The shell reads its commands from STDIN line by line and executes them. First internal commands are compared with the input. Then, if no internal command has been found, the actual directory is searched for the file to be executed. The file is then loaded and executed in its own environment. The shell waits for its completion, if the command line is not ended with an ampersand '&'. Then the command is executed in the background. The STD* streams can be redirected with "<", ">", "!" for STDIN, STDOUT and STDERR respecitvely. A "|" between two external comands pipes the STDOUT of the first program to the STDIN of the second command.

Shell commands: 

x:			sets drive to 'x:'
DIR d:name?.*		shows directory
TYPE filename		print file on STDOUT
DEL filename		delete file
FORMAT/x d:name		format disk in drive d:, format x (which is a 
			number, see fsibm), and gives it a the name 
			'name'.
CHKDSK d:		check disk
RENAME name1 name2	renames 'name1' to 'name2'
B filename
BATCH filename		Switches STDIN to filename, until an EOF is 
			read, then returns to normal STDIN
MONITOR			switch to machine language monitor
LOGOFF			exit shell
COPYCON filename	writes the terminal input to a file, until
			a line with a "@" is read.
DUP >file1 <file2 !file3
			redirects STDOUT to file1, STDIN to file2, and
			STDERR to file3. STDOUT and STDERR can be redirected
			to the same file with ">!".
CHDIR newdir
CD newdir		change to a new directory
DEVCMD dev cmd par	calls the DEVCMD kernel call. The device is given
			as name, cmd as one of IRQ, RES, GETSTR, PUTSTR,
			RXON, RXOFF, TXON, TXOFF, SPEED, HANDSHAKE, STATUS
			and EXIT.
COPY file1 file2	copy file1 to file2 in background
			(for multiple files better use mcopy, as 
			copying in the background eats up system resources
			if too many files are copied)
GETSTR			get a free stream
FRESTR x		release the stream
SETMEM x		set memory size of task to x times 4kByte
INFO			prints the information given by GETINFO kernel
			call bug: currently only ten tasks are printed 
			due to earlier revision restrictions.
KILL x			kill task x
MKDIR dirname		make a new directory
RMDIR dirname		remove a directory