* Imagines what the other forum guys are thinking when they read this stuff. Probably making some offhanded expletive remark, rolling their eyes and clicking the Back button to find something more interesting to read
*
I didn't use edlin much at all. But I did use the "copy con" command quite often during the early DOS 2/3.x days, mostly to rewrite config.sys and autoexec.bat. When DOS 5 came out I moved on to the new EDIT software. WAY EASIER!
Working in the education environment, I see kids these days doing so much with computers. They are able to accomplish so much, very amazingly. But if you ask them HOW the computer does stuff, they have no idea. Basically they're the equivalent of script kiddies, using the applications as a means to an end, but not understanding what's under the hood. And since most use MS OSs, life's so simple that they can't even tell what an interrupt or bus is. There are very few who manage to pass muster as far as I'm concerned. (Wholly geez! Did I just say "muster"? Age is creeping up on me!)
These days I use Linux for a number of reasons. One of those is that I enjoy being able to tinker with the OS, and nothing is hidden from me. For instance, I can trace what happens when I plug a piece of hardware all the way from the kernel to the driver, to the apps themselves. Really fun stuff for me.
I don't remember anything just becoming a COM, but I do remember using DEBUG to make the computer do things that were otherwise not available, such as restarting via batch file.