One thing I remember and even used quite recently, is that you could C-z out of emacs in MS-DOS to get a new COMMAND.COM for running other applications, then exit back to emacs. I think this was some kind of feature of later versions of MS-DOS, that an application could open a child-COMMAND.COM and put itself in the background using some interrupt? Anyway that was great for running compilers and doing other tasks without having to ever exit emacs.
Anyway it was a very interesting read. I don't think I ever used Windows to run DOS applications. I used to start Windows 3.x now and then to run some Windows application, but then I exited out to COMMAND.COM again where I spent most of my time. And then when Microsoft tried to get everyone to switch to Windows 95 I installed Linux instead.
It wasn't quite a TSR, it was more like a subshell. I remember using a similar feature in Telix in the early 90s.
It was a bit limited because you were still restricted to the usual 640kB memory space, and the original program remained in memory, so you typically didn't have a lot to work with. You could do things like file management while still connected to a remote BBS though.
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One thing I remember and even used quite recently, is that you could C-z out of emacs in MS-DOS to get a new COMMAND.COM for running other applications, then exit back to emacs. I think this was some kind of feature of later versions of MS-DOS, that an application could open a child-COMMAND.COM and put itself in the background using some interrupt? Anyway that was great for running compilers and doing other tasks without having to ever exit emacs.
Anyway it was a very interesting read. I don't think I ever used Windows to run DOS applications. I used to start Windows 3.x now and then to run some Windows application, but then I exited out to COMMAND.COM again where I spent most of my time. And then when Microsoft tried to get everyone to switch to Windows 95 I installed Linux instead.
You might be thinking of "terminate and stay resident" programs, like Borland Sidekick :p
It wasn't quite a TSR, it was more like a subshell. I remember using a similar feature in Telix in the early 90s.
It was a bit limited because you were still restricted to the usual 640kB memory space, and the original program remained in memory, so you typically didn't have a lot to work with. You could do things like file management while still connected to a remote BBS though.