MS-DOS tutorial, or cure for insomnia?

Despite the name "QuickStudy Videos: MS-DOS Intermediate", this tutorial drags on for nearly two hours, and spends most of its time covering only the most basic DOS commands. It has a copyright date of 1995, but appears to have been recorded in 1993, and features MS-DOS 6.0. It was likely produced on a Commodore Amiga, since you can hear the sound of an Amiga mouse being clicked during some of the transitions.
Transferred from a VHS tape, which claims to be "VideoLock™ copy protected", but shows no signs of having any copy protection encoding (nor does the U.S. Trademark Office have any record of any such named copy protection scheme). Its hi-fi audio track was so noisy that I had to revert to the linear audio track, and used a BSR DAK-1 noise reduction unit to clean up the hiss. And the few seconds of the video being rewound at the end was not caused by me; it was actually recorded on the tape that way.

[@NJRoadfan]

The most advanced technology used in this production has to be the Video Toaster. Using a ballpoint pen for a pointer? How classy. I bet some guy (maybe Tony Hawk :P) had a Toaster laying around doing nothing and 2 hours of free time to kill. Its quite obvious this was unscripted, almost like a 20+ year old KZbin video.

[@thespacemonkeyist]

Quite possibly. Mind you, KZbin is only 13 years-old (Start Date: February 14, 2005) :)

[@Windo0ows]

thespacemonkeyist r/whooosh

[@archgirl]

@@Windo0ows Could you work faster on my Thinkpad R31 please? Thank you.

[@jackgerberuae]

@@thespacemonkeyist and now 4 years more 😵‍💫

[@rillloudmother]

it mighta been tony hawk, he was doing video editing during the lull in skateboarding of the early 90s...

[@Zurligen]

This video is extra special to me. That's my Dad! 1:19 I was born less than a month after he made this. His voice makes me feel safe and at home. That must be how my daughter feels about my voice. She only goes to sleep when I'm there singing to her. Happy Father's Day!

[@AidanHockey34]

Hi I'm Troy McClure! You may remember me from such computer tutorial films as "Where's the power button?" and "Don't Copy that Floppy!"

[@n_3719]

You? For real?

[@FifoF]

It’s a fictional character from The Simpsons, so yeah, of course not. He was voiced by Phil Hartman.

[@ian_b]

"DOS, Do's And Don'ts" and "Ctrl Alt Delete To Compete!"

[@TSteffi]

LMAO.EXE /HARD

[@jacoblipkestudios7621]

Hahahahahaha, the Simpsons is the greatest show ever made, period.

[@eclecticreader961]

"Current date is 1993" *sighs* I wish it was. Time flew by too fast.

[@hewhohasnoidentity4377]

Life was good when I was 12. Except the girl I dated then was a true psychopath!

[@sgtjonson]

I loved that the date format was yy in 1993. Nobody thought their machines would last seven years?!?

[@urbzNspicez]

It's 2020 and I'm literally following along to this on windows 10 command prompt.. and it's working 😂

[@zeddie4153]

Also really nice with the POSIX standard. You can compile 35 year old UNIX software without any problems on a modern Linux computer.

[@SEGACD32XMODEL1]

Command Prompt is the intended replacement for DOS so that the not-so-smart user does not mess up the computer and older users can still use the keyboard more than the mouse

[@xaenon]

Windows 10 'DOS' has a lot of extra features that aren't in the original implementations of DOS. Some of them are actually kind of slick. Worth looking into.

[@fl0atpvnk]

Nothing changed!

[@raymondleggs5508]

😀

[@BigBadWolf1st]

I cannot tell you how many times I've used this to get some sleep!! At least 40 or 50 times now. I have bad sleep patterns and sometimes I have to force myself to take a nap and this works every time. Thank you!!

[@ewkalt4770]

i actually put this on, plugged in my headphones and took a nap a few weeks ago. i slept for a good half hour.

