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 BASIC-DOS Multi-Page Demo diskette and runs Multiple Video Pages, each on its own page of video memory; use SHIFT-TAB to switch between them. Since the machine has a hard disk, the boot sector first displays Press a key to start...; press any key (or wait 2 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 BASIC-DOS Multi-Page Demo diskette’s CONFIG.SYS defines three full-screen 80-column consoles, each running its own copy of COMMAND.COM: HELLO.BAT in the first, FIBO.BAT in the second, and PRIMES.BAS in the third.
Consoles fill the screen from the top left corner, so once the first console fills the screen, the next one is placed on the next page of video memory, and so on (BASIC-DOS uses four pages on a color adapter, while a monochrome adapter has only one). Only the page of the session with keyboard focus is displayed, but every session keeps running, whether its page is displayed or not. Use SHIFT-TAB to move focus to the next session and display its page.
REM Demonstration of Multiple Video Pages, on video pages 0, 1, and 2
FILES=8
BUFFERS=4
CONSOLE=CON:80,25
SHELL=COMMAND.COM PATH$="A:\;A:\EXT;A:\DEMOS;A:\SAMPLES":HELLO.BAT
CONSOLE=CON:80,25
SHELL=COMMAND.COM PATH$="A:\;A:\EXT;A:\DEMOS;A:\SAMPLES":FIBO.BAT
CONSOLE=CON:80,25
SHELL=COMMAND.COM PATH$="A:\;A:\EXT;A:\DEMOS;A:\SAMPLES":PRIMES.BAS
Copyright (c) 2020-2026 Jeff Parsons Released under MIT License