Subject: Re: Xah Lee's Unixism
From: rpw3@rpw3.org (Rob Warnock)
Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 21:36:14 -0500
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl.misc,alt.folklore.computers,comp.lang.lisp,comp.lang.python,comp.unix.programmer
Message-ID: <j-OdnS-Q8aADqKjcRVn-tQ@speakeasy.net>
Craig A. Finseth  <news@finseth.com> wrote:
+---------------
| Ville Vainio  <ville@spammers.com> wrote:
| >... and / as path separator still screws up most of their cmd line
| >programs (which think / is for command line options).
| >Microsoft probably thought avoiding compatibility is a good idea, and
| >have only lately started to have some regrets...
| 
| Wrong.  The / was chosen as the command line option separator because
| whoever wrote MSDOS was looking to CP/M, who modelled their commands
| after a PDP-11 operating system (RT-11?).
+---------------

Which, like PS/8 & OS-8 [and "DECsystem-8" from Geordia Tech] for the
PDP-8, modelled the command syntax after that of the venerable PDP-10!!

+---------------
| Consider the "PIP" command.
+---------------

Indeed. And COPY & DEL & DIR, etc.


-Rob

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