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| If you need an UNDELETE, CHKDSK, UNFORMAT, and other utilities not quite working in FreeDOS right now then consider downloading DRDOS v7.03 and save yourself some time and grief trying to live without them?
Below are my list of utilities that seem to be overlooked in a Windows World. They are not applications suites or major applications. They are the work-horse applications that make using DOS pleasant and productive.
NOTE: New release of ARJ 2.81a is now available at the Arjsoft homepage! This is an update to repair deficiencies in earlier releases.
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UTILITIES CREATED HERE
SORT PLUS - Written by Charles Angelich in 'C' (Borland DOS TurboC++).
Sort+ is a drop-in replacement for MSDOS sort, just rename to 'sort' and copy it to the DOS directory. Sort+ duplicates the MSDOS sort switches plus adds extra ones Microsoft didn't think we needed such as removing duplicate lines from the output. Sort+ will display a 'ruler' to help you locate the exact column to begin sorting with (using the /## switch). Sort+ is actually 100x's faster than the MSDOS version of sort, honest, I timed them. MSDOS sort is limited to under 64k files while Sort+ is limited to approximately 800k files using the first 1meg of DOS memory. If you routinely sort larger files I would recommend RPSORT (also on this page). SORT+ works with MSDOS v3.x and newer on any Intel platform including XTs.
SIM(ilarity) SORT - Written by Charles Angelich in 'C' (Borland DOS TurboC++).
A very unique and interesting sort utility. SIMSORT is an AI 'fuzzy logic' sort written recently by me while collecting 'taglines'. Taglines are one line (less than 80 characters) witicisms added to the end of messages. There are thousands of taglines out there and many are duplicates with minor word-changes. I wanted to remove the dupes and grouping of similar lines together was the first stage (see FUZZY). This sort utility tries to actually read the words and group similar lines together. Obviously it will alternately remove exact matched lines from the output. SIMSORT works with MSDOS v3.x and up on any Intel hardware including XTs.
FUZZY - Written by Charles Angelich in 'C' (Borland DOS TurboC++).
This is the second stage after SIMSORT. Written recently in 'C' to remove the 'similar' lines within text files after sorting the file with SIMSORT. FUZZY refers to the 'fuzzy logic' used to determine how closely each line matches the previous line. The cutoff point is adjustable as a percentage using a command line switch. FUZZY works with MSDOS v3.x and up on any Intel hardware including XTs.
SEEK PLUS - Written by Charles Angelich in 'C' (Borland DOS TurboC++).
Seek+ will search your entire hard drive including all partitions. Seek+ will abort on any key, gracefully. Seek+ includes some refinements such as a 'wide-display' with properized filenames, attributes and full path listed along with the usual date/time/size information. I updated the original Seek+ over several years. Very easy to use and very fast. Does not read beyond the 2meg partition limit, sorry.
Default Seek+ display: Ssmyst Scr 9936 92-03-10 03:10:00 ------ C:\windows
Windowsr Grp 8865 101-10-01 13:04:58 ----a- C:\windows
Control Ini 8663 102-03-23 23:29:58 ----a- C:\windows
BITS - Similar to all the other DOS attrib utilities but with a very 'readable' display the others do not have. This was a DOS ASM programming exercise (for me). Use only on DOS FAT16 hard drives and FAT12 floppies! NOT A DOS FAT32 UTILITY! Use of this utility to reset attributes on FAT32 drives is unpredictable and probably a bad idea.
Default BITS display: io.sys ....................... *System .. *Hidden . ReadOnly .
msdos.sys ....................... *System .. *Hidden . ReadOnly .
autoexec.bat . Archive .............................................
windows ........... Directory .................................
MORE PLUS - Written by Charles Angelich in ASM (Borland DOS TurboASM). Drop-in replacement for MSDOS 'more' that will display one-line-at-a-time using the ENTER key or entire screens of text by pressing the spacebar. 'Q' or 'q' quits the display. MorePlus is a 'plus' because you can specify a start/end number to limit the number of characters of each line that will display. All in a little more than 850 bytes. I wanted one-hand scroll functions and a more elegant method to abort the display than ctrl-break that Microsoft had given me. After almost a decade of use Joachim Dathe and I were discussing similarity sorting and he mentioned my MORE utility was a bit non-standard. I modified the code and emailed the binary to him, hence the "for Dathe" on the HELP screen. (archive includes OPTION below)
OPTION - Written by Charles Angelich in ASM (Borland DOS TurboASM).
Comparable to MSDOS 'CHOICE' but much smaller and easier to setup IMO. This is a re-write of code published in PcMagazine many years ago as 'script' for DEBUG to assemble the binary. My version is only 10 bytes larger but considerably more sophisticated for a 100 byte program. Yes, that IS one-hundred bytes. Brief documentation and example batch file included.
MISCELLANEOUS
CDP - Two DOS CD players by the same author and they both work great here on my `486 66mhz Presario! CDP Version: 1.031 is a DOS command-line CD Digital Audio Player. CDPlayer Version: 2.25e is a GUI audio CD player for DOS. Author: Ben Lunt (Forever Young Software®)
File Maven - Very complete file transfers for DOS using Laplink or null modem cables. (Briggs Software®)
DeskTop2 - If you've ever considered using a Graphics desktop for DOS this should be of interest to you.
ALIASING - Extending DOS
4DOS - Adds aliasing, online help, new batch file commands, and it's own version of long filenames.
