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Ian & Stuart's Australian Mac 1
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MacDOS™ 2.0.0
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User's Guide
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01 Welcome to MacDOS
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1994-09-20
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1 Welcome to MacDOS
Why MacDOS ?
MacDOS satisfies the need of many Macintosh users to be
able to avoid repeating particular sequences of mouse
operations when working with files.
Normally, you handle documents on the Macintosh desktop
through the Finder. It is the Finder that creates the
desktop metaphor by drawing icons and responding to the
mouse. Together, the Macintosh Operating System (MacOS) and
the Finder have made computers accessible to all those who
were intimidated by technical jargon and arcane commands.
Nevertheless, the ease of use of a Graphic User Interface
(GUI) does not come free of charge: operations which
require brief commands on another computer need sometimes
an almost interminable repetition of clicking and dragging
on the Mac.
People who have never used any other computer before do not
realise it, but others, who have worked with DOS or UNIX,
immediately see that limitation. This is partly why many
computer professionals have seen the Macintosh more as a
toy rather than as a system capable of doing serious work.
For the past few years, hundreds of software developers
have worked hard at providing a Macintosh-like interface on
every conceivable computer. The developers of Macintosh
software, on the other hand, have found it difficult to
respond to those potential users who would like to have a
character-based interface to the MacOS beside the GUI
provided by the Finder.
MacDOS goes against the current tide and satisfies the need
of Macintosh power-users by providing a DOS-like interface
on the Mac.
Introduction to MacDOS for DOS Users
Although MacDOS provides a DOS-like user interface, it is
not DOS. Therefore, you will find that some of the commands
do not behave exactly like in DOS. Nevertheless, 80% or
more of what most people do with MS DOS® 5.0 is available
in MacDOS.
Most importantly, MacDOS is safer than DOS. That is, you
will never type a harmless DOS-command and find out that
MacDOS responds to it by destroying your data!
Most commands accept full paths as arguments. Their format
is like in DOS, but in MacDOS we have replaced the concept
of file extension with the more powerful mechanism
available on the Mac of creators and file-types. With most
commands, you will be able to complement or replace file
wildcarding like *.txt and *.exe with type switches like
/T=TEXT and /T=APPL .
The length of filenames and directories can of course
exceed the limit of eight characters imposed by DOS. You
can also include spaces and other non-alphanumeric
characters in names, provided you enclose the names between
double quotes (with the system variable QUOTE you can also
change the character used for quoting).
Another change that we made in order to take advantage of
specific Macintosh features was the replacement of drive
IDs with volume IDs. To avoid confusion, we have identified
volumes with numbers rather than letters, but the
difference is more than cosmetic: the MacOS assigns IDs to
volumes in the order in which they are mounted and frees
the IDs when the corresponding volumes are dismounted. A
volume ID identifies a particular floppy, rather than the
floppy drive. Therefore, your startup disk partition or
floppy is always 1 and the volume ID assigned to a newly
inserted floppy depends on what volumes you have currently
mounted on your desktop.
This might sound a bit confusing, but you will find it
natural as you get used to the Mac environment. To help you
when importing batch programs from DOS, MacDOS provides the
command SUBSTVOL which assigns a letter to a particular
volume. This allows you to assign the appropriate letters
to the necessary volume IDs before executing DOS batch
files within MacDOS.
Similarly to what happens when you boot DOS, MacDOS
executes the file autoexec.bat found in the folder where
the application resides (not where you place aliases of
MacDOS). There is no MacDOS-equivalent of config.sys,
though.
The Command Reference Section provides detailed
descriptions of the differences between MacDOS commands and
their DOS counterparts.
Introduction to MacDOS for Mac Users
This section is only going to explain very basic concepts
of MacDOS' character based interface. Also refer to the DOS
Glossary Section for an explanation of the terminology used
in this manual.
To understand MacDOS you have first of all to think that
the operations possible with files and folders do not
depend on the way in which you direct the Operating System
to perform them. Moreover, the differences between the
Macway and the MacDOSway are pretty consistent across the
operations. Therefore, once you will have discovered how to
perform, say, a file copy, you will be close to
understanding how to perform file renaming, file listing,
etc.
When MacDOS starts, it opens a window, displays a prompt to
tell you that it is ready, and waits for you to type a
command.
There are many commands that you can type, but they all
consist of a verb (the command name) possibly followed by
some other words (the command parameters). The command name
tells MacDOS what to do and the command parameters tell
MacDOS on what it should operate.
