5 Feb
2020
5 Feb
'20
3:05 p.m.
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
5 Feb
5 Feb
3:30 p.m.
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
3:47 p.m.
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(a)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
4:18 p.m.
even at 120 cps, i agree.
On Wed, Feb 5, 2020 at 10:47 AM John P. Linderman <jpl.jpl(a)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(a)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
>
>
9:03 p.m.
On 6 Feb 2020, at 2:05 am, Rich Morin
<rdm(a)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).
9:59 p.m.
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
10:20 p.m.
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
11:40 p.m.
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
10 Feb
10 Feb
5:11 p.m.
On 2/5/20, Arthur Krewat <krewat(a)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.
1873
days inactive
1878
days old
8 comments
9 participants
participants (9)
-
Andrew Newman -
Arthur Krewat -
Clem Cole -
Dave Horsfall -
Harald Arnesen -
Jaap Akkerhuis -
John P. Linderman -
Paul Winalski -
Rich Morin