Although 4DOS was ahead of MSDOS, newer versions of MSDOS, and other DOS, have since added many of the aliasing and other functions. The new batch file commands and the batch file compiler are nice but you become dependent on them and your batch files with new 4DOS commands will not function without 4DOS. This requires a decision to learn to depend on what other computers will not offer you if the need to use the additional batch file commands ever becomes a reality. Think about this before you commit to it.
CED - Adds aliasing, command history, very old and very compatible.
Access to these extended commands will be comparable to newer versions of DOS and should not be a problem. I have used CED with versions of MSDOS as old as v2.7 up to v6.22 with no difficulties. Compatible with W31 dosbox and Desqview windows.
NDOSEDIT - aliasing, command history, not as compatible as the others.
I have this utility which predates the others ( I think? ) and is deserving of mention for that reason. It is a bit difficult to work with and will occasionally conflict with other software. I keep it around for nostalgia I guess? Don't bother with this one, use CED.
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OTHER UTILITIES
CTRLALT - useful to programmers, adds emergency `break' function.
This TSR adds a lower-level break from applications that are hung (locked) and a cut-n-paste of text from just about any DOS application you can find. All functions operate at a level below even other utilities. Popup ASCII charts and other useful functions. Just the cut-n-paste will save you hours of time if you do any of your own programming at all. Compatible with every DOS program I can think of. Works best if loaded before any other TSRs in autoexec.bat before other TSRs.
XEQ - stores those little COM utilities within itself to save room and keep them all in one place.
Keeping all those little COM file utilities where they can be found and in your path can become quite a pain. XEQ will stuff them inside of itself and when you call them they go directly into memory - no temp files the way other 'archivers' would do this. Files uncompress in memory.
XPORT v2.1 - Transfer files at 115.2k bps using just a serial cable and a null adapter.
Menu driven, easy to use, and fast. Does not recurse subdirectories automatically. Best for selective transfers or entire directories. Small and fast for those 'rescue' disks.
{COMMO} v7.7 - Fastest DOS terminal application I know of.
Small and fast with zmodem, ymodem, and other popular protocols built in. Extensive macro language, address book, and can interface to fossil drivers. All macro files and configuration files are plain ASCII text which makes modification much easier. No 'special' program required just a text editor. Nice - it's what I use for dialup BBS calls.
CDD - Useful for batch file programming, can move across partitions / drives as well as directories.
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NEOPAINT - Used to create many of the graphics for this website.
Best graphics paint program for DOS that I know of. Very impressive and very useable even now. Comes with multiple fonts, stamps, and substitute palette files. Requires a mouse, mouse driver loaded, and extended or expanded memory.
ANSI.COM - Works like the 'echo' batch file command but can send the ESC codes needed for ANSI graphics with no carriage return linefeed to mess it up. Only 28 bytes! Put this little COM file and others into XEQ.
BOOT v2.01 - Maintain multiple config.sys and autoexec.bat files on one machine. Useful for squeezing the maximum memory for various applications. Configuration can be done using any text editor. Simple and easy to use which makes it almost foolproof!
PKTMUX - Multitasking DOS can have more than one simultaneous Internet connection to a single DOS packet driver using this application.
LIST.COM v96d - Premier DOS file viewing utility that is almost a filemanager. Very extensive controls. Can dupe the functions of UNIX 'less' utility. This version is Y2K compatible and will handle W9x long filenames. A must have utility.
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AS EASY AS v5.70f - DOS spreadsheet
FULL Shareware Version: Requirements: 80286, 386, 486, Pentium; PC/MS-DOS 3.01 and later; 450K free RAM; NetBios Compatible; Math Co-processor:optional; HGA/EGA or better video recommended; 720K disk or Hard Disk (1.5 MB recommended); Mouse, Keyboard; 9/24-pin Dot Matrix Printers, LaserJet, Color HP Deskjets and HP-GL Pen Plotter for color graphics.
AS EASY AS Lite v1.2/R - DOS Spreadsheet
Lite Shareware Version: Requirements: PC/MS-DOS, Ver. 2.11 and later. IBM PC/XT/AT, 286, 386, 486, PS/2. 256K min free RAM. Graphics Monitor (in order to display graphs). 9/24-pin Dot Matrix Printers. Yes, it will run on an original 256K IBM PC, with a floppy drive!
RPSORT v1.02 - Sorts large files extremely fast.
A super-fast sort program which handles large files. RPSORT supports numerous sort key types including regular text keys, C language strings, Turbo Pascal strings, signed and unsigned binary integers of any length and several types of binary integers of any length and several types of binary floating point numbers.
ASIC Compiler v5.0 - Creates tight code for those little utility applications. Easy to write tight small COM routines if you already are familiar with the BASIC programming lang
PKPAK by Pkware - Fastest of the Pkware releases.
Comparable compression to the others in use today but Predates ZIP file type. Use mainly for temporary archives and it's speed in creating them. PKUNPAK is included in the archive.
CUTEMOUSE - TSR currently takes up about 3.5k.
CuteMouse is a DOS based, open source (part of FreeDOS) mouse driver, which supports both serial and PS/2 protocols. CTMOUSE was written to use as little memory as possible. We have URLs here for the 'stable' version and the new 'alpha' version.
Improve Display Speeds on Legacy Equipment
ADVID105.ZIP - 39104 bytes - Faster video output with CGA/EGA/VGA. You must test various versions and determine the best driver from
XANADU20.ZIP- 16951 bytes - Xanadu utils v2.0 HOTDIR/BRCSTAT/QUICKCRT/SFIND. All good utilities but we want QUICKCRT, it is the one that has worked best for me here on many machines.
ZENO25.ZIP - 10410 bytes - Speeds up some screen writes by 100% or more (maybe).
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