The DOS theme launched as a prompt that accepted a handful of commands and printed pages. It looked right. It did not behave right: a real DOS user would type DIR and get nothing.
A simulated 3.20
The prompt is now a small simulated MS-DOS 3.20, the version a 1986 machine would plausibly run.
- C: is read-only. The site’s pages live as files on it: HOME.TXT, PROJECTS.TXT, LINKS.TXT, and so on. DIR lists them, TYPE prints them, CD moves between a few directories.
- D: is a RAM drive. Visitors can COPY files to it, create directories, and write with ECHO redirection. It lives only for the page session, which is what a RAM drive did.
- Errors are period-correct. “Bad command or file name” and “File not found” are spelled the way the real thing spelled them.
Period-true wording
The theme’s visible copy, including the help text and the welcome banner, was rewritten in the register of a 1986 manual. This was done as a single merge, separate from the behaviour changes, so that if the wording turned out to be too much it could be reverted on its own without losing the simulator.
Why
The theme year is 1986 and the look bar says so. A DOS that does not DIR undercuts the claim. Making the prompt a small real system turns a joke into a toy, and toys get explored.