BAT) files, and you can even change the
DATE and
TIME just like you used to almost
40 years ago.
With PC DOS 1.00, Microsoft and IBM started down a road that could have forked in any number of directions at
any point in time, so it was by no means inevitable that we’d always end up where we are now, but it’s also
true that each new step was constrained in many ways by the previous step.
Each new version of DOS had to retain compatibility with the previous version, and old features could
rarely be dropped, so the system inevitably grew. The need to rapidly add new features and turn around