[TUHS] Dash options

[Ralph Corderoy]

Hi Andrew,

> The thing that I wonder about was why ">" wasn't used as the directory
> separator when paths were added to Unix, since that's what Multics
> used.

A slash has long been used to separate items in a hierarchy, e.g.
division, department, staff initials, or account, purchase-order number,
at least back to the early twentieth century.  So choosing it might have
seemed natural.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slash_(punctuation)#Presenting_routes

And Multics had some