The machine below is an IBM PC AT (Model 5170) with a 6Mhz 80286, 640K of memory, a Color Display, two 1.2Mb diskette drives, 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. Unlike the PC and PC XT, the PC AT 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 a COMPAQ DeskPro 386.
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