Launching Apps from the Command Line

[Ray Parrish]

Amichai Rotman wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I have an old PC I'd like to convert to a old games machine for my kids.
>
> I'd like to install Linux on it, that will boot into the command line 
> (console) showing a menu listing the various games with a little 
> screen shot. Most of the games are old DOS abandonware games I plan to 
> run using DOSBox, and the machine is't very strong, so I;d like to 
> avoid installing X altogether, if possible...
>
> Is there an ncurses based menu program out there?
>
> I tried Googling, but couldn't find anything useful.  Maybe there's a 
> Linux distro out there I could install?
>
> Tanks!
>
> .:====================================================:.
>
> Amichai Rotman
Hi there!

An option you may not have considered, is to simply install MS-DOS on 
the old computer. It is still available on Ebay, in the Operating 
Systems section of Computers and Networking. Here is a link to a 
complete copy of version 6.22 currently selling for $4.99, and there is 
a little over a day left on this particular auction.

<http://tinyurl.com/7cymdy>

One of the things that dos batch language was actually good at, was 
creating a menu  system for launching  your other programs, so with a 
little study of the help built in you can create your own custom menu to 
launch the games.

Here is another link to a still sealed, never used copy of MS-DOS 6.22 
with a license, that is going for $21.50 -

<http://tinyurl.com/8pcqa7>

And there are many more offerings of different versions of MS-DOS, and 
DR-DOS available as well on this page there -

<http://tinyurl.com/7cbncn>

Why bother with emulating it when you can run the real thing, and avoid 
the overhead?

Later, Ray Parrish

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