While browsing the the bookstore last weekend, I came upon this small book titled Computers and Data Processing Made Simple. I picked it up and began to thumb through it. Before I completely read the first page, the author had started to use terms like “Binary Arithmetic,” “inverters,” and “bistables.” To me this points up the fact that whatever else you say about computers, they are not something that can be “made simple.” Computers are very complicated devices and understanding how they work is a subject that can get you a Doctorate.

OK, so given that computers are fairly complicated pieces of equipment, how are you, as a forward looking Landscape Architect who knows little or nothing about “Binary Arithmetic,” going to automate your practice. Fortunately, the world of microcomputers has matured to the point that understanding how the machine works is no longer a necessity. Don’t get me wrong, there is still plenty you will have to learn, but whether 0 1 1 1 is 7 or 70 in Binary isn’t part of it.

Just the Basics

Probably the first thing you need to learn about using the IBM-PC or any other IBM compatible system is how to use the Disk Operating System (DOS). If you went out today, bought an IBM Personal Computer, the best plotter, and the latest CADD software, hooked it all up and sat down to do some serious Computer Assisted Design you would quickly learn that you couldn’t even start the CADD program without this thing called DOS being loaded into the computer first.

Personal computers handle nearly everything as an electronic version of the old file cabinet with drawers full of files in it. Every software program, word processed document, AutoCad drawing, or Lotus 123 spreadsheet is maintained as a file or series of files within the computer system. Even AutoCad and Lotus 123 themselves are files. I like to think of computer files as either information that I want the computer to work on (like word processed documents) or as a file of instructions about how to work on the information (software programs). Part of the Disk Operating System’s responsibility is maintaining this filing system.

The Disk Operating System has been described as a computer program that accomplishes the same thing that the conductor of a symphony orchestra does. If a piece of music has trumpets blaring, the conductor cues them to play. If cymbals should be crashed together, the conductor indicates when to do so. In other words the conductor directs how all the musicians and their instruments work together in order to produce a song. The same is true of the Disk Operating System. If a program calls for a disk file to be created, DOS directs that this be accomplished. If you type the command to rename a file, DOS is the program that takes care of this procedure. It really doesn’t matter what program (Song) the computer system needs to “play,” DOS takes care of all the background work and lets the beauty of the “music” come through.

Dir, Ver and Cls

No these aren’t the latest rock groups or government acronyms, they are three of the commands within DOS that you will become very familiar with as you learn to use your computer system.

Dir is the command to issue if you want to see a listing of the files on your disk. This command causes the computer to display a list on the screen of all the files on the disk, when they were created, and how many bytes they occupy. Within a very short time you will be using dir (short for Directory) to locate files and check their sizes.

Ver is issued to learn or remind yourself what version of DOS you are using. There are some programs that won’t run with early versions of DOS and there are some really helpful features within DOS that weren’t available in earlier versions.

Cls is typed at the keyboard to clear everything off of the screen. This command is very useful when the screen is so cluttered that you are getting confused. Cls is one of the few DOS commands that has no optional additional parts.

Still more about “more” and other DOS commands

There are several other DOS commands that you’ll learn in order to use your computer efficiently.

more is a command that allows you to tell the computer, “if you are showing me something on the screen and it takes more than one screen to show it to me, stop when the screen is filled up and let me read it until I press a key to go on to the next screen full.”

copy has several uses but one of the most frequently used is to make exact copies of files on other disks. For example, if you had a CADD drawing that you needed to modify but didn’t want to lose the original drawing. You could use the copy command to make an exact copy of the original and work on the copy instead.

erase does just what it says, it erases files and therefore needs to be used very carefully. It does come in handy though when you have lots and lots of copies of files and need to organize your disk by getting rid of some of them.

format is the command that is used to prepare new or previously used disks for use. This command is at once essential (because you must use it to make new disks usable) and dangerous because you can forever lose valuable files if you format the disk they are on by accident.

type allows you to display the contents of files on the screen. This is sometimes helpful if you can’t recall what a file contains and don’t want to load the application program that you used to create the file with.

This is just a sample of the commands available in DOS to help you manage your computer environment, but hopefully they give you an idea of DOS’s capability. Remember when I said it wasn’t really possible to make explaining computers simple and that you didn’t need to learn how they work anyway. Is anyone still interested in learning about “inverters”?