To type a command you just enter its name and parameters
from the keyboard. You then press the return key to tell
MacDOS that the command is complete and can be executed.
MacDOS executes the command and then displays a new prompt
to tell you that it is ready to accept more commands.
For example, TYPE filename lists the text file named
filename on the screen. Similarly, DEL oldfile removes the
file named oldfile from your system, as if you had trashed
it and then directed the Finder to empty the Trash.
RENAME oldname newname changes the name of a file from
oldname to newname, while COPY oldname newname makes a copy
of the file named oldname and names it newname.
You can modify the operation of a command by typing some
special arguments called options or switches. For example,
you might like that a COPY command verifies that the copy
of the file is identical to the original. To achieve that
result, type /V before hitting the return key.
The Finder mostly operates on files or folders which are
displayed in the front window. A similar concept applies to
MacDOS, where most commands operate on the default
directory (the term directory is a synonym of folder). When
MacDOS is launched, the default directory is the folder
which contains the icon of MacDOS itself, but you can
change it with the command CHDIR.
You can also list the contents of a folder with the command
DIR, and there are also commands to create, copy, and trash
folders.
If you want to operate on a file which is NOT in the
default directory, you can specify the file by prepending
to its name a string which identifies where the file is.
Such a string is called path and consists of the name of
all the folders that you would have to open to reach the
file. Each folder name is followed by a backslash. For
example, let's suppose that the default directory contains
a folder called myFolder which in turn contains a text file
called myFile. If you want to print myFile, you can either
change the default directory to myFolder with the command
CHDIR myFolder and then print the file with the command
PRINT myFile or do the printing without changing the
default directory by typing the command
PRINT myFolder\myFile .
One of the big advantages of MacDOS over the Finder is that
you can use wildcards to identify several files
simultaneously. For example, DEL p* deletes all files whose
name begins with the letter p (or P, as the Mac OS is not
case sensitive). Also, DEL x??? deletes all files whose
name begins with x and is exactly four characters long.
To interrupt the execution of a command, you can type the
standard command-dot key combination.
If there are particular sequences of commands which you
need to use over and over again, you can write the commands
in a text file and then type the name of the file at the
MacDOS prompt. In this way you can effectively extend the
standard commands available in MacDOS with your own
procedures. Such files are called batch programs.
What do You Need and What is in the Package ?
MacDOS uses 500kByte of RAM and requires System 6.0.8 or
greater. Moreover, it requires System 7.0 to be able to
launch other Macintosh applications.
MacDOS itself fits into 240kb of disk space, but you should
reserve additional space if you want to keep on-line
batches, filter extensions, README files, and this User's
Guide.
The MacDOS package consists of this manual and a 800kByte
3.5" floppy disk. The floppy contains a self-extracting
archive with the MacDOS application, examples of batch
files, examples of filter extensions, a shell project to
build your own extensions, this User's Guide, and various
README files.
How to use this Manual
This manual should provide all the information you need to
understand MacDOS and to use it efficiently.
Beside the section of general introduction that you are
reading right now, you will find:
Section 2: The Environment
How you interact with MacDOS.
If you have no experience with DOS, you should
definitely read this section. It will also introduce you
to some terminology commonly used in DOS.
If you know DOS, you can skip most of the section but
have a look at the parts where the error mechanism is
introduced and the MacDOS window explained.
Section 3: Data on the Mac
How the Macintosh organises data and what information
visible on the desktop is accessible via MacDOS.
If you have ever looked into Inside Macintosh, you can
probably skip this section.
Sections 4 to 12: MacDOS Functionality
What MacDOS can do, organised on the basis of functional
areas.
The functionality of all MacDOS commands is explained in
a coherent way and without letting the details cloud the
big picture. You should definitely browse through these
sections if you have no experience in DOS.
If you have DOS experience, you should still look at the
commands which are not available in DOS and find out how
they fit into the general strategy.
Section 13: Command Reference
One chapter on each command, with all options explained.
Several examples are provided, as well as possible
causes of commonly occurring errors. For commands which
exist in DOS, the differences between the two
implementations are listed.
You should refer to this section before using a command
with which you are not familiar.
Appendix A: Error Codes
Each possible error code returned by MacDOS is
explained, with some indications of the possible causes.
Appendix B: Extension Programming
How to write filter applications that accept piped
MacDOS commands.
Appendix C: DOS Glossary
DOS concepts are explained in terms of Macintosh
concepts.