Anyone remember how to write an autoexec.bat file?

I believe the normal PATH statement will allow the system to find the Solar.exe program.
You might want to create a solar subdirectory (folder) that will contain the data. If so, after a subdirectory is made, keep the second line. If you not going to have a separate directory, delete the second line.
Then run the program directly.

PATH C:DOSPROGS;
cd c:dosprogssolar
SOLAR.EXE

Wow, it's been a while, but hopefully this will work.
Best of luck!

http://www.computerhope.com/ac.htm

rfc, post: 360355, member: 8882 wrote: Don't laugh please. How time flies.
Lee Green gave me a very cool DOS program for Solar calcs and I'm running it in DOSBOX in windows 10. I want to automate it so that when dosbox runs, the system mounts c:dosprogssolar.exe (the system comes up with Z: as the default).

The SUBST command will create substitute drive letter called Z:
The ECHO command will copy all of your DOS text to the results.txt file. This way your text entry's and results from the solar program will be captured in a Text file and you will not need to do a screen capture.

Try this in a batch file, I'd name the file z_drive.bat

subst z: c:dosprogssolar.exe
cd z:
solar.exe
echo result.txt

And to think that DOS has mostly gone away...how sad.

Dos was awesome. Dos was awesome. I miss dos.

N

Nate The Surveyor, post: 360389, member: 291 wrote: Dos was awesome. Dos was awesome. I miss dos.

N

I remember thinking "I will never use a comnputer that doesn't run on DOS, Never...!"

I also remember thinking I would never pay more than $0.50/gallon for gasoline...

Wow, I sound really old don't I?

Apparently even when I was young I was old because I loved DOS 4 and especially DOS 5, and hated Windows 3. I couldn't see why Windows was useful or why anyone would want it. Leica's SKI software forced me to use it, which was ironic because SKI wasn't a true Windows program; it was a bunch of DOS programs running through a Windows user interface. I started coming around on Windows in 1994 when I discovered WYSIWYG - I had always used Word Perfect and Lotus 123 for DOS; MS Word and Excel were pretty eye opening. I succumbed to the Microsoft empire with the release of Windows 95.

We used to run WP and 123 on an 8088 at my brother's company... I doubt if I'll ever forget how excited he was when he got his first 286: "Lee, wait until you see how fast this thing is!!" LOL.

Who here remembers what you used to have to do to get RINEX files from CORS and Geoid models back in about 1993? Those were exciting and fun times, learning GPS for the first time. That was also a different era; we worked hard and played harder. Sleep? Who needs it!!

Lee D, post: 360405, member: 7971 wrote: Apparently even when I was young I was old because I loved DOS 4 and especially DOS 5, and hated Windows 3. I couldn't see why Windows was useful or why anyone would want it. Leica's SKI software forced me to use it, which was ironic because SKI wasn't a true Windows program; it was a bunch of DOS programs running through a Windows user interface. I started coming around on Windows in 1994 when I discovered WYSIWYG - I had always used Word Perfect and Lotus 123 for DOS; MS Word and Excel were pretty eye opening. I succumbed to the Microsoft empire with the release of Windows 95.

We used to run WP and 123 on an 8088 at my brother's company... I doubt if I'll ever forget how excited he was when he got his first 286: "Lee, wait until you see how fast this thing is!!" LOL.

I remember waiting for the 30 mhz 386 to come out instead of buying the 25 mhz.

Ah, the "good" old days... salivating over 2" thick monthly "Computer Shopper" magazines (which usually ran about 700-800 pages- a phone-book sized magazine every month!) to select my 2nd computer in 1993, an off-brand IBM clone of a 486 DX2 66mHz with 4MB of RAM, 80mb HDD, ..VESA-local bus video card, could run 1024x768 resolution in 16 colors, or 800x600 resolution in 256 colors, total cost ~$3600. Later added 12MB of ram to make 16MB ram- that cost another $1600.

1st computer that I personally purchased was a 286SX (no math co-processor) running at 12 MHz, 640k RAM, no HDD, (but 2ea 3.5" floppies, such an improvement over the older 5.25 floppy! Direct copy from A: to B: drive! Run MS Word from drive A:, spell check using the dictionary disk in B: ! ) ISA or E-ISA video, maybe 320x 160? I got it run Dos 5.5, or 6.1, then Windows 3.1 (barely..) before going to the aforementioned 486. Added a 40mb Conner HDD and math-coprocessor (80287) in 1992, that seemed to be light-speed ahead of the 3.5" diskettes.

My first purchased personal printer (ie, not the university/school printer) was a HP Deskjet Printer in 1989 was $800 from a business-supply store that sold mostly business forms and typewriters, the Deskjet was the only inkjet printer available then- I didn't want dot-matrix, laser printers may not have existed then- and no Best Buy, no Amazon, no Staples in my local area.

