IBM 5150 - Page 83

The DOS Prompt
After you have entered the date, DOS displays this:
The IBM Personal Computer DOS
Version 1.00 (C) Copyright I BM CO RP 1981
TIle ~rsor is here.
A> is the DOS prompt. A prompt tells you that it is
your turn to type information, that is, to tell DOS what
to do by entering a command.
This
prompt tells you some other things, too, besides
that DOS is waiting for you to enter a command.
First
of all it tells you that it is DOS that is waiting.
Other programs have different prompts; for example,
BASIC's
prompt is: Ok. Ok lets you know that you
should respond with a BASIC command.
The second thing
that A> tells you is that A: is the
default drive. A default drive is the diskette drive
that
DOS assumes will contain the diskette or file you specify
in a command, unless
you explicitly type another
diskette drive, like B:. Another name for the default
drive is the current drive.
DOS 3-9