DOS on the Win 2000 System
PC Mag | at | by Mike
I dread moving to Windows XP, knowing that certain favorite old DOS programs I've learned to love and routinely use may not work. This has been part of the reason I have historically not necessarily embraced Windows NT/2000-although it's more reliable than DOS. However, recent experiences with Win 2000 have been heartening. I think I can fall back on Win 2K for all my DOS needs, or at least most of them. The overall problem I have stems from my long-term addiction to the WordStar editing codes, based on the so-called WordStar diamond. The diamond allows for quick editing of documents without a lot of arrow-key and mouse usage. Arrow-key and mouse editing is great for moving large blocks or cut and paste jobs, but for normal editing they are a hassle. So some years ago, I began using an old product called Zedit (based on another old editor, Qedit) to write all my columns, which were required to be in pure ASCII without a lot of nonsense characters embedded in the text. These files could be universally transmitted over any telecom system, and converted to any format easily.