Re: [TUHS] keyboards and command names

[Arthur Krewat <krewat@kilonet.net>]

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
>