Dan Gookin's Guide to Undergro [Paperback]

Dan Gookin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 1993

A practical user's guide to unraveling the mysteries of DOS illustrates how to harness the operating system's full potential.

Product Details

• Paperback: 410 pages
• Publisher: Random House Information Group; New edition edition (May 1, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553370979
• ISBN-13: 978-0553370973
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,414,312 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Dan Gookin has been writing about technology for over 20 years. He combines his love of writing with his gizmo fascination to create books that are informative, entertaining, and not boring. Having written more over 120 titles with 12 million copies in print translated into over 30 languages, Dan can attest that his method of crafting computer tomes seems to work.

Perhaps his most famous title is the original DOS For Dummies, published in 1991. It became the world's fastest-selling computer book, at one time moving more copies per week than the New York Times #1 bestseller (though as a reference, it could not be listed on the NYT Bestseller list). From that book spawned the entire line of For Dummies books, which remains a publishing phenomena to this day.

Dan's most popular titles include PCs For Dummies Word For Dummies, Laptops For Dummies, and Droid X For Dummies. He also maintains the vast and helpful Web site, www.wambooli.com.

Dan holds a degree in Communications/Visual Arts from the University of California, San Diego. Presently, he lives in the Pacific Northwest, where he enjoys spending time with his sons playing video games inside while they watch the gentle woods of Idaho.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars A DOS classic that I found very helpful, May 7, 2008

By 

Charles Ashbacher (Marion, Iowa United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Dan Gookin's Guide to Undergro (Paperback)

Although it has long since passed out of the collective IT memory, intimate knowledge of DOS was once a prized skill. At the height of DOS utilization, there was no better way to learn DOS than through the books of Dan Gookin. I kept a copy of his books within arms reach of my computer and when faced with a difficult task that taxed my knowledge of DOS, I reached for one of them. I was never disappointed and my coworkers often asked to borrow them when they faced the same dilemma. As I recall, they were never disappointed as well.

5.0 out of 5 stars Another good read from Gookin, June 6, 2006

By 

Steve Hueber (United kingdom) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dan Gookin's Guide to Undergro (Paperback)

I think the review dated April 1 1998 is ironic, with the date of
April 1 being significant. Seriously, this is a great book for
computer users who want to explore DOS beyond the level of More
DOS for Dummies by the same author.
Despite the title the book refers mainly to DOS 5 with a little
DOS 6, presumably because DOS 6 was new at that time. The book is
about exploring DOS and PCs in general with the program DEBUG. I
recommend creating a DOS 5 1.4M boot floppy with the following
programs added, which should all be the DOS 5 versions (except
EDIT):
ANSI.SYS
COMP.EXE
DEBUG.EXE
DOSKEY.COM
EDIT.COM (from DOS 7)
EMM386.EXE
FIND.EXE
FORMAT.COM
HIMEM.SYS
KEYB.COM
KEYBOARD.SYS
LABEL.EXE
MEM.EXE
MORE.COM
RAMDRIVE.SYS
A blank floppy is also needed which ideally should be formatted
with DOS 5. By using DOS 5 you will get results which most closely resemble those in the book.
I found I was frequently pencilling annotations to note results of trying the exercises as well as clarifying the text and
correcting typos. Fortunately there is only one typo in the
script files - Figure 5-4, the file size (under RCX)is AC not AB
Also in some of the early batch files the printer (of the book)seemed unable to handle the less-than symbol for redirecting input to DEBUG.
This sort of book helps build an understanding of PC fundamentals which surprisingly helps with apparently unrelated tasks such as formatting a hard drive and installing windows XP.

5.0 out of 5 stars I loved your book it was the GREATEST, April 2, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Dan Gookin's Guide to Undergro (Paperback)

it helped me with my online expernice. It also helped me with my english. I just want to say this is the greatest book in the world. I will burn my bible in put your book in its place. I also love the author fo writing the book