3.Type the name of the device, such as LPT1, and press Enter. MS-DOS prints the file on your printer.

See your MS-DOS Reference Manual for more information on the PRINT command.

Using Directories

You can create many files on a diskette, and a hard disk can store thousands of files. To help you organize this much information, MS-DOS lets you subdivide a disk into logical units called directories. Directories allow you to arrange the data on your disk so that files of similar type or purpose are kept together.

While you may not need to create directories on a 360KB diskette-especially if it contains only a few large files— directories are essential for organizing files on a hard disk.

Whenever you format a disk, MS-DOS creates one main directory for you, This directory is called the root directory. Any subsequent directories you create are logically subordinate to the root directory; that is, they are subdirectories of the root directory. A simple directory structure might look like this:

This arrangement would enable you to keep your word processing programs and data files in a directory called WORDPROC, your spreadsheet program and data files in a directory called SPDSHEET, and the MS-DOS files in a directory called DOS. The few files that MS-DOS needs to find as soon as you boot your system (COMMAND.COM, CONFIG.SYS, and perhaps AUTOEXEC.BAT) could remain at the top level of the structure, in the root directory.

Using MS-DOS With Your Computer 3-15