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From: "Michael Kjörling" <michael@kjorling.se>
To: tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org
Subject: Re: [TUHS] UNIX Backslash History
Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2019 12:00:02 +0000	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <xzdtvssnnqfvfxq9swgv979g@localhost> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.02.1910272110350.28402@frieza.hoshinet.org>

On 27 Oct 2019 21:11 -0400, from usotsuki@buric.co (Steve Nickolas):
> On Sun, 27 Oct 2019, Grant Taylor via TUHS wrote:
>> Is there any relation between Multics' use of ">" as a directory
>> separator and MS-DOS's default use of ">" at the end of the command
>> prompt?
> 
> I can't imagine there's any such connection.  MS-DOS got it from CP/M, which
> didn't even have the concept of subdirectories until after MS-DOS did.

If there was such a relationship, it would probably make more sense
for the command prompt termination character to be ":", not ">", as
DOS labelled devices as [whatever]: (like "A:" or "NUL:"). So I agree
with Steve; I imagine it's unrelated. They just had to use _something_
as a default to indicate that the computer is waiting for a command,
and ">" is as good a character as any.

In either case, since MS-DOS/PC-DOS did what CP/M already did in that
regard, the question would probably need to be posed to Kildall where
he got it from. Unless Kildall wrote it down, getting a first hand
account on the reasoning behind that particular choice would be...
nontrivial.

-- 
Michael Kjörling • https://michael.kjorling.se • michael@kjorling.se
  “The most dangerous thought that you can have as a creative person
              is to think you know what you’re doing.” (Bret Victor)


  reply	other threads:[~2019-10-28 12:00 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 17+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2019-10-27 20:31 Doug McIlroy
2019-10-27 20:42 ` Richard Salz
2019-10-27 20:49   ` Charles Anthony
2019-10-27 23:01     ` Grant Taylor via TUHS
2019-10-28  1:11       ` Steve Nickolas
2019-10-28 12:00         ` Michael Kjörling [this message]
2019-10-28 13:44           ` Clem Cole
2019-10-28 15:08           ` Steve Nickolas
2019-10-28 18:47             ` Dave Horsfall
2019-10-28 20:43               ` Paul Winalski
2019-10-27 20:46 ` Bakul Shah
2019-10-28 17:36   ` Anthony Martin
2019-10-28 18:17     ` Charles Anthony
  -- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
2019-10-28 15:51 Noel Chiappa
2019-10-27 21:31 Noel Chiappa
2019-10-27 21:51 ` Charles Anthony
2019-10-26  9:39 Caipenghui

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