Questions tagged [utilities]
For questions about retrocomputing hardware and software utilities.
17 questions
23 votes
5 answers
6k views
Why is the Unix command "touch" called touch? How is it related to new/create or update?
The Unix touch command is used to update a file’s access time and modification time, or to create (misspelled creat in the system call) a new file. Since English isn’t my first language, I’ve always ...
- 911
1 vote
1 answer
472 views
Decades ago (and probably earlier), there was a free program that scanned your HDD and updated all your application software
I don't remember the name of it I think it was an animal name. But I think it worked in win 95. It was free, too. What was it, and does it still work?
7 votes
2 answers
1k views
How did the Sidekick TSR interfere with other programs? [closed]
Everybody remembers the wonderful DOS-pop up Sidekick, which provided a calculator, file manager, and ASCII table; plus other stuff I never used. One reason it was wonderful is that it was always ...
6 votes
7 answers
995 views
Did any PC disk defragmentor optimize cylinder position?
Defragmentation was used to minimize harddisk waiting times as the read head - which took milliseconds to move - was close to the next file to read when done with this one. In hard drives with ...
13 votes
5 answers
3k views
Was Norton utilities the first disk defragmenter?
I thought HDD defragmentation was the cleverest thing I had ever seen in computers since college. It improved the performance so much and it had been completely overlooked. At least by me. Does the ...
6 votes
1 answer
719 views
How did Peter Norton's Crash Guard work?
One of the Norton utilities allowed you to do something — probably a keystroke — which caused a hung program to unhang, and often you can save your work. It saved me several times when running Gates' ...
4 votes
1 answer
576 views
Did Steve Gibson's Spinrite actually do anything useful by "refreshing" the disc's magnetic domains?
Spinrite saved my ass many times. It refreshed the low level disk format (sector definitions), something that DOS couldn't do. But on 80s TV shows, Steve said that it was necessary to rewrite the ...
20 votes
2 answers
1k views
Why doesn't sed have a j command?
It has always bugged me that sed, which is mostly compatible with ed, doesn't have the same j command (to join two lines together) that ed does. Once upon a time I imagined this was because sed works ...
- 517
20 votes
10 answers
7k views
Why does cat with no argument read from standard input?
In advice about how to design good CLI commands I read: If your command is expecting to have something piped to it and stdin is an interactive terminal, display help immediately and quit. This means ...
- 1,289
4 votes
1 answer
976 views
Memory requirements for undelete command
During MS-DOS days, an Undelete command existed and provided three levels of protection. Sentry is pretty much the same as the Recycle Bin, it moves deleted files to a directory called Sentry. Tracker ...
- 2,003
17 votes
3 answers
3k views
What was the first two-panel file manager for DOS?
I'm trying to settle a debate between me and some colleagues about two-panel file managers in MS-DOS/PC DOS. According to my own recollection the first was DV.EXE (see EDIT below), but some of my ...
- 386
8 votes
2 answers
558 views
Looking for a 90s Macintosh background pattern collection
I've been trying to find a collection of desktop patterns for Macintosh that I had for System 7 back in the day. I remember it as a specific application that you ran to set the patterns (as opposed to ...
- 335
13 votes
2 answers
880 views
Unix utility "smiley" to decode emoticons: Where to get it?
I remember in the 90s, there existed a Unix command line utility named smiley that decoded emoticons. A sample use would be like this (the output is likely not the exact output the program gave): $ ...
- 233
17 votes
3 answers
3k views
Where was the DOS cdd utility from?
I distinctly remember, on the computer I had in the 90's, being able to type cdd D:\bla\bla in the MS-DOS command prompt, to change both the current directory and drive (avoiding having to type D: ...
- 1,628
11 votes
1 answer
1k views
What is the history of data compression tools on personal computers?
On UNIX, the progression of the most widespread data compression programs was as follows: (AFAIR: Pre System V) compact (suffix .C), dynamic Huffman coding (AFAIR: introduced in System V) pack (suffix ...
- 22.3k