# MS-DOS Editor

5 Hacker News commenters recommended MS-DOS Editor and 2 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 5 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Faithful offline recreation of the classic MS-DOS edit.com editor, free, recommended for its nostalgic look and simple feel. Critics want the original blinking underscore cursor.

## Why people recommend it

- Nostalgic, comfortable classic DOS feel (2 comments): "An undersold feature of the old MS DOS editor (which was pretty nice) was that its command was ...edit." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50302791)) "QuickBasic/QBasic/edit.com darkish blue background and grey text was just damn comfortable" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46663333))
- Better than later Windows editors (2 comments): "It would have been immensely better if they'd just ported the old MS-DOS EDIT / QBASIC over to Windows." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47160749)) "MS-DOS edit.com was honestly a much better experience." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47461230))

## What people warn about

- Cursor should be blinking underscore (1 comments): "you really need to use the proper horizontal blinking underscore for the cursor" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47902682))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Windows Notepad](https://hackerapproved.com/p/windows-notepad.md): 86 recommend
- [TextEdit](https://hackerapproved.com/p/textedit.md): 15 recommend
- [Microsoft Edit](https://hackerapproved.com/p/edit-exe.md): 10 recommend
- [CotEditor](https://hackerapproved.com/p/coteditor.md): 9 recommend
- [Pico text editor](https://hackerapproved.com/p/pico.md): 6 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "MS-DOS Editor", https://hackerapproved.com/p/ms-dos-editor/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).