Hi Bob:

It was Wednesday July 16 2003. "Win9x and Arachne ?," murmured
you to LEONARD.

 LE>> BTW, if you want a command line, check out Take Command
 LE>> from JP Software. Gives Windows a command line. :-)

 LE>> I think http://www.jpsoft.com is the URL.

 BK>  I looked it up, and downloaded just about everything they give
 BK>  away. However, it does seem a bit expensive. $69 for a command
 BK>  line added to an OS you can buy for $100.

I've never used anything of theirs other than 4DOS, which I was told I
couldn't afford to be without some years back, and trust me, that was
/good/ advice.

The stuff you can do at or with the command line environment with JPSoft's
replacement command processor (whichever one you use) knocks the
alternatives into a cocked hat.

You know the facility you get with cmd.exe (or with doskey loaded on top of
command.com) to use the cursor keys to recall previous commands typed? How
about the ability to type the first couple of characters of a command you
typed a while back, hit the up arrow and have it appear straight away? Or,
if that's not it, the next match on another up arrow? Or a browseable
command history in a window? Colour-coded - by extension - directory
listings? The ability to edit an environment variable (including the path)
instead of having to retype the thing? The ability to load a collection of
environment variables from a file, with a single set command? The ability
to write batchfiles that work like programs - if/then/else stuff and so
forth?

Sure, if you don't use a command line much, you can live without it. If you
spend any time there, you'll wonder how you did without it for so long...

Bests,

Tim

--- GoldED 3.0.1-os1 at Oblivion