PC Hardware —

Tutorial 15

  1. What does DOS stand for?

    DOS stands for disk operating system.

  2. What was DOS created to do?

    The original version of DOS was designed to support the operation of floppy disk drives.

  3. Which version of MS-DOS is bundled with Windows 95?

    The version bundled with Windows 95 is referred to as MS-DOS 7.0.

  4. Describe the core operating systems within MS-DOS.

    • IO.SYS: This system is the interface between the hardware and the operating system code.

    • MSDOS.SYS: This system is the main operating-system code.

    • COMMAND.COM: This system is the interface between the user and the operating-system code.

  5. What are the two MS-DOS startup files?

    • CONFIG.SYS: This startup file loads extra hardware and device drivers not built into the IO.SYS.

    • AUTOEXEC.BAT: This startup file loads terminate-and-stay-resident (TSR) programs selected by the user and sets up the environment variables such as TEMP and PATH.

  6. Which MS-DOS command is used to determine the amount of free space left on a disk?

    From the command prompt in the root directory, the MS-DOS command DIR or directory will return the list of all the files on the drive and indicate the amount of free space available.

  7. Describe the difference between real mode and protected mode.

    MS-DOS operates with a 1-MB memory limit. This is called real mode. Windows broke out of the MS-DOS 1-MB barrier by engaging 286-level protected mode (Windows 2.0). Protected mode Windows could address up to 16 MB of RAM. Although MS-DOS programs could run only in the first megabyte of memory, specialized programs were written that would run in (and only in) the extended memory controlled by Windows. Protected mode refers to using protected memory.

  8. Windows provides a GUI for the user. What does "GUI" stand for? What is its advantage over the older MS-DOS system?

    GUI stands for graphical user interface. MS-DOS used a text or command-line interface. With MS-DOS, you had to memorize and type commands. With a GUI interface, you work in a graphical environment and use a mouse with icons or menus to simplify tasks.

  9. Describe the three kinds of fonts used in a Windows environment.

    Windows provides three types of font files. Each font contains a complete character set for a particular typeface.

    • Vector fonts are designed as a set of lines drawn between two points. Each character represents a mathematical model that can be scaled to virtually any size.

    • Raster fonts are bitmap fonts made up of a set of dots. Each character or set of dots is "painted" on the screen or printer. Because each character requires separate data for each size, only limited scaling is possible.

    • TrueType fonts are made from an "outline" of each character. When printing (on the screen or on a printer), these outlines are filled in.

  10. Name five settings that can be changed from the Windows Control Panel.

    Many settings can be changed from the Windows Control Panel.

    Some of these are Screen colors, Other desktop options (screen savers, wallpaper, and so on), Fonts, Printer, Keyboard, Mouse, International settings, COM port settings, Network settings, Date and Time, Sounds (used by the system), Drivers for hardware, and Multitasking and virtual-memory settings.

  11. Which wildcard character can be used to replace a single character in a search string?

    The single character wildcard is the question mark (?).