The world’s most widely used operating system lives! As of August 1993, version 6.0 of MS-DOS was about two months old, and the computer magazines and newspapers were full of comprehensive reviews, comments on particular features, and, of course, complaints. This latest release has also spawned a plethora of third-party DOS guides, of which four are reviewed here. Their appearance is not a new phenomenon. Since the issuance of DOS 1.0 in 1981, a large market for such volumes has existed among users who either find Microsoft’s documentation inadequate or, having obtained a pirated copy of the software, need a substitute for the official manuals.

DOS guides tend to fall into one of three categories: power users’ guides (such as Angermeyer et al. [1] and Jamsa [2]) that reach beyond the official manuals, claiming to teach every trick in the book and to reveal all the undocumented features; slim volumes that go for the lowest common denominator, such as the enormously successful DOS for dummies [3]; and comprehensive guides that work their way through the DOS command set much as the official manuals do, but in a more user-friendly and example-filled manner. The volumes under review all belong to the last category.

These books are similar in purpose, content, and structure. They are aimed primarily at novice users, beginning with a discussion of elementary hardware and software concepts, then moving to specific DOS commands and some advanced material. All contain a separate command reference section, enabling more sophisticated users to find specific information quickly. The four volumes are thus classified as part tutorial and part reference.

Jamsa

Kris Jamsa is a prolific author of more than 40 books who has published both elementary [4] and advanced [2] DOS guides, as well as a Windows guide [5] that I have found useful and reliable. This volume--also useful and reliable--is structurally and stylistically similar to the aforementioned elementary guide.

This book is distinguished from its competitors by the fact that it contains about 50 percent more pages. Since all four books deal with the same basic material--the DOS command set--and use a similar structure, it is easy to factor out this commonality and discover what these extra pages are devoted to. The chapter summaries are more extensive; much space in the main section is given to additional examples that the student can use for extra practice; and the answers to the chapter review questions alone require some 36 pages. Even the command reference section contains many examples. Reading the book is slow going, not because it is difficult, but because the examples, extra practice, review questions, and so on make for redundancy. For students or users unfamiliar with the PC and new to DOS, particularly those without access to a teacher or other support, redundancy is not necessarily a flaw, but more sophisticated readers may get impatient.

Lowe

Not quite as prolific as Jamsa, Lowe has written 15 computer books. The current volume, in its second edition, is also available in a shorter version, The least you need to know about DOS [6], which omits advanced topics.

DOS guides compete in a crowded market. While I realize that making one’s book visible in such an environment is difficult, loud titles such as The only DOS book you’ll ever need turn me off, since they insult the reader while making a preposterous claim. While DOS as a field of study is more limited than, for example, operating systems, does Lowe really believe that a single book can meet all one’s informational needs? Apparently he does, because he defends his title in the preface.

Putting hype aside, I find that Lowe has given us a competent review of DOS. It differs from Jamsa’s book in that it is shorter, tighter, less fragmented, and written at a higher level, and contains fewer exercises and practice sections.

Nimersheim

Nimersheim is also a veteran computer author; he has produced 18 books and 600 articles. Although he has written other DOS books, this book is in its first edition. While the other books in this review--updates of previous editions--claim to cover all versions and do note when a feature is new to version 6.0 or 5.0, this volume refers to version 6.0 in its title and assumes that the reader is using the current version of DOS.

The use of the word “handbook” in the title is also revealing. This term implies an organization similar to that of a manufacturer’s manual. In fact, Nimersheim’s book is more like a manual than the other DOS guides. One measure of this similarity is the percentage of pages occupied by the command reference section. In Lowe, Jamsa, and Wolverton, the percentages are 8.0, 18.7, and 26.6, respectively, but in Nimersheim it climbs to 42.3. This means that if one typically consults both the main text and the command reference of a DOS guide for information on a particular command, one is likely to find relatively more information in the command reference section of this book than in the corresponding sections of the other books. Since sophisticated users are more at home with the style of such sections, Nimersheim’s book would be more suited to that group.

Wolverton

This now-classic work has evolved along with DOS and, like DOS, it is now in its sixth edition. Billed as the “all-time best-selling guide to…MS-DOS,” it has been widely hailed (in its previous incarnations) by many computer pundits as the best book on DOS. Since dozens of DOS guides now flood the market, one would be hard put to make such a sweeping judgment about the current edition, but certainly the quality is still there.

Avoiding both the Scylla of technospeak and the Charybdis of folksiness, Wolverton presents his material clearly and straightforwardly, with an abundance of examples. Both the main body of the text and the command reference section are eminently readable and comprehensible. The accessibility of the latter is especially noteworthy. Including the provenance (DOS version number) of each command and the page references to the command in the main text is a nice touch.

Conclusion

Any of these books would probably be satisfactory for the moderately sophisticated user who needs to look up some point of DOS syntax. While some books provide little or no coverage of certain advanced or little-used commands in the main text, the command reference sections do provide the necessary information. The ideal guide, however, would be highly accessible in both the main text and the command reference. PC novices, who need a comprehensive survey of DOS, would therefore probably not be best served by either Lowe or Nimersheim because of the weaknesses of their command reference and main text, respectively. Jamsa is strong in both areas and would be preferred by those who need feedback in the form of examples, exercises, and answers, but others may simply find it too long. This leaves Wolverton, which gets the nod for quiet competence, comprehensiveness, clarity, ease of use, and readability.