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-D80 diskette and runs two 80-column sessions, one above the other; 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-D80 diskette’s CONFIG.SYS defines two 80-column consoles, one above the other (16 rows on top and 9 rows on the bottom), each running its own copy of COMMAND.COM.
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 80-columns sessions
FILES=8
BUFFERS=4
REM SESSIONS=2
CONSOLE=CON:80,16,0,0,1
SHELL=COMMAND.COM PATH$="A:\;A:\BIN;A:\SAMPLES;A:\DEMOS"
CONSOLE=CON:80,9,0,16,1
SHELL=COMMAND.COM PATH$="A:\;A:\BIN;A:\SAMPLES;A:\DEMOS"
Copyright (c) 2020-2026 Jeff Parsons Released under MIT License