[@ABCEasyas--]

Did the beeping around the 25 minute mark wake you up?

[@ewkalt4770]

@@ABCEasyas-- Haha, I can't remember

[@KeksimusMaximus]

>took a nap few weeks ago Emphasizing this like you only woke up after several weeks of sleep

[@skraegorn7317]

Oh man, the soft VHS audio compression and the static and the visual artifacts are so beautiful. Also this is really helpful, I’ve been trying to learn DOS commands in DOSbox and this is pretty informative.

[@KeksimusMaximus]

Nice userpic

[@vincentrosario5358]

@@KeksimusMaximus "Damn! those alian bastards are gonna pay for shooting up my ride!"

[@KeksimusMaximus]

@@vincentrosario5358 Illegal alien bastards, I must say

[@skaruts]

I love that he's explaining it like he's teaching grandpa. That actually made sense back then, given that most people had never even seen a computer in their lives.

[@fountaincap]

Thank you! I have a soft spot for these quaint 80s/90s computer videos. Takes me back to a more innocent time in computing.

[@archgirl]

Well, he's no Jim Butterfield, but I could certainly sleep to this. There's a 2 hour C64 demonstration and tutorial video from Jim Butterfield back in the 80's that I've used to help me sleep numerous times. Jim's voice combined with the background noise just sends me right off. Plus it has the perk of being genuinely enjoyable to watch when not trying to sleep.

[@ChaosHusky]

I have to work with Linux sometimes..actually more often than i want to. That almost puts me to sleep sitting up :)

[@LunaManar]

This was actually some very pleasant background noise to have while I was doing some arduous busywork at my job. 👍

[@Tnenamrep2]

Used this last night.... it works as advertised. I fell asleep with it on, and slept like a baby. ☺

[@hefhef54321]

Wait a minute! Am I the only one here that actually took this video seriously and took some notes about DOS? FML

[@justinhansen1328]

I always love the fade to black transition and something popping up slowly.

[@Skawo]

If this is a quick study video, I don't want to see the slow study one Maybe that begins by describing the alphabet

[@germaineliew2012]

Skawo The meaning of the C: \> Explained in 10 hours.

[@RayTech70]

Or narrating the Bible one letter at a time...

[@strawberryjam3670]

Maybe some companies will bring out poorly designed computers with retro feel.I mean, Imagine a Crosley computer.

[@JonnyInfinite]

Strawberry Jam *shudders*

[@TheComputerGuy96]

Those tablets or netbooks with Intel Atom and 32 GB eMMC are the Crosleys of computers. All that needs to be done is put it in an old school desktop case.

[@strawberryjam3670]

I would see people using this, Crosley is not even manufacturing their turntables themselves.

[@coolelectronics1759]

lmao

[@coolelectronics1759]

the ones you can get for dirt cheap from asia lol. I wouldnt be surprised if the crosley company slaps there name on some of those

[@bigsky1970]

This video is much better than a warm glass of milk. The keyboard and mouse clicks make for perfect ASMR.

[@sam.9000]

Genuinely interesting and much better to fall asleep to than silly nature noises

[@miroslavmilan]

Falling asleep to the sounds of computer wilderness.

[@jamesgrimwood1285]

Coming next - paint drying, and how to watch it. I also see where Microsoft got their Movie Maker template ideas from :)

[@pablosebastian5823]

It's wonderful taking on account that most of people still never was in contact with a PC. When you already know something, it's easy to get bored...

[@j2simpso]

The highlight of the film for me was the constant use of a BIC ballpoint pen to highlight parts of the screen. Talk about production value! 🤣

[@filthylucreonyoutube]

Exceptionally excruciatingly delightful! A sort of obscure perversion. Can you believe this was the promo video, intended to sell you on the complete set? Yes, you get the toll free number at the end. Great for getting to sleep, though, the title is not wrong! Edit - I had to come back and tell you how excited I am because now that I've watched this video, my recommendations are filled with hit titles like video professor, windows for dummies and learn the world wide web (Featuring Netscape Gold!)...

