Ramon Riera Marès wrote: >> >> > First of all, thanks to all the Freedos developers and collaborators. I >> > want to know if there is any way or utility in Freedos to have >> > two applications running, for example an outliner and a text editor, and >> > be able to switch from one to the other without having to >> > exit the current application. Thanks and regards. Ramon Riera.
Paul Dufresne wrote: >> [..] >> There was a program, DESKVIEW, that was making an OS that was reentrant... >> as far as I understand, >> that was running over a DOS. Making it easy to have more than one program >> running at a time. >> See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DESQview [..] > Ramon Riera Marès wrote: > > Thanks Paul. > > I asked AI Gemini and he answered me this: > > Question: > > Is there any utility in freedos that allows me to run two programs > at the same time? > > Gemini answers: > > Yes, there are some utilities in FreeDOS that allow you to run two > programs at the same time: > > 1. TCC: > > It is a command-line shell that allows you to execute multiple commands > in a single line. > > You can use TCC to run two programs at the same time using the & > command. > > For example, to run the calc program and the notepad program at the > same time, you would run the following command: > > calc & notepad > > The & command tells TCC to run the following command in the background. > This is describing the Take Command ("TCC") CMD shell drop-in replacement for Windows systems, not DOS: https://jpsoft.com/products/tcc.html The only "TCC" programs for DOS that come to mind are Borland's Turbo C Compiler and the Tiny C Compiler. > 2. 4DOS: > > It is a DOS shell that allows you to run multiple programs in a > single session. > > You can use 4DOS to run two programs at the same time using the > START command. > > For example, to run the calc program and the notepad program at the > same time, you would run the following command: > > START calc START notepad > > The START command starts a new program in a separate window. I was not aware of this feature in 4DOS. In fact, the START command is not listed in this copy of the 4DOS manual from 1991: https://bitsavers.org/pdf/jpsoftware/4DOS_Reference_Manual.pdf The command reference in the back of the manual goes from "SHIFT" (p. 285) to "SWAPPING" (p. 286). In the Index at the end of the manual, it goes from "Standard output device" (p. 349) to "Startup options" (p. 350) to "StdColors directive (p. 350). So a "START" command isn't listed anywhere. 4DOS has a "4START" but that is the name of a batch file ("4START.BTM") that runs whenever you start 4DOS, to set the environment, colors, etc. But that's not the same as the "START" command listed here. Also: the way the "START" sample command line is organized, there is nothing to suggest to the shell where the two commands should be divided .. or should it run the command "calc" with the possibly valid options (such as filenames) of "START" and "notepad"? Also Also: "..in a separate window" should suggest that this is not referring to a DOS environment, which doesn't run programs in "windows." > 3. W4DOS: > > It is a graphical desktop environment for FreeDOS. > > You can use W4DOS to run two programs at the same time by opening > two different windows. > > To open a new window, click the "Start" button and then select "Run." > > In the "Run" dialog box, type the name of the program you want to run, > and then click "OK." "W4DOS" isn't familiar to me, and I wasn't able to find any graphical desktop environment for DOS called "W4DOS." I don't think this one exists either. [..] > ---------- > > Does anyone have experience with these utilities? Which is the > simplest? > I think you have experienced what is known as "AI Hallucination" where the AI just makes stuff up. I'm afraid that is a problem with generative AI. I find that generative AI is usually "ok" to "pretty good" with summarizing current topics, but generally very poor in describing things that are edge cases like FreeDOS or FORTRAN. (I experimented with Bard before it was renamed "Gemini," and did substantial testing with ChatGPT.) _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