When I got out of college, my "dream machine" was the 486 DX2 100MHz machine with "all the fixin's". But my entry-level chainman's wage didn't have enough extra to afford me such a dream machine. The Pentium processor was out, but not quite fully implemented. Then, very, very soon afterwards, the "megahertz wars started and it seemed like every month one of the processor manufacturers had announced an "even faster" processor. From about 1995 to 2000 it seemed that anything you bought was "obsolete" within a year. It was quite an interesting time. In 1998, I ended up going with the Mac OS for my home computing needs (had a "grape" iMac). And that sparked endless "debates" with my "Windows" friends.

Of course, these days, no one believes a word of it.

Yep, sounds like my first few years out of college... an article on the history of "Computer Shopper" mentioned that for maybe the only time in history of consumer technology, the period of 1992-2000 saw the reign of "Moore's Law" (capability doubling every 18 months) become reality in practice for almost everything computer-related- the price for the exact same hardware fell by 50% per year - what was new, but unaffordable in January was just expensive, but feasible by June, affordable by September (those back-to school sales!), a bargain by Christmas and obsolete by March. Micron- Midwest Micro- Gateway "2000" - Comtrade- Conner- ..

If cars had followed the same price trends, for the same price you'd go from being able to purchase a 10-yr old Pinto to a brand-new Cadillac for the same price in 18 months.

leegreen, post: 360385, member: 2332 wrote: The SUBST command will create substitute drive letter called Z:
The ECHO command will copy all of your DOS text to the results.txt file. This way your text entry's and results from the solar program will be captured in a Text file and you will not need to do a screen capture.

Try this in a batch file, I'd name the file z_drive.bat

subst z: c:dosprogssolar.exe
cd z:
solar.exe
echo result.txt

Looks promising until I found out that the "DOS" in dosbox doesn't include the "edit" command.:'(
I thought I remembered how to cut and paste text into the file listing, but can't find the files (outside of the program). Argh.

rfc, post: 360438, member: 8882 wrote: Looks promising until I found out that the "DOS" in dosbox doesn't include the "edit" command.:'(
I thought I remembered how to cut and paste text into the file listing, but can't find the files (outside of the program). Argh.

I heard that this is a problem. I fiddled around with DOSbox for a while when I wanted to play some old games on my computer. Then I gave up out of frustration with all of the "fiddling" I had to do. If I recall correctly, you have to compose these files outside of DOSbox (like in a text editor) then copy them into the DOSbox directory that you want via the DOSbox app. This was the source of much of my frustration.

I think I got it figured out.
I rummaged around in the directory where dosbox lives and found the file that runs on startup. I edited that file, by adding my "mount" command at the end of it. Still working on the ECHO thing to work, but at least I have a place to put anything I want to run automatically. Thanks for all the input and you're welcome in advance for reminding all of the fond memories.:-D

NDrummond, post: 360425, member: 1865 wrote: My first purchased personal printer (ie, not the university/school printer) was a HP Deskjet Printer in 1989 was $800 from a business-supply store that sold mostly business forms and typewriters, the Deskjet was the only inkjet printer available then- I didn't want dot-matrix, laser printers may not have existed then- and no Best Buy, no Amazon, no Staples in my local area.

The company I worked for in 1989 and much of 1990 reconditioned laser printer cartridges and repaired laser printers. When I started with them in late '88 the Laser Jet and Laser Jet II were out and the II was very common; before I left them in July or August of '90 Laser Jet III was out. The Laser Jet was a pretty big beast that I'm sure carried an equally impressive price tag. The II was a lot smaller, and HP had made them a lot harder to work on - the predecessor of today's throwaway printers. I didn't do much with the III but it looked like they were going to be even tougher to work on and the remanufacture of the print cartridge was also going to be a challenge.

Lee D, post: 360406, member: 7971 wrote: Who here remembers what you used to have to do to get RINEX files from CORS and Geoid models back in about 1993? Those were exciting and fun times, learning GPS for the first time. That was also a different era; we worked hard and played harder. Sleep? Who needs it!!

Not me - but I do remember hand-editing RINEX files to repair cycle slips...

NDrummond, post: 360429, member: 1865 wrote: Yep, sounds like my first few years out of college... an article on the history of "Computer Shopper" mentioned that for maybe the only time in history of consumer technology, the period of 1992-2000 saw the reign of "Moore's Law" (capability doubling every 18 months) become reality in practice for almost everything computer-related- the price for the exact same hardware fell by 50% per year - what was new, but unaffordable in January was just expensive, but feasible by June, affordable by September (those back-to school sales!), a bargain by Christmas and obsolete by March. Micron- Midwest Micro- Gateway "2000" - Comtrade- Conner- ..

If cars had followed the same price trends, for the same price you'd go from being able to purchase a 10-yr old Pinto to a brand-new Cadillac for the same price in 18 months.

My last MPC died a few months ago... I think Micron was at one time the largest PC manufacturer in the world, they even sponsore some college bowl games. Filed for bankruptcy some time ago.

This conversation reminded of the gear-head I use to work with in the mid-eighties that pronounced 'DOS' as 'dose' ....drove me nuts.:pinch:

I also remember when Windows came out (we were running DOS based AutoCAD R10 I think) I was pretty well convinced Windows was a "commercial virus" and Bill Gates was the devil.

The years have proven me correct.