A DOS Based World

On March 31, Microsoft released its April Fool’s joke saying that they were going to release a DOS based phone (see video below). For those who are not familiar with DOS, it was the operating system that powered early computers and it was text-based.  So to get a program to work you would have to type in a command to run a program.

For example to get your calendar program to run you needed to type in “calendar.exe” You would then be greeted with a numbered menu listing your options. You would then enter that number to choose that option. This would take you to a new screen where you would choose another option, or you would enter the information you wanted. When you were done using the calendar program, you would need to close it so you could open another program; there was no multitasking.

Texting on a DOS based phone would need you to go through similar steps: 1) enter the command to run the texting program; 2) Choose the option on the menu to say you wanted to send a text; 3) Choose the option saying you wanted to choose from your existing list of contacts…. You get the point.

 

 

In a similar vein, Aleator777 took it upon himself to create a watch that “recreates” an Apple watch that used the same text-based operating system (Apple DOS I believe).  He also took the time to create a case that resembles the Apple II computer of that era. (See video below).

 

Imagine what the world would be like if were still in a DOS based world..

Leave a Reply

Scroll to Top