Hi, the history behind these things is really fascinating. […]
Show full quote
Hi, the history behind these things is really fascinating.
The DOS shell and the OS/2 and Windows task-switcher are related.
The task-swapper of the DOS Shell looks not too different to the one used in Windows 3.x Standard-Mode.
The inactive application is essentially freezed and swapped out of memory.
In OS/2 1.0 textmode, the shell's switcher mechanism existed, too.
It had the same gray "title bar" at the top of the screen, if memory serves.
Then there's MS-DOS Executive from Windows 1.x and 2.x, which resembles MS-DOS Shell a bit.
Or MS-DOS Manager 1.0 from the DOS 3.x days.
It essentially became the DOS Shell in DOS 4.
Edit: What's also cool about DOS Shell, it has similar colour schemes to Windows 3.x.
I liked emerald, for example. It also could use VGA text mode, to display custom icons not found in the DOS codepage (folder icon, scroll bar parts, drive icon etc).
Edit: I mean, you're right that Windows 3 killed DOS Shell.
In MS-DOS 4 and 5, the DOS Shell was meant to be the friendly face of the system.
When Windows 3.x was out, Microsoft began to bundle MS-DOS 5/6 and Windows.
That resulted in the popular WfW 3.11 with MS-DOS 6.2x bundles.
By that time, DOS Shell no longer was the default GUI by that point. Gratefully, it was available via the supplemental disks.
The English version, at least.
In order to get hold of a localized copy, MS-DOS 6.0 was needed.
It had all the supplemental disk files, but localized.
Edit: Hi, this is perhaps a bit off topic, but PC-Tools 7.x had a graphical desktop program using VGA text mode (a TUI rather than a GUI).
Including a few nice utilities. Calculator notepad, a terminal program, ASCII chart etc.