Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!wuarchive!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jato!mars!kaleb From: kaleb@mars.jpl.nasa.gov (Kaleb Keithley) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.programmer Subject: Re: .SYS (device drivers) that are actually .EXEs? Message-ID: <4237@jato.Jpl.Nasa.Gov> Date: 3 Jul 90 15:50:03 GMT References: <141@qmsseq.imagen.com> Sender: news@jato.Jpl.Nasa.Gov Reply-To: kaleb@mars.UUCP (Kaleb Keithley) Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA. Lines: 20 In article <141@qmsseq.imagen.com> pipkins@imagen.com (Jeff Pipkins) writes: > >In MS-DOS versions < 3.0, the EXEC function call (EXE loader) was actually >a part of COMMAND.COM. Because COMMAND.COM is not loaded until after >CONFIG.SYS is processed, device drivers could not be in .EXE format. >(incidently, that is also why it's COMMAND.COM instead of COMMAND.EXE) Wrong! I just whipped out the M'soft Encyclopedia, and the EXEC function call has been there all along. Maybe you're thinking of that short lived abortion known as DOS 1.0. Not to mention, I remember playing with the SHELL option to CONFIG.SYS back in the days of 2.0 and 2.1. Really neat tricks like having the machine boot right into Lotus, Dbase, or Wordstar. Only drawback was, don't try to quit the program; very unfriendly. kaleb@thyme.jpl.nasa.gov Jet Propeller Labs Kaleb Keithley "So that's what an invisible barrier looks like"