[COFF] [TUHS] evolution of the cli

[Warner Losh via COFF]

On Sun, Nov 2, 2025 at 3:25 AM Lars Brinkhoff via COFF <coff at tuhs.org>
wrote:

> A. P. Garcia wrote:
> > The Evolution of the Command Line: From Terseness to Expression
>
> I wonder if you are also interested in some evolutionary dead ends?  I'm
> thinking about the ITS DDT/HACTRN command line interface.  It's even
> barely a command *line* because most commands are one or a few key
> strokes.  It certainly fits your "from terseness" thesis.
>

Yet there's another line of command lines to look at: TOPS-20 and VMS.
These were quite verbose by the early 80s and provided a very rich grammar
to use. These have gone the extreme other direction than ITS.

Warner