux) for daily work, but as others have mentioned, /I/ am usually most productive in single-task mode. I can't use a modern machine's multitasking capabilities to solve more than one problem at once, but I do use it for things like running extensive test suites on my code while continuing to work. When I had papers due for college, I generally wrote them on an old Mac Classic II (or later, my Kaypro II) due to the lack of distraction from e-mail, IM, et c.

 

[Ole Juul]

There's some great comments here!

DOS supports TSRs if you're writing in assembly. You can get things to still be there or run in the background. Given, I'm not sure what version first supported TSR interrupts.

Indeed it's barely usable without those. I wouldn't be very happy without automatic line completion and some kind of cursor accelerator, cut/paste, and screen memory. The latter, of course is not essential in *nix (and presumably MS-Windows) where you have basically unlimited windows, but I still wish I had it there.

This sentence is the key to Ole's way of thinking, and the root of his assessment of DOS as being the OS for "lazy people." - though obviously that's tongue in cheek. DOS is simple, streamlined (once configured correctly), and devoid of distraction, allowing one to be more efficient at their tasks.

Indeed, my main use for DOS is writing and management of written material. (Of course there's the vintage software archive and floppy writing ability, but that's not part of this conversation.) So for low distraction and a comfortable environment DOS is good for me.

The comfortable, and perhaps inspiring, environment is an interesting aspect. A friend of William Gibson (author of Neuromancer) told me that Bill liked to write on a typewriter and then transcribe to his computer for editing later. That was at the end of the 80's and he may have changed his method since, but process is indeed an important part of creativity - and typewriters are notoriously linear and non-multitasking.

Anyway, that's half of it, but I could certainly be distracted if I wanted.

I am also on about the physical movement. A mouse is quite strenuous to operate. Especially those huge Microsoft type that even someone like me that can handle a low D bamboo flute can't handle without putting my whole hand on it which then requires whole arm movement, and therefore also neck muscles are being involved. I don't see that as a good thing. I also find that having to follow a cursor with my eyes to be a momentous waste of energy. Why am I forced to concentrate on the screen all the time? I don't want to do that! I know people, especially gamers, are used to it, and therefore disregard it altogether. As my eyes get older and weaker, it is a consideration for me and I think it is wasteful. When you consider a writing task (like now) then the idea of moving the arm off the keyboard and back again is also ludicrous - and for people like me, downright painful on some days. Using a mouse, but without a keyboard, can actually be physically quite relaxing, but having to always follow that cursor around on the screen does involve some pretty complex cognitive processing. In DOS I usually _know_ where the cursor is and can do quite a lot of things without having to look, or even confirm that they got done. Now _that's_ relaxing.

I use a multitasking OS (Linux) for daily work, but as others have mentioned, /I/ am usually most productive in single-task mode. I can't use a modern machine's multitasking capabilities to solve more than one problem at once, but I do use it for things like running extensive test suites on my code while continuing to work. When I had papers due for college, I generally wrote them on an old Mac Classic II (or later, my Kaypro II) due to the lack of distraction from e-mail, IM, etc.

That type of "multitasking", as Chuck mentioned, is more about convenience. I see it a bit like grabbing a bunch of books off the shelf and leaving them on my desk instead of putting them back after I've looked something up. I "leave the window open" for subsequent quick access. On my main machine (Linux at the moment) I have a huge number of windows open, but not because I am doing them all at once. It's just easier to have it all at my fingertips - regardless of whether I look at them in a minute from now or next week. Of course then there's desktop #4 which is where the music for my local FM transmitter originates.