* [TUHS] keyboards and command names @ 2020-02-05 15:05 Rich Morin 2020-02-05 15:30 ` Jaap Akkerhuis 2020-02-05 21:03 ` Andrew Newman 0 siblings, 2 replies; 9+ messages in thread From: Rich Morin @ 2020-02-05 15:05 UTC (permalink / raw) To: TUHS I have always suspected that the brevity of the Unix command names was strongly influenced by the clunky keyboards on the teletypes that were being used. Can anyone confirm, deny, and/or comment on this? -r ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 9+ messages in thread
* Re: [TUHS] keyboards and command names 2020-02-05 15:05 [TUHS] keyboards and command names Rich Morin @ 2020-02-05 15:30 ` Jaap Akkerhuis 2020-02-05 15:47 ` John P. Linderman 2020-02-05 21:03 ` Andrew Newman 1 sibling, 1 reply; 9+ messages in thread From: Jaap Akkerhuis @ 2020-02-05 15:30 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Rich Morin; +Cc: TUHS > I have always suspected that the brevity of the Unix command names was strongly > influenced by the clunky keyboards on the teletypes that were being used. Can > anyone confirm, deny, and/or comment on this? Peter Collinson made the same observation at the 25th year celebration of UNIX (USENIX, Washington) and it was confirmed by dmr. jaap ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 9+ messages in thread
* Re: [TUHS] keyboards and command names 2020-02-05 15:30 ` Jaap Akkerhuis @ 2020-02-05 15:47 ` John P. Linderman 2020-02-05 16:18 ` Clem Cole 0 siblings, 1 reply; 9+ messages in thread From: John P. Linderman @ 2020-02-05 15:47 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Jaap Akkerhuis; +Cc: TUHS [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 707 bytes --] I of course defer to dmr about the major influence, but I very much appreciated the brevity when printing programs and shell scripts and lines in ed at 110 baud, even with a terminal having a respectable keyboard. I printed much more than I entered. On Wed, Feb 5, 2020 at 10:38 AM Jaap Akkerhuis <jaapna@xs4all.nl> wrote: > > > > I have always suspected that the brevity of the Unix command names was > strongly > > influenced by the clunky keyboards on the teletypes that were being > used. Can > > anyone confirm, deny, and/or comment on this? > > Peter Collinson made the same observation at the 25th year celebration > of UNIX (USENIX, Washington) and it was confirmed by dmr. > > jaap > > [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 1034 bytes --] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 9+ messages in thread
* Re: [TUHS] keyboards and command names 2020-02-05 15:47 ` John P. Linderman @ 2020-02-05 16:18 ` Clem Cole 0 siblings, 0 replies; 9+ messages in thread From: Clem Cole @ 2020-02-05 16:18 UTC (permalink / raw) To: John P. Linderman; +Cc: TUHS [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 838 bytes --] even at 120 cps, i agree. On Wed, Feb 5, 2020 at 10:47 AM John P. Linderman <jpl.jpl@gmail.com> wrote: > I of course defer to dmr about the major influence, but I very much > appreciated the brevity when printing programs and shell scripts and lines > in ed at 110 baud, even with a terminal having a respectable keyboard. I > printed much more than I entered. > > On Wed, Feb 5, 2020 at 10:38 AM Jaap Akkerhuis <jaapna@xs4all.nl> wrote: > >> >> >> > I have always suspected that the brevity of the Unix command names was >> strongly >> > influenced by the clunky keyboards on the teletypes that were being >> used. Can >> > anyone confirm, deny, and/or comment on this? >> >> Peter Collinson made the same observation at the 25th year celebration >> of UNIX (USENIX, Washington) and it was confirmed by dmr. >> >> jaap >> >> [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 1536 bytes --] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 9+ messages in thread
* Re: [TUHS] keyboards and command names 2020-02-05 15:05 [TUHS] keyboards and command names Rich Morin 2020-02-05 15:30 ` Jaap Akkerhuis @ 2020-02-05 21:03 ` Andrew Newman 2020-02-05 21:59 ` Harald Arnesen 1 sibling, 1 reply; 9+ messages in thread From: Andrew Newman @ 2020-02-05 21:03 UTC (permalink / raw) To: TUHS [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1113 bytes --] > On 6 Feb 2020, at 2:05 am, Rich Morin <rdm@cfcl.com> wrote: > > I have always suspected that the brevity of the Unix command names was strongly > influenced by the clunky keyboards on the teletypes that were being used. Can > anyone confirm, deny, and/or comment on this? (other replies seen, nice to hear dmr’s confirmation) Somewhat related. My first “real” job after university, and introduction to UNIX et al, was using IBM machines running VM/370 and the CMS single-user OS for user accounts. CMS used long command names but, like some other OSes of its ilk, allowed you to define what it called “abbreviations" via a count of the minimum number of unique, leading, characters from which it could determine the actual command name. The CMS file copy program was “copyfile” but the abbreviation length, at least at our “shop", was 2 and everyone used “co”. Similarly the editor “xedit” was “x”. I always found that amusing considering complaints about cryptic UNIX names. (apologies if this appears twice, first attempt used the wrong From: address). [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 3285 bytes --] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 9+ messages in thread