[@markusTegelane]

gotta wait for another ytp for this vid

[@maybedos]

lol I was actually on the look for one.

[@Lachlant1984]

What do you mean by YTP?

[@markusTegelane]

Lachlant1984 just look it up

[@coolelectronics1759]

hey if any one is planning on making a ytp and needs music inbox me I got a cheasy song on my channel I made ur welcome to borrow

[@coolelectronics1759]

"youtube poop" An alternative modern art form in which members of the yt comunity take television programs and distort them/remix them in different and unusual ways. Will most likely always have a hand full of meams thrown in. Dialog and vidio can be altered to make it seam as though a character is cursing etc. Lol sorry for the spelling just thought I'd chime in on this. There is a wiki im sure

[@Fuzy2K]

"Sometimes, on the- on the uh, the uh.... Some keyboards...." Damn, and I thought *I* was bad at presentations :P

[@tookeydookey]

I bought about 7 of these QuickStudy VHS Tapes as a lot on eBay in mid-2019 for over $10 (including shipping, and sealed). Still have them, definitely planning to archive them this year, that's for sure!

[@Patrick-tf1ri]

I’ve been using this as a sleep aid for 2 years now. Seriously... I can’t get past the 15 minute mark

[@sethat8e]

This cured my insomnia in about 20 minutes. 10 out of 10 recommend.

[@dhpbear2]

This is classic "tell the what you're going to say, say it, and then tell them what you said" :)

[@bitwize]

Using an Amiga with PC emulation or an x86 card to make this video makes a whole lot of sense -- because of the Amiga's built-in genlock, allowing for a steady and flicker-free picture of the screen.

[@thespacemonkeyist]

Thank-you for this refresher course in MS-DOS. The intro gives the main commands. You only need to watch to the four-minute mark... Further watching induces sleep!

[@YoutubeAdministrator]

"Howto backup the harddisk to a floppy". crazy times.

[@FurrySergal]

Someone sent me recently a huge box full of [about] 250 5.25" and not quite as many 3.5" floppies; all of them were backups, [the 5.25" backup set only went to 261] and every *single* floppy had its own sticker [1 of 384, so on] and I am not kidding on the number 384. Assuming the 3.5" set are 2HD, that would be . . . Sect/Track * Tracks/Sect * Amount of Disks [And lastly x2 for both sides]= 15 80 384 2 that's approximately *921600* potential points of failure during backup.. *and* restore . . . [not accounting for error correction but still] provided you could actually find the original backup program, and run it on modern - enough hardware... I mean sure I've had a handful of annoying errors when doing relatively critical things dependant on floppies.. but wow I feel bad for anyone without a tape drive back then.

[@YoutubeAdministrator]

I guess daily backups wasn't a thing back then Yi.

[@StampStories]

+Yi ‌ when i got a disk drive for my Altair, was probably the best day of my life... No more tapes, loading programs from tape is horrible, it took me 20 minutes to load basic on that thing. But with a disk only 1 minute, now those 8" disks were expensive but 100% worth it. I feel bad for those who never had a disk drive.

[@borzak101]

An expensive hard drive was 5mb so doable.

[@FurrySergal]

lol when the Altair was [still] around I was too young to realise things like fixed disks.. much less afford them, or an Altair. But I meant a datasette tape drive like an HP Colorado or iOmega Ditto [Dittos were absolute trash] not an audio cassette. Those I could afford and as much as I love old things.. I'll skip straight to the 8" diskette or even paper tape [some day] rather than an audio cassette. I do not miss them, for data that is.

[@ssjaken]

I love how he stumbles over his words. Charming

[@spearPYN]

The command line will always remain the most elegant and beautiful interface to talk to the computer. I am still using MS-DOS and Linux in text only mode.

[@pwaffle]

Awesome calming video to ease anxiety and falling asleep!

