In the early days of personal computers, the BASIC Operating System (OS) was
supplied as the default OS in Read Only Memory (ROM) in chips on the
motherboard.  When everybody started using DOS (Disk Operating System),
hardly anybody used BASIC, and those who wanted to could use newer,
improved versions, such as BASICA, GW-BASIC, QBASIC from disk.

To reduce cost, the manufacturers stopped putting ROM BASIC on the
motherboard.  Now, when your computer fails to find DOS, (or OS/2, Win98,
WinNT, Linux, or any other operating system) it halts (because it
"doesn't know what to do").  For some reason, it can't read DOS where it
expects to find it on the boot sector of either your A: floppy drive or
your C: hard drive.

Find a write-protected "bootable disk", such as your original DOS
installation disk.  If you have another computer with the same OS
that uses the same OS and the same type of floppy, you can make a
bootable disk using a command like DOS's "FORMAT A:/S".  This wipes the
A: disk clean and transfers the OS to it.  Now, make the floppy "write-
protected" ( Opaque tape over the little square notch in the side of a
5 1/4 inch floppy disk,



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