* Re: [TUHS] keyboards and command names 2020-02-05 21:03 ` Andrew Newman @ 2020-02-05 21:59 ` Harald Arnesen 2020-02-05 22:20 ` Dave Horsfall 0 siblings, 1 reply; 9+ messages in thread From: Harald Arnesen @ 2020-02-05 21:59 UTC (permalink / raw) To: tuhs Andrew Newman [05/02/2020 22.03]: > Somewhat related. My first “real” job after university, and > introduction to UNIX > et al, was using IBM machines running VM/370 and the CMS single-user OS > for user > accounts. CMS used long command names but, like some other OSes of its > ilk, allowed > you to define what it called “abbreviations" via a count of the minimum > number of > unique, leading, characters from which it could determine the actual > command name. > The CMS file copy program was “copyfile” but the abbreviation length, at > least at > our “shop", was 2 and everyone used “co”. Similarly the editor “xedit” > was “x”. > I always found that amusing considering complaints about cryptic UNIX names. Norsk Data's OS Sintran was the same, except that "COLD-START" (reboot the OS) was defined twice, so you had to spell it out in full. -- Hilsen Harald ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 9+ messages in thread
* Re: [TUHS] keyboards and command names 2020-02-05 21:59 ` Harald Arnesen @ 2020-02-05 22:20 ` Dave Horsfall 2020-02-05 23:40 ` Arthur Krewat 0 siblings, 1 reply; 9+ messages in thread From: Dave Horsfall @ 2020-02-05 22:20 UTC (permalink / raw) To: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society On Wed, 5 Feb 2020, Harald Arnesen wrote: > Norsk Data's OS Sintran was the same, except that "COLD-START" (reboot > the OS) was defined twice, so you had to spell it out in full. CDC's KRONOS also allowed abbreviated commands; I grew quite fond of typing "COMMO" for "COMMON" (attach to the system's common area) and "POO" for "POOL" (can't remember what that does, and my books are long gone). Cough cough... The above sequence was how you broke into KRONOS: COMMON SYSTEM POOL SYSTEM (quickly interrupt it) Get the timing right, and you were in supervisor mode (or whatever it was called). I remember when I was in the terminal room happily hacking away, when the shift supervisor and the centre manager happened to walk in, exclaiming "Security is pffft!". Terrified, I casually leaned over the Duckwriter pretending to look for something, to obscure just what I'd been typing... I dimly recall that you could log off other users by (somehow) sending a ^D to their terminal, but I could be confusing that with something else (this was decades ago). -- Dave ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 9+ messages in thread
* Re: [TUHS] keyboards and command names 2020-02-05 22:20 ` Dave Horsfall @ 2020-02-05 23:40 ` Arthur Krewat 2020-02-10 17:11 ` Paul Winalski 0 siblings, 1 reply; 9+ messages in thread From: Arthur Krewat @ 2020-02-05 23:40 UTC (permalink / raw) To: tuhs Have't seen mention of TOPS-10, or TOPS-20 for that matter... shortening commands was a great time saver. Problem was, next time they added a command, muscle memory had to relearn. On 2/5/2020 5:20 PM, Dave Horsfall wrote: > On Wed, 5 Feb 2020, Harald Arnesen wrote: > >> Norsk Data's OS Sintran was the same, except that "COLD-START" >> (reboot the OS) was defined twice, so you had to spell it out in full. > > CDC's KRONOS also allowed abbreviated commands; I grew quite fond of > typing "COMMO" for "COMMON" (attach to the system's common area) and > "POO" for "POOL" (can't remember what that does, and my books are long > gone). > > Cough cough... The above sequence was how you broke into KRONOS: > > COMMON SYSTEM > POOL SYSTEM > (quickly interrupt it) > > Get the timing right, and you were in supervisor mode (or whatever it > was called). I remember when I was in the terminal room happily > hacking away, > when the shift supervisor and the centre manager happened to walk in, > exclaiming "Security is pffft!". Terrified, I casually leaned over the > Duckwriter pretending to look for something, to obscure just what I'd > been typing... > > I dimly recall that you could log off other users by (somehow) sending > a ^D to their terminal, but I could be confusing that with something > else (this was decades ago). > > -- Dave > ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 9+ messages in thread
* Re: [TUHS] keyboards and command names 2020-02-05 23:40 ` Arthur Krewat @ 2020-02-10 17:11 ` Paul Winalski 0 siblings, 0 replies; 9+ messages in thread From: Paul Winalski @ 2020-02-10 17:11 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Arthur Krewat; +Cc: tuhs On 2/5/20, Arthur Krewat <krewat@kilonet.net> wrote: > Have't seen mention of TOPS-10, or TOPS-20 for that matter... shortening > commands was a great time saver. Problem was, next time they added a > command, muscle memory had to relearn. > DEC's DCL (Digital Command Language) was used on TOPS-20 and VMS. It required that all commands be unique in the first three characters, and allowed abbreviation. -Paul W. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 9+ messages in thread
end of thread, other threads:[~2020-02-10 17:12 UTC | newest] Thread overview: 9+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed) -- links below jump to the message on this page -- 2020-02-05 15:05 [TUHS] keyboards and command names Rich Morin 2020-02-05 15:30 ` Jaap Akkerhuis 2020-02-05 15:47 ` John P. Linderman 2020-02-05 16:18 ` Clem Cole 2020-02-05 21:03 ` Andrew Newman 2020-02-05 21:59 ` Harald Arnesen 2020-02-05 22:20 ` Dave Horsfall 2020-02-05 23:40 ` Arthur Krewat 2020-02-10 17:11 ` Paul Winalski
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