[@eclecticreader961]

This is an interesting tutorial. I was a kid during the 90s so I was never expected to be aware of this information. This is very important to know though.

[@Domarius64]

The title may be joking, but I'm immediately adding this to my "sleep" playlist! I add really slow paced retro technical stuff!

[@leezurligen227]

Thanks. I’m the guy who made this. Hey, I have ancestors named Hobson. They came from England to Illinois in the early 1820s.

[@Domarius64]

​@@leezurligen227that's cool :) I don't often hear about my last name. We know our family tree only a couple generations back, all in Australia.

[@djordjeblaga7815]

"..and then two digits for the year." Well done, Microsoft! Fun fact: Press the windows key + r type "cmd" Press enter Now you can follow along with the tutorial! cheers

[@vwestlife]

And he was wrong. You can type in four digits for the year -- and you don't need to use military time, either.

[@robintst]

And I have no Windows keys, I'm using a Model M. ;)

[@archgirl]

@@robintst Oooooh, please gimme... 😍😁

[@TSteffi]

@@robintst If you have no windows key, press CTRL+ESC instead

[@QoraxAudio]

@@robintst Dude. Model M? How?! 😁 Model M and Model F are l33t 😎

[@SquirrelMonkeyCom]

My videos kinda look like this video.

[@plizie]

I'm a fan

[@SupaCLUCK]

It's 9:51 AM and I haven't slept yet, thank you!

[@sam060497]

This is interesting to me. I could watch two hours of it for sure

[@44CT232]

As a kid, my dad once joked that I was the only person to ever read a DOS user manual from cover to cover, and even I would be bored to death by this :P

[@fl0atpvnk]

Thank you for posting. I’ll be sure to listen to this while sleeping and become a command line pro!

[@westfield90]

I miss these days. Seemed so much happier

[@retrogaminglife4021]

Thank you so much! This has been helping me fall asleep every night!

[@zzyzxRDFwy15]

I enjoyed writing batch files using DOS. I automated my BBS using them. This is a good video to watch to help you fall asleep.

[@6bim4uYGfeGSM4jdEm9g2]

i like how casual this is

[@stevef6392]

The advertisement at the end seemed better put together than the main content!

[@kolrabi]

Wait, how do I send commands from the screen to the computer again? Instructions unclear.

[@NintenloupWolfFR]

Dick stuck in floppy drive !!!!

[@coolelectronics1759]

I got stuck at the part where the keyboard swung out n hit me in the face lmaoooo. Wonder how many students started snoring during the midst of this film

[@ObiWanBillKenobi]

2:05 Three floppy drives. Impressive! Most impressive.

[@5argetech56]

C:\>dir. How many millions of times have I entered that....

[@lupine25]

I just need the tutorial video that reminds me to type "dir" and not "ls -l" when I"m at a DOS/Windows computer! :)

[@5argetech56]

Ken Nicholas Ha me too. Been using ubuntu since 2006 Dapper Drake...

[@emvitt]

I fix computers, so, I still do it. 😂

[@allanegleston4931]

its amaiZing how much we have forgotten about computers . thanks

[@rarbiart]

Make a 10 hours version please. just a few loops here and there. Nobody will notice while asleep....

[@BaconMinion]

I really don't miss the days of MS-DOS.

[@2ndPyleOfVinyl]

Thank you very much for posting this. This one is quite the contrast to the "Kids and Computers a.k.a. DOS Level One" VHS that came out sometime around 1990. It was full of cute little animations (presumably made on an Amiga) involving basic do's and don'ts of operating a computer. There was even an animated "video professor" who would amusingly glitch out ("I'm the video professor and I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm..." - lost vertical hold). I hope someone would post that one.

[@burgersquid]

as long as we're all being honest here VWestlife, I'll often go to sleep to the audio of you, druaga, and bbishop's videos. this is kind of a weird thing to tell someone, I guess. I can't get any sleep to uxwbill's videos, because he's a little too rapid fire with his delivery and has a higher pitch voice.

