DOS ain't dead

Earlier today I watched an episode of Young Sheldon, the The Big Bang Theory spinoff, on TV.

In this episode called Pasadena (S03E16) at around 05:20 Sheldon boots his Tandy 1000 SL computer to the DOS prompt. Besides "Microsoft(R) MS-DOS(R) Version N.NN" one can also read:

CuteMouse vN.N alpha N [FreeDOS]
Installed at COMn (0000h/IRQn) in Microsoft mode



I rewatched this part of the episode on Amazon Prime trying to get the numbers correctly (Is it version "2.0 alpha 4"?) and provide a better screenshot here, but unfortunately the streaming quality was too bad. Maybe someone could try on Apple TV?

As the CuteMouse project started first in 1997, but Young Sheldon takes places from 1989 to the early 1990s this is a goof.

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Forum admin

Full HD 1920x1080 = resolution limit for TV ? is no better

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGwF5H4Ih2E

> Earlier today I watched an episode of Young Sheldon, the The Big Bang
> Theory spinoff, on TV.
>
> In this episode called Pasadena (S03E16) at around 05:20 Sheldon boots his
> Tandy 1000 SL computer to the DOS prompt. Besides "Microsoft(R) MS-DOS(R)
> Version N.NN" one can also read:
>
> CuteMouse vN.N alpha N [FreeDOS]
> Installed at COMn (0000h/IRQn) in Microsoft mode
>
>
>
> I rewatched this part of the episode on Amazon Prime trying to get the
> numbers correctly (Is it version "2.0 alpha 4"?) and provide a better
> screenshot here, but unfortunately the streaming quality was too bad. Maybe
> someone could try on Apple TV?
>
> As the CuteMouse project started first in 1997, but Young Sheldon takes
> places from 1989 to the early 1990s this is a goof.

And also the message from Tandy MS-DOS 3.2's IBMBIO.COM appearing _after_ the drivers, plus a reference to DOSKEY, which first appeared in MS-DOS 5.

They put a lot of effort into it but not enough...

In Finnish criminal TV series "Koskinen" (also known as "Lakeside Murders")
4DOS 8.0 and MS-DOS 6.22 are featured (as names, no interface is shown) in
episode 1 of season 1, about minute 40 of an episode. They are presumably used to run complicated control software of city trains.

"Koskinen": https://www.imdb.com/title/tt16271554

Speaking of interesting DOS presence in movies, in movie "Hamilton"
from 1998, DOS Edit is used to "hack" into some system (the feat of Peter Stormare).

"Hamilton": https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119249/

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echo g=ffff:0|debug>nul

I found the episode on HBO and watched that clip. I can't tell the version number very clearly either, but it looks like "alpha 4" to my eyes. Certainly it's "alpha" and not "beta."

The CuteMouse website has these versions for download:

* "The latest beta version in the 2.1 branch is v2.1 beta 4."
* "The latest alpha version in the 2.0 branch is v2.0 alpha 4."
* "The latest version in the 1.9 branch is v1.9.1."

So I think the screenshot says "CuteMouse v2.0 alpha 4 (FreeDOS)"

I downloaded v2.0 alpha 4 and ran it in QEMU. The output on my system (default in QEMU is PS/2 mouse) is:

> CuteMouse v2.0 alpha 4 [FreeDOS]
> Installed at PS/2 port (wheel present)

If I configure QEMU with -serial msmouse to emulate a serial Microsoft Mouse (this is detected as Mouse Systems) the output is:

> CuteMouse v2.0 alpha 4 [FreeDOS]
> Installed at COM1 (03F8h/IRQ4) in Mouse Systems mode