DOS? That's the thing that came after learning to type 'LOAD"*",8,1' to start games, right?

Let's see, probably my school computer lab, grade 4 or 5...

Ah I was mostly a Windows kid since I started learning about computers around 1999 so DOS was not as relevant as it was before Windows 95 came along. A few or so years after that I ended up getting a copy of Redneck Rampage which obviously was a DOS game and that would be how I was introduced with the concept of DOS. Ever since then I have been slowly learning how to use it thanks to more DOS games I played because of the large number of games on abandonware sites at the time that eventually came here. Now I am pretty darn familiar with how DOS works since I learned how to set up things in DOSBox by myself since I am a retro PC game collector of sorts, and I am getting familiar with the real DOS operating system since I plan on getting a working DOS machine to play some of these classics on real hardware.

My story is probably nowhere near as entertaining as the others considering they used DOS when it was still a big deal, but hey I am just a young guy who has always been fascinated with older computer stuff since he started with Windows 98/ME in the early 2000s.

I discovered DOS with my first PC since it had only it.

I discovered DOS in 1996 / 1997 and i remember playing
Alley Cat
4x4
Space Invader
Leisure Suit Larry EGA

My dad had one of those portable IBM computers with the keyboard that folded over the monitor/front panel and locked it to form a briefcase. I miss that tiny monochrome screen and the 20 MB hard drive.

The cool thing is we had a color monitor we could set on top of the PC. That made playing games like Police Quest or King's Quest a little more enjoyable.

Anyone remember this game?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvnpdAn-mh4

Round 42 - I think I read somewhere that it was a CGA game but could handle more than 4 colours at time because of the way it was programmed.

When I was little, maybe between four and six, most of the games I played were through DOS (Mixed-Up Mother Goose, Mixed-Up Fairy Tales, Full Throttle, 7th Guest (was that DOS?), Ultima 8, Fellowship of the Ring...). I was raised around computers and I could do the commands fairly well even at a young age. I discovered DOSbox in college and was thrilled.

I sense that the OP is somewhat younger than many of us old-timers here ;-)

I got introduced to DOS when I switched from my trusty Amiga 500 to a PC, because that's what the PC ran. It was a 486 DX4 100MHz, with 4MB RAM and a 400MB HDD.

I feel old ...

I "discovered" DOS (MS-DOS that is), after getting rid of my Sony Hitbit MSX2 homecomputer (Which by the way ran MSX-DOS) and getting a new 286-computer - which had a 40MB harddrive!.

Can't really remember what the first games were I played on that, but I have fond memories of Ultima Underworld, The Seventh Guest, and so on (but I'm not sure whether that was on my 286 or later on my 486).

"But we were happy in those days, despite we had no real computing power."
"We were happy BECAUSE we had no real computing power!"
...
"And you try telling young kids that, but they won't believe you..."

(Aaahhh, Monty Python still rules.)

Well, it's not really an interesting story. We bought a PC and DOS just happened to be the current OS. Windows eventually hit the scene and it was something you would launch every once in a while when you needed a break from good games to play Minesweeper.

It's was the second OS I used regulary. The first one being AMSDOS. Ah the 80's.

I think the first time I ever touched a DOS PC machine was when as a small kid my big brother took me to his university, and let me play King's Quest 1 on a color IBM PC machine. I guess I learned how to start the game by myself.

DOS felt pretty advanced OS because before it I was familiar mostly with CP/M machines, and some obscure home computers with their proprietary OS (and BASIC), like Texas Instruments TI-99/4A and Spectravideo SVI-328 (which actually could also run CP/M, which made it feel like a real productive office computer :)). MS-DOS felt like CP/M on steroids, which it was in fact, I think.

The guy who sold a computer to my parents copied some DOS games to the hard drive. He also sold us a pirate CD full of old games. He showed me how to play Commander Keen 5, Aladdin and TES: Arena (the latter, by struggling with the controls and dying to a rat).

He also installed Win95 on the PC and set up the dual boot to load Win95 by default. Needless to say, Win95 didn't get used often, but somehow I felt is was sacrilege to get rid of the ritual waiting for the boot menu.