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1 Welcome to MacDOS Why MacDOS ? MacDOS satisfies the need of many Macintosh users to be able to avoid repeating particular sequences of mouse operations when working with files. Normally, you handle documents on the Macintosh desktop through the Finder. It is the Finder that creates the desktop metaphor by drawing icons and responding to the mouse. Together, the Macintosh Operating System (MacOS) and the Finder have made computers accessible to all those who were intimidated by technical jargon and arcane commands. Nevertheless, the ease of use of a Graphic User Interface (GUI) does not come free of charge: operations which require brief commands on another computer need sometimes an almost interminable repetition of clicking and dragging on the Mac. People who have never used any other computer before do not realise it, but others, who have worked with DOS or UNIX, immediately see that limitation. This is partly why many computer professionals have seen the Macintosh more as a toy rather than as a system capable of doing serious work. For the past few years, hundreds of software developers have worked hard at providing a Macintosh-like interface on every conceivable computer. The developers of Macintosh software, on the other hand, have found it difficult to respond to those potential users who would like to have a character-based interface to the MacOS beside the GUI provided by the Finder. MacDOS goes against the current tide and satisfies the need of Macintosh power-users by providing a DOS-like interface on the Mac. Introduction to MacDOS for DOS Users Although MacDOS provides a DOS-like user interface, it is not DOS. Therefore, you will find that some of the commands do not behave exactly like in DOS. Nevertheless, 80% or more of what most people do with MS DOS® 5.0 is available in MacDOS. Most importantly, MacDOS is safer than DOS. That is, you will never type a harmless DOS-command and find out that MacDOS responds to it by destroying your data! Most commands accept full paths as arguments. Their format is like in DOS, but in MacDOS we have replaced the concept of file extension with the more powerful mechanism available on the Mac of creators and file-types. With most commands, you will be able to complement or replace file wildcarding like *.txt and *.exe with type switches like /T=TEXT and /T=APPL . The length of filenames and directories can of course exceed the limit of eight characters imposed by DOS. You can also include spaces and other non-alphanumeric characters in names, provided you enclose the names between double quotes (with the system variable QUOTE you can also change the character used for quoting). Another change that we made in order to take advantage of specific Macintosh features was the replacement of drive IDs with volume IDs. To avoid confusion, we have identified volumes with numbers rather than letters, but the difference is more than cosmetic: the MacOS assigns IDs to volumes in the order in which they are mounted and frees the IDs when the corresponding volumes are dismounted. A volume ID identifies a particular floppy, rather than the floppy drive. Therefore, your startup disk partition or floppy is always 1 and the volume ID assigned to a newly inserted floppy depends on what volumes you have currently mounted on your desktop. This might sound a bit confusing, but you will find it natural as you get used to the Mac environment. To help you when importing batch programs from DOS, MacDOS provides the command SUBSTVOL which assigns a letter to a particular volume. This allows you to assign the appropriate letters to the necessary volume IDs before executing DOS batch files within MacDOS. Similarly to what happens when you boot DOS, MacDOS executes the file autoexec.bat found in the folder where the application resides (not where you place aliases of MacDOS). There is no MacDOS-equivalent of config.sys, though. The Command Reference Section provides detailed descriptions of the differences between MacDOS commands and their DOS counterparts. Introduction to MacDOS for Mac Users This section is only going to explain very basic concepts of MacDOS' character based interface. Also refer to the DOS Glossary Section for an explanation of the terminology used in this manual. To understand MacDOS you have first of all to think that the operations possible with files and folders do not depend on the way in which you direct the Operating System to perform them. Moreover, the differences between the Macway and the MacDOSway are pretty consistent across the operations. Therefore, once you will have discovered how to perform, say, a file copy, you will be close to understanding how to perform file renaming, file listing, etc. When MacDOS starts, it opens a window, displays a prompt to tell you that it is ready, and waits for you to type a command. There are many commands that you can type, but they all consist of a verb (the command name) possibly followed by some other words (the command parameters). The command name tells MacDOS what to do and the command parameters tell MacDOS on what it should operate. To type a command you just enter its name and parameters from the keyboard. You then press the return key to tell MacDOS that the command is complete and can be executed. MacDOS executes the