I want to know a couple of things about the real nitty-gritty details of DOS. First, are the drivers loaded into the RAM when the computer first boots, or are they just referenced as needed? Second, What is the boot order for the required DOS files (command.com, config.sys, autoexe.bat, and IO.sys). Last, Is there any way to edit/create my own version of Command.com and IO.sys? I know they are compliled in binary, but I'm just wondering if there is any way to really mess with them besides editing config.sys and autoexe.bat. Thanks.

You may find this page instructive. "Is there any way to edit/create my own version of Command.com and IO.sys? I know they are compliled in binary, but I'm just wondering if there is any way to really mess with them besides editing config.sys and autoexe.bat" Editing config.sys & autoexec.bat have no effect on either command.com or io.sys (??) IF you know what you're doing (or have very good instructions) you can edit/patch command.com with a hex editor for a specific purpose - there are no general 'tweaks' (afaik). Generally, playing around with those files would be like a monkey mating with a football - you're not going to accomplish anything useful without knowing the mechanics. You'd need to be a pretty competent programmer in order to cook up your own versions Click

jboy, way ahead of the pack, as usual. I think his key phrase is 'mess with.' M2

Aw, well, experimentation is fine (with backups) but you make more progress if you start out with a bit of understanding. My first effort was to modify command.com with debug to change the default prompt colour - pretty simple (from a book) but that was just changing one little bit of pre-existing code. Click