The machine below is a COMPAQ DeskPro 386 with a 16Mhz 80386, 1Mb of memory (640K of it conventional memory), a VGA Color Display, a 1.2Mb and a 1.44Mb diskette drive, and a 10Mb hard disk. It boots the BASICDOS-360K-D40 diskette and runs two 40-column sessions side by side; use SHIFT-TAB to toggle focus. Since the machine has a hard disk, the boot sector first displays Press a key to start...; press any key (or wait 5 seconds) to boot from the diskette, or press Esc to boot from the hard disk instead. Like the PC AT, the DeskPro 386 has a battery-powered real-time clock, so BASIC-DOS starts with the current date and time (type DATE or TIME to see them).
This demo is also available on an IBM PC, an IBM PC XT, and an IBM PC AT.
The BASICDOS-360K-D40 diskette’s CONFIG.SYS defines two 40-column consoles side by side, each running its own copy of COMMAND.COM. The left session runs HELLO.BAT, a batch file that displays a colorful greeting, while the right session runs PIPES.BAT, which pipes the output of DIR through the CASE filter over and over (press CTRL-C in that session to stop it).
Both sessions are configured with borders, and a double-wide border indicates which session has keyboard focus. Use SHIFT-TAB to toggle focus.
REM Demonstration of two 40-column sessions, with DEBUG output enabled
REM BOOTKEY=B
FILES=8
BUFFERS=4
SESSIONS=4
REM DEBUG=COM1
DEBUG=COM1:9600,N,8,1,0
CONSOLE=CON:40,25,0,0,1
SHELL=COMMAND.COM PATH$="A:\;A:\BIN;A:\SAMPLES;A:\DEMOS":COLOR 7,1:HELLO.BAT
CONSOLE=CON:40,25,40,0,1
REM CONSOLE=COM1:9600,N,8,1
SHELL=COMMAND.COM PATH$="A:\;A:\BIN;A:\SAMPLES;A:\DEMOS":PIPES.BAT
Copyright (c) 2020-2026 Jeff Parsons Released under MIT License