command and then displays a new prompt to tell you that it is ready to accept more commands. For example, TYPE filename lists the text file named filename on the screen. Similarly, DEL oldfile removes the file named oldfile from your system, as if you had trashed it and then directed the Finder to empty the Trash. RENAME oldname newname changes the name of a file from oldname to newname, while COPY oldname newname makes a copy of the file named oldname and names it newname. You can modify the operation of a command by typing some special arguments called options or switches. For example, you might like that a COPY command verifies that the copy of the file is identical to the original. To achieve that result, type /V before hitting the return key. The Finder mostly operates on files or folders which are displayed in the front window. A similar concept applies to MacDOS, where most commands operate on the default directory (the term directory is a synonym of folder). When MacDOS is launched, the default directory is the folder which contains the icon of MacDOS itself, but you can change it with the command CHDIR. You can also list the contents of a folder with the command DIR, and there are also commands to create, copy, and trash folders. If you want to operate on a file which is NOT in the default directory, you can specify the file by prepending to its name a string which identifies where the file is. Such a string is called path and consists of the name of all the folders that you would have to open to reach the file. Each folder name is followed by a backslash. For example, let's suppose that the default directory contains a folder called myFolder which in turn contains a text file called myFile. If you want to print myFile, you can either change the default directory to myFolder with the command CHDIR myFolder and then print the file with the command PRINT myFile or do the printing without changing the default directory by typing the command PRINT myFolder\myFile . One of the big advantages of MacDOS over the Finder is that you can use wildcards to identify several files simultaneously. For example, DEL p* deletes all files whose name begins with the letter p (or P, as the Mac OS is not case sensitive). Also, DEL x??? deletes all files whose name begins with x and is exactly four characters long. To interrupt the execution of a command, you can type the standard command-dot key combination. If there are particular sequences of commands which you need to use over and over again, you can write the commands in a text file and then type the name of the file at the MacDOS prompt. In this way you can effectively extend the standard commands available in MacDOS with your own procedures. Such files are called batch programs. What do You Need and What is in the Package ? MacDOS uses 500kByte of RAM and requires System 6.0.8 or greater. Moreover, it requires System 7.0 to be able to launch other Macintosh applications. MacDOS itself fits into 240kb of disk space, but you should reserve additional space if you want to keep on-line batches, filter extensions, README files, and this User's Guide. The MacDOS package consists of this manual and a 800kByte 3.5" floppy disk. The floppy contains a self-extracting archive with the MacDOS application, examples of batch files, examples of filter extensions, a shell project to build your own extensions, this User's Guide, and various README files. How to use this Manual This manual should provide all the information you need to understand MacDOS and to use it efficiently. Beside the section of general introduction that you are reading right now, you will find: Section 2: The Environment How you interact with MacDOS. If you have no experience with DOS, you should definitely read this section. It will also introduce you to some terminology commonly used in DOS. If you know DOS, you can skip most of the section but have a look at the parts where the error mechanism is introduced and the MacDOS window explained. Section 3: Data on the Mac How the Macintosh organises data and what information visible on the desktop is accessible via MacDOS. If you have ever looked into Inside Macintosh, you can probably skip this section. Sections 4 to 12: MacDOS Functionality What MacDOS can do, organised on the basis of functional areas. The functionality of all MacDOS commands is explained in a coherent way and without letting the details cloud the big picture. You should definitely browse through these sections if you have no experience in DOS. If you have DOS experience, you should still look at the commands which are not available in DOS and find out how they fit into the general strategy. Section 13: Command Reference One chapter on each command, with all options explained. Several examples are provided, as well as possible causes of commonly occurring errors. For commands which exist in DOS, the differences between the two implementations are listed. You should refer to this section before using a command with which you are not familiar. Appendix A: Error Codes Each possible error code returned by MacDOS is explained, with some indications of the possible causes. Appendix B: Extension Programming How to write filter applications that accept piped MacDOS commands. Appendix C: DOS Glossary DOS concepts are explained in terms of Macintosh concepts.