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by int_19h 3253 days ago
PC only booted into ROM BASIC if it couldn't find a floppy (or, later, hard drive) to boot from. Which was not usually the case, so most users wouldn't be familiar with ROM BASIC even when it was there.

The command prompt, I think, is still essentially programming - you issue commands, they take parameters and produce results. Batch files / shell scripts are outright programs, and any moderately advanced DOS user would have to deal with them.