Customer Reviews

Dissecting DOS: A Code-Level Look at the DOS Operating System

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After my first review posted, I am very pleased to say that the author (Mike Padanoffsky) contacted me, and was *Extremely* helpful in fixing *any* complaints that I may have had on his book / software. And it chagrins me to say, that the retractant message that I thought I had posted never went up. So I shall do so again. The original one went sorta like this... "This book, barring a minor bug in one of the earlier editions is in my own opinion one of the *very* best books on re-entrant assembly code and on operating systems. In fact, I liked the OS well enough that I use it on a daily basis on my notebook. For any inquiring programmers, if you want to know HOW to write your own OS, this is one of the *most* essential books to have at your side. I cannot stress enough how well it is written and supported. Words just doesn't seem to do it justice." I am also reminded of the fact, that if it weren't for authors like Mike, some of us programmers would still be scratching our heads, saying "Now, how do I do this one???"

Great book. buy it. I highly recommend it... from one programmer to another.

The book was pretty good with the information that it did give. Some of the programs that were discussed in the book were not on the disk like the book said they were. Alot was left out and not touched upon like they should have been. There should have been a short section on Device drivers, just to give a reader an overview that they do exist, and maybe a little on installable file systems. I bought this book because the code was written in Assembler. I probably should have bought FreeDos instead except that is was written in C. All the information that I could not find in this book I found in the Code for Free Dos.

The book provides an indepth analysis of the way DOS works, contains invaluable information that you can find nowhere else. Nevertheless especially in the beginning I 've got the impression that bypasses -I admit that I'm not the most proficient assembly user and it can be my mistake- some funtamental elements very quickly. (I still try to find a way to list my files without using DOS interupts as the book doesn' t really explain what exactly interupt 52h/21h does and I 've not yet really understood how the accompanying program printcds work - written in C)

Dissecting DOS provides the source code to DOS(actually RxDOS), a great explanation of the internals, and a look at how great reentrant ASM (assembly language) code is written. Enjoy !

You can make your own operating system by studying books like this one.
The source code will reveal much about how to write a kernel.

This book has everything except working software. The author has decided that he'd make a small bug so you can't compile the bootsector software, and the bootsector that the software writes, isn't bootable. Mr. PODANOFFSKY, if you read this, I appreciate, as other OS programmers do, your work in this field, but the fact that you put a bug in the code, and skip over the explaination on the bootsector code, shows a lack of trust / belief that we (other programmers) are even computer literate. Thank you but I think that I can decide what will, and what will not damage up my hard drive, and if it does, I think I can fix it... hello, it's called "Sys.Com" -- to any perspective buyers of this book, wait until it's at the library or until the author writes the second edition, and fixes the bug, so that this book is actuallty useful.