The machine below is an IBM PC AT (Model 5170) with a 6Mhz 80286, 640K of memory, a Color Display, a 1.2Mb and a 1.44Mb diskette drive, and a 10Mb hard disk. It boots the BASIC-DOS 40-Column Demo diskette and runs two 40-column consoles side by side; use SHIFT-TAB to toggle focus. The boot sector first displays System starting...; press any key (or wait 2 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 BASIC-DOS 40-Column Demo diskette’s CONFIG.SYS defines two 40-column consoles side by side, each running its own copy of COMMAND.COM. The left console runs HELLO.BAT, a batch file that displays a colorful greeting, while the right console runs PIPES.BAT, which pipes the output of DIR through the TR filter (converting it to upper-case) over and over (press CTRL-C in that console to stop it).
Both consoles are configured with borders, and a double-wide border indicates which console has keyboard focus. Use SHIFT-TAB to toggle focus.
REM Demonstration of two 40-column consoles
SESSIONS=4
CON=VKD$:40,25,1
SHELL=COMMAND.COM PATH$="A:\;A:\EXT;A:\DEMOS;A:\SAMPLES":COLOR 7,1:HELLO.BAT
CON=VKD$:40,25,1
REM CON=COM1:9600,N,8,1
SHELL=COMMAND.COM PATH$="A:\;A:\EXT;A:\DEMOS;A:\SAMPLES":PIPES.BAT
Copyright (c) 2020-2026 Jeff Parsons Released under MIT License