From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
From: cowan@mercury.ccil.org (John Cowan)
Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2014 16:11:56 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Etymology of dsw(1)
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.00.1409130602290.63870@aneurin.horsfall.org>
References: <alpine.BSF.2.00.1409130602290.63870@aneurin.horsfall.org>
Message-ID: <20140912201156.GN14385@mercury.ccil.org>

Dave Horsfall scripsit:

> Delete from Switch Register (delete file whose i-num is in CSR)

There's no doubt that this is right, but
<http://dvlabs.tippingpoint.com/blog/2008/03/18/a-bit-of-history> claims
that the switch register was set to the number of files to skip over
before dumping core.  If you resumed the core dump, the next file would
be deleted.  This allowed deleting files whose names could not be typed.

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
Pour moi, les villes du Silmarillion ont plus de realite que Babylone.
                --Christopher Tolkien, as interviewed by Le Monde