Here are some simple commands you can use to get some practice.

Disk Directory

To see a listing of what is on a disk, issue the DIRectory command.

It comes with several options (shown are the most useful, not all).

DIR d:filename.ext /p /w

DIR alone will show the complete directory. With the optional filename, DIR will try to find just that file.

• The /p option causes a pause when the screen fills.
• The /w option yields a full 80-column display of just the filenames.

There are other options for sorting the listing and displaying the contents of lower-level directories.

Now we'll see what would happen when you type DIR at the prompt.

Note several things here.

• DIR tells you what files are on the disk, how big they are, and when they were created.
• DIR also tells how many files total are in the list, how much space those take and what free space remains.

Three Simple Commands

CLS Clears the screen and puts the cursor in the home (upper left) position.

VER Shows the DOS version number on the video display. You are shown the one-digit version and two-digit revision:

MS-DOS Version 6.00

VOL d: Displays a volume label, if one exists. The label is a name you have given to the disk when it was formatted. It is used for identification purposes. (The serial number is put on the disk by the FORMAT utility.)

Volume in drive C is HANDBOOK
Volume Serial Number is 2C35-16F9

Date and Time

These two commands show and/or set the system date and time.

Early computers relied on you to set the DOS clock during the boot process. In short order peripheral makers came out with clock cards that, with the help of a battery, kept a clock going and, with the help of a program in AUTOEXEC.BAT, loaded the time into DOS for you during boot. New computers have the clock built-in and do not require a program to load the time.

If your clock battery fails, the default values will be 1-1-80 for the date and 00:00:00.00 for time. Now and again you will see files with a create date of 1/1/80; they were created on a system where the clock has failed and DOS has used its default value.

For the DATE command you can enter the date as month/day/year with hyphens or slashes, i.e., 3/1/94 or 3-1-94 are acceptable dates.

Do not enter the day of the week, even though it shows on the screen. The computer will calculate it for you. A two digit year assumes dates between 1980 and 1999. In 2000 you will have to start putting in all four digits.

The format for DATE is:

DATE <date>

On early computers the time setting required a 24-hour clock, i.e., any time after noon had to have 12 added to it, for example 3:00 pm had to be entered as 15:00. While the TIME command will still respond to this type of time, you may not also enter 3:00p and the computer is smart enough to know you mean 15:00.

The format for TIME is:

TIME <time>

On most computers these commands will change the permanent clock settings as well as changing the date/time in DOS.

Disk Formatting