24 Jan
2003
24 Jan
'03
7:22 a.m.
As Norman said, the earliest notation for
pipes used an extension (or abuse) of the semantics
of > and < .
Warren's memory of what Salus wrote (it's on p. 52-53)
is correct about the introduction of | (though I suspect
that McIlroy (whom Salus quotes) is being kind to me
when he said "he [Ken] couldn't bear to reveal my [Doug's]
ugly syntax." Actually, I was responsible for the
particular < and > syntax as implemented, although the
whole idea came from much earlier on blackboard-only
ideas, and the blackboard was Doug's.
As to the original question: probably the ^ as an alternative
to | (which does seem to be there from the start, i.e. 4th
Edition) did have to do with character-set convenience
on upper-case-only terminals. The TTY driver accepted
\! as an escape for |, but this was somewhat of a pain.
Dennis