[@vwestlife]

You need to add Bob Andersen (bandersentv) to that list.

[@robertodowney1963]

Have you ever tried ASMR videos?

[@burgersquid]

Whoa, good call man. Subscribed!

[@burgersquid]

I have, droning sounds seem to work a little better for me though. Also, with +VWestlife or +druaga1 I might wake up knowing how to install Windows 98 on a grandfather clock.

[@jamesgrimwood1285]

The EEVBlog is also good to fall asleep to. Find a lengthy oscilloscope teardown video and just let it play. It's like the nerd version of a bedtime story.

[@jasmeetmatharoo]

Thanks for curing my insomnia.

[@helthuismartin]

Thank you for posting this on KZbin.It was very helpfull.

[@lupine25]

Dude... I am so converting this video to an MP3 so I can listen to it when I'm having trouble sleeping... :)

[@superapple4ever]

Going along with Command Prompt on my laptop lol.

[@dylancruz1131]

its not command prompt its MS-DOS

[@superapple4ever]

DC4CODE Well thank you so very much for explaining that to me. I had no idea.

[@dylancruz1131]

hmm.. i seen ti have mis-read your comment i thought you said that HE was using command prompt.

[@hexagonist23]

@@dylancruz1131 There's no MS-DOS in modern windows versions. Just a command line that looks like MS-DOS.

[@semco72057]

I learned MS-Dos and PC-Dos during the early 1980's and first used it while working on a Timex/Sinclair home PC and from there working on many other versions before settling on the IBM version even though all of it was written by Microsoft.

[@Arkathtoo]

Lets see if this can bore me to sleep. :^] I appreciate your efforts to remove the noise. I can't help but feel you put more effort into uploading this, than was spent on the tapes initial production.

[@Arkathtoo]

It worked lol.

[@kbhasi]

For some reason, this video feels almost lie a video I would do myself

[@sbrazenor2]

I put this on and laid down, and got as far as directory management and navigation, before falling asleep. LOL :)

[@user-pm7cc9mx6j]

Very nice tutorial!

[@Gravarty]

finally a new source for noisepuppet

[@hexagonist23]

Watching this is actually good for your attention span.

[@ed10523]

Any Videos on how Grass Grows...LOL!! This video is actually useful. I remember as a kid going into my local library learning dos on a Tandy machine..Talk about a flash back!

[@j2simpso]

I’m surprised the presenter showed off the date command. If there’s one command that pointdexter has never used in real life it would be date! 😂

[@webkinzfan05]

i was skeptical, put it on in bed, woke up having no idea what happened. safe to say it works!

[@juniorsilvabroadcast]

I'm already feeling sleeping watching this

[@CompComp]

Saving this for bed time later tonight

[@ACL9000]

I pity any creature who needed a video tutorial for MSDOS in 1993. They're probably just now receiving their Windows XP tutorial DVD.

[@rillloudmother]

i was watching a MR Carlson this afternoon and dozed off, when i woke this was on. it was not easy to rouse from my chair.

[@dan69p]

Mr Carlson has a soothing voice and a nice tempo, in his videos 👍 a wise man, and very thorough, I've learned a lot from watching his videos, but I have to watch them early in the day .

[@thegeforce6625]

I fell asleep to this last night. Slept okay

[@suikun245]

1:56:14 This comment has nothing to do with this video, but I remembrerd that when I was a child, I once rented the "Lion King II" videotape and after watching all the end credits, suddenly the entire movie started being rewound all the way up to the beginning and then everything went black, followed by the white noise image. (that appears when you playback a new blank tape) I think, that during mass recording, the operator forgot to stop recording(or thought he pressed the stop button, but actually did not) at the end of the movie and started rewinding the master tape without noticing that it was recording yet🤣

[@robintst]

Riveting stuff, I'm on the edge of my seat.

