Commands

Commands

The prompt understands a small subset of DOS commands plus a few easter-egg stubs. Commands are case-insensitive. Multiple commands can be chained with && (e.g. cd\emulators && dir).

Navigation

Command	What it does
dir	List the current directory
dir /w	Wide view
dir /o	Alphabetical order
dir /w /o	Wide + sorted
cd <dir>	Change directory
cd ..	Go up one level
cd \	Jump to drive root
cls	Clear the screen

Files

Command	What it does
<filename>	Execute. link: opens the URL in a new tab; data: runs as a batch script
type <file>	Print the file's data (or link) to the screen
find <word>	Search the whole virtual FS for games (.bat launchers) and emulator menus (sub-directories) whose name or short code matches the query at a word boundary. Reports two sections — GAMES and MENUS — each with code + title + full path. Cross-references numbered .bat shortcuts, so launchers like mario.bat are findable by their menu-displayed title (Super Mario Bros.).
find "<phrase>"	Multi-word queries must be wrapped in double quotes. Bare-spaced input is rejected with a hint that re-quotes the input.

What find looks like in practice

C:\>find space

Searching for "space"...
4 matches found.

GAMES (4)
  INVADERS   Space Invaders (1980)
             C:\EMULATORS\CONSOLE\ATARI\2600\GAMES
  INVADERS   Space Invaders (1980)
             C:\EMULATORS\HOMECOMP\ATARI\400\GAMES
  INVADER    Space Invaders (1980)
             C:\EMULATORS\HOMECOMP\COMMODRE\PET\GAMES
  MANBOW     Space Manbow (1989)
             C:\EMULATORS\HOMECOMP\MSX\MSX2\GAMES

Display

Command	What it does
echo <text>	Print text
echo off	Suppress the C:\> prompt re-render until the end of the current batch (or until echo.)
echo.	Print a blank line and restore prompt re-render — used at the end of menu batches so the C:\> appears under the menu
setcol <BF>	Set background + foreground colour by two hex digits (e.g. 07 = black bg, white fg)

Stub commands

These print a one-line tongue-in-cheek response and do nothing else: exit, del, rmdir, format, chkdsk, edlin, edit, debug, attrib, quit. help prints the full command reference (the text on this wiki page, baked into commands.js).

Source: prompt/javascript/commands.js.

Easter eggs

Command	Effect
zerocool	Switches to a cyan-on-blue colour scheme and prints a Hackers (1995) reference
dopefish	Renders the Dopefish in block characters

Keyboard

Key	Action
Enter	Submit
Backspace	Delete last character
↑ / ↓	Step through command history