I think there are two Ctrl+C actions. The normal copy, which wouldn't be active for an ms-dos application. However there's a second Ctrl+C to cancel a long past

I think there are two Ctrl+C actions. The normal copy, which wouldn't be active for an ms-dos application. However there's a second Ctrl+C to cancel a long paste operation. Pasting in Windows / Mac is more complex than most devs these days realize, you can copy vector graphics between MS Office and Adobe Illustrator and it will work out a transfer format. Being able to cancel a long paste was an important feature.