[@jamespilcher5287]

I had no idea there was an unformat command. Presumably that only worked after a quick format and no further writes to the disk

[@Dr.Quarex]

I was following along like "yep, still remember all of this, I am the MS-DOS master" and as soon as he said "unformat" I was like WHAT

[@FLUFFSQUEAKER]

I will try this tonight if i cant fall asleep again

[@vixencore]

yea me too

Great work

[@karona303]

Back in the Days before KZbin Tutorials

[@sideburn]

It works! Puts me right to sleep!

[@DarkGT]

That keep me awake better that energy drink!

[@zoeyamon935]

i fell asleep with auto play on and i don’t know how i got here

[@mlewellyn]

As long as your cable is intact, and you're within the 32' or so, and it's specified for a similar impedance, you're gonna have a hard time hearing a difference by ear. However, you may well have occasional issues. A decent quality digital coaxial cable will have proper shielding and will usually be pretty close to 75 ohm. I am willing to bet that the raw spidf signal looks different on the receiving end at "it barely works" and "fairly optimal". The decoders are generally pretty fault tolerant, but that also doesn't mean that if you're trying to copy the source, you'll get a good copy even if it sounds OK. For great fun, look at what audiophiles have recommended over the years. I think the best I ever saw was RG6Q and *only* compression fittings... Because soldering and crimping change the impedance too much! 😹😹😹

[@petersmit7650]

I can't find the Any key...

[@ewkalt4770]

i only see esc and ctrl

[@redcrimson718]

😂 I love this so much... this is gold.

[@Sam42069]

juanpax64 all that computer hacking made me thirsty. I think ill order a tab

[@CoreyDeWalt]

And um, the, the...the production levels are on par with such hits as, the room, and scream.

[@AlguienMas555]

Thanks for share

[@wrexhammusic]

This was actually interesting

[@dukenukem5768]

We used to pronounce "dosshell" as "dos hell"

[@bioskahabinivous9906]

XD all we knew were commands to launch games

[@cocusar]

Press enter to send the information from the screen to the computer? WTF. Also, the guy seems to be talking without a script, and uses "um" a lot. Thats really annoying.

[@zhbvenkhoReload]

Santiago Hormazabal isn't that how KZbin tutorials are nowadays?

[@ElysiumNZ]

Welcome to how things were back in the day mate.

[@leezurligen227]

My boss wanted extemporaneous videos, so that’s what I gave him.

[@jlk311]

insomnia cured! thanks

[@Appleboy78165]

Here's a drinking game for y'all: Take a shot every time the narrator says "um" or "uh".

[@Kenny-bw2cz]

This is exactly what I was looking for!!! Lol. Seriously.

[@Kenny-bw2cz]

Now if you could find one for the Amiga too... That would be great

[@Epictronics1]

Awesome, thanks :)

[@RobertDeloyd]

Yikes! I'm going to watch this later when I have some time to watch a "Quick Study Video" ;)

[@SegaSaturn94]

You are maybe joking, but i use your video as ASMR.. because your voice is relaxing and i like the keyboard sound of old pc , i remember the video about WIndows 1 or 2 on floppy, that was relaxing lol

[@beszt95]

Hey, what software (and hardware) did you use to capture this tape and have it not be interlaced? I've got a PCIe card that works for my VHS and 8mm tapes but finding software that will capture it *and* deinterlace has been the issue. Just curious, thanks!

[@yank3656]

thanks for sharing VWestlife

[@Edman_79]

Every age of human technological development brings its own specialists and experts. It's almost an extasy to watch this... (I really can't be more ironic than this)

[@gurriato]

Edman There really wasn't any expertise involved in this.

[@Edman_79]

Of course! That exactly is the funny part. The fact that someone like that recorded a horrible LQ VHS and sold it to others telling them - we - the experts - will teach you - quickly - how to do this... I used 1.25 speed and still was not able to watch (or rather listen to) more than 15 minutes... and they covered how to set the freakin' date and list directories... What a piece of...