MS-DOS BATCH Files .bat - Nostalgic Discharge | Nostalgia Nerd

It's insane how much I used to love BATCH files and indeed still do! They were useful for so much automation in DOS, and the corner stone of many a command line POWER USER.

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[MessiahProphylaxis]

I just used batch files to compress several terabytes of hot roms to CHD. The alternative would be to not have every foreign and beta version of every game ever released on cd-rom between 1988-2008. Thank you batch files.

[Foebane]

I'm using and writing batch files right now! Yep, they ARE handy!

[lurkerrekrul]

I never had an MS-DOS system. I went straight from the Amiga to Windows 98. So I had very little experience with batch files on the kinds of systems where they were most common.

I've written a bunch of batch files more recently for DOS games running in DOSBox though. Many don't realize that the DOSBox .CONF file is actually a batch file. Or at least the end of it is, where you can add virtually any standard DOS batch file commands and have it execute them when DOSBox runs. You can use this to have it setup the games you want to run.

Most people "install" DOSBox, install the games to a different directory, then run the games by manually typing the commands each time. What I do is create a separate directory for each game, then make a subdirectory to serve as the C: directory where the game will be installed. I also make another subdirectory and put a copy of DOSBox in it. Then I edit that DOSBox's .CONF file to include the commands to launch the game, run the setup program, enable/disable options (for example, deleting/restoring the Cuss Pack files in Redneck Rampage), etc. Finally, I create a batch file that launches DOSBox using the custom .CONF file in the subdirectory, rather than the general system one from the installed copy. Double-click the starting batch file, it launches DOSBox which pops up with a menu of all the different options for the game.

Sometimes the starting batch file will have a menu of its own, like my one for Tomb Raider that allows the user to change Glide wrappers before running the game. Or it will run addition programs, like my one for Dark Forces which also runs GlovePIE to simulate mouselook and OverlayXHair to put a crosshair in the center of the screen.

As an added bonus, when configured this way, the games are completely portable. You can copy the whole directory to a thumb drive, or Zip it to make a backup. If you need an icon to run them, just put a shortcut to the starting batch file on the desktop or the Start menu. Of course you use an extra 5-7MB of space for each one by having a duplicate copy of DOSBox in each directory, but I figure that's a fair trade. :)

[AshtonSnapp]

I could honestly make use of a menu batch file tutorial, trying to make one for my FreeDOS VM

[snowkittenstudio]

Those were the days. I used to work for a doctor who had a Harley Street practice. And I was in charge of creating all the software to keep track of the invoices, medical records, stock control etc. The programming was done in QuickBasic, but the whole system was controlled from batch files and (without wanting to sound like Billy Bighead) it worked great, mainly thanks to how great batch files could be.

[SomeOrangeCat]

Oh yeah! Batch files separated the man from the boys! Back in the day, I created some crazy in-depth menus for my game collections in DOS.

[btizef]

Can totally relate to this. Still use them till this day for the odd programming thing.

[sebastien]

Why are you talking about batch files in past tense? They are still used. It is basically the only scripting language you are guaranteed to find pre-installed in any version of Windows.

[danilom]

Wow... it's 2024 right now.. I wasn't expecting to see those screen layouts again.. felling nostalgic today

[Kee-Lo]

BATCH FILES!
Yeah I remember them, they were very useful back in the 90s...

[GtBFilms]

I still write MS-DOS batch files today! Still useful for doing mass file renaming etc. The sort of thing a bit of freeware would normally do, if bloody IT actually let you install anything.

[sam-sharp]

I still use them to this day - one I use all the time is something I wrote called list.bat which uses the DOS command "dir" to save a list of files from a folder to a txt file. At work, when I have to paste the filenames of 2-300 architectural drawings into a quote, this can save me half an hour - so has saved me weeks of worktime over my career. I use the same batch to email my Dad a list of music and films that I have on my NAS so I can copy it to DVD before visiting.

[GazzJ]

Love Jonny Castaway! - I think the only thing that comes close to batch files now is bash in linux. I know you can still use batch files in Windows but they are rarely needed now.

[fenrisgaming]

LOL I remember in high school, I wrote a "sortof" virus with batch files and unleashed it on my schools computer the aim was to screw with teachers and the grading system.
The "virus" would essentially copy itself to the Novell Netware account of anyone who logged into the infected computer. It would then copy itself onto any other machine the infected user logged into, and when enough time had passed, it would start deleting things out of the infected users Novell Netware account, hoping that would include grades and such, as at that time, most teachers did keep their grades and whatnot on the network.
Anyway.... the "virus" was caught before it could do too much damage, and I kinda got caught good thing the teacher who caught me was a bit of a moron(He was the head of the computer lab) and took my plea of innocence as genuine! xD

[Gooberslot]

I never did anything as complicated as you did but I did have a couple of boot disks with various configs for different games. It's not something I miss.

[wisteela]

Excellent, and excellent t shirt too.
That was one hell of a burnt in Pacman CRT!

[JK-smni]

Batch files are really handy. You'll be surprised how much time you can save with those.

[CasualCommodore]

Nice little rant. I remember creating a custom command prompt, so the danish flag would precede the actual "C:\>" prompt. That looked SOO cool. :) Though, I don't recall if that was done in AUTOEXEC.BAT or CONFIG.SYS..

[garyburchgb]

memories!. the menu is similar to what I used to do. I created a diskette which was self boot able which included disk compression to put a load of games on to play in the library when I was around 11. even done a school project with a menu system for a French project all made out of batch files and additional files found on a demo disk to display pictures etc.

[ElevenGamer]

Slightly off topic but this vid' reminded me of the hours I spent in the AMIGA's Shell, "ed DF0:s/startup-sequence" etc. mainly doing stupid stuff like adding naughty words to my friends games on boot up, ahhh the memory's.