Compsee Apex III, Technical Reference Manual

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Apex PDT Technical Reference Manual 5 Operating System
COAM30002 Rev. 2.00 8/13/02
5-1
5 OPERATING SYSTEM
Introduction
The Apex PDT utilizes the Datalight ROM-DOS

operating system
(version 6.22). Designed for embedded and mobile computing
environments, ROM-DOS

provides the features of MS-DOS

.
ROM-DOS

is fully compatible with all DOS standards and uses
device drivers making BIOS calls for all hardware communications.
While having the advantage of flexibility and compatibility, ROM-
DOS was independently written by Datalight to be compact and is
nearly half the size of MS-DOS

.
ROM-DOS
 
Conventions
Since ROM-DOS

is fully compatible with MS-DOS

, it employs
the same basic conventions as other DOS Operating Systems.
These conventions include the following:
q
Two part filename structure (
name.ext,
with eight
character filename limitation and three character extension).
q Filename extension properties (
.com, .exe
, and
.bat
reserved for executable and batch programs).
q
Tree-structured directory system.
q Drive designations the same as MS-DOS (for the Apex PDT,
A:
is the Boot Drive,
B:
is a placeholder drive,
C:
is the
mass-storage drive, and additional drives subsequent letters
as designated).
q
System prompt (e.g.
C:
) and Command Line (area to the
right of the system prompt) used in the same fashion as
MS-DOS

.
q Input and output redirection through the use of the right angle
bracket (> - output) and the left angle bracket (< - input).
Note: Refer to the ROM-DOS User’s Guide included on the
supplied Compsee Product Support CD for additional
information on ROM-DOS characteristics or features.