Explains How to Utilize the Various Features of PC-DOS and How to Use It to Adapt an IBM-PC to Meet Specific Owner Needs

Contains an Overview of the Personal Computer & a Comprehensive Directory Containing Vendors, Hardware & Software

Third edition (of a 1986 book!) presents details on versions 3.2 and 3.3 along with a guide to the difference among the many variants of DOS. No bibliography. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

This authoritative work presents the practical concepts of the IBM-PC disk operating system, along with detailed information on using, moving and safeguarding the files. It begins with a description of the components of the IBM-PC, the operating system, talking to PC-DOS, files and file names. Part II explains various PC-DOS commands--starting, using and moving files, safeguarding files, advanced commands, printer and screen controls, and using the hard disk. Part III deals with the application program EDLIN provided with PC-DOS, as well as PC-DOS batch files and how to use them to tune your system to your own specifications. The appendixes provide a brief history of microcomputing, and cover computer languages and numbers, output and communications devices such as Cathode Ray Tube, television screen and the printer, and MS-DOS equivalents. ISBN 0-89588-176-4 (pbk.): $15.95.

The primary object of this manual is to build an understanding of the principles of computer operations and the use of computers in the laboratory.

This is not a dictionary - and nor is it an encyclopedia. It is a reference and compendium of useful information about the converging worlds of computers, communications, telecommunications and broadcasting. You could refer to it as a guide for the Information Super Highway, but this would be pretentious. It aims to cover most of the more important terms and concepts in the developing discipline of Informatics - which, in my definition, includes the major converging technologies, and the associated social and cultural issues. Unlike a dictionary, this handbook makes no attempt to be 'prescriptive' in its definitions. Many of the words we use today in computing and communications only vaguely reflect their originations. And with such rapid change, older terms are often taken, twisted, inverted, and mangled, to the point where any attempt by me to lay down laws of meaning, would be meaningless. The information here is 'descriptive' - I am concerned with usage only. This book therefore contains keywords and explanations which have been culled from the current literature - from technical magazines, newspapers, the Internet, forums, etc. This is the living language as it is being used today - not a historical artifact of 1950s computer science.