Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!unisoft!seer!ariel
From: ariel@seer.UUCP (Catherine Hampton)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.misc
Subject: Re: MS-DOS 3.30A and "SHELL=" in CONFIG.SYS (SLOWness)
Summary: DOS command line is the culprit.
Message-ID: <652@seer.UUCP>
Date: 16 Oct 90 01:32:28 GMT
References: <1990Oct12.224956.21168@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> <9849@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu>
Distribution: na
Organization: Brad Lanam  Alamo, CA
Lines: 30

In article <9849@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu> pilger@uhunix1.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu 
(Eric Pilger) writes:
>>Does anyone else think that 160 bytes of environment space is ludicrous?
>>My path can be longer than that.
>>
>It's as ludicrous as 16 characters of type ahead.  I usually can't
>even get the next command typed waiting for the current one to finish.
>
>Actually, my path seems to be limited to ~120 bytes, after which it
>truncates.  Yet another anomoly of DOS that is no end of an annoyance.

Actually, the culprit is the DOS command line, which is 127 characters
long.  If you can feed info into a PROMPT without using the command line,
DOS has room for at least twice that much.

PLUG -- 4DOS, a command shell/COMMAND.COM replacement for MS-DOS, expands
the command line to 256 characters.  In addition, you get aliases, history,
vastly improved internal command and variables set, vastly improved batch
language almost approaching a programming language in power (has user input,
flow control, branching, IF/THEN/ENDIF statements, etc.).  It's on most
local MS-DOS BBS's as 4DOS302A.ZIP.  It's shareware -- try it for 21 days
and, if you like it, pay the owners $35.00 to register.  I've used it for
over a year with an enormous range of products and haven't come up against
a serious conflict yet.

Cathy
_________________________________________________________________
Catherine A. Hampton                  BITNET: hampton@reed.BITNET
CIS: 71601,3130                      Fidonet: Cathy H. @ 1:125/32
GEnie: C.HAMPTON3     Internet: hampton@reed.EDU / ariel@seer.COM