The Costa Graphical Shell

Costa is a graphical user interface (GUI), designed to run on top of the command line as a shell.

It is designed for MS-DOS, but tested with PC-DOS, FreeDOS and DOSBox as well. In theory it should run on any MS-DOS compatible operating system with a 286 or better CPU, VGA graphics and a recommended minimum of 250 KB RAM.

Although not required, a 386 or better CPU is recommended, as well as disk caching software (SmartDrive or similar) when running on older machines, since Costa uses the disk where it is located for temporary storage.

The low system requirements make Costa especially useful for older machines, which are also the machines that typically run the MS-DOS operating system.

See the included documentation for more information, or visit the homepage of Costa at http://costa.jacobpalm.dk

Icons and themes always welcome!

If you have made any icons you would like to see included with Costa, or perhaps a nifty theme, feel free to drop me a message. I am always looking to add more to Costa, and credit will of course be given!

Using this code

When opening project files (.MAK), use the /L parameter for all files except SETUP.MAK - as such:

VBDOS.EXE DESKTOP.MAK /L

This will cause VBDOS to load the libraries neccesary for Costa to work. If you get an error relating to "CALL ABSOLUTE" or "CALL INTERRUPT", you have probably not used this parameter when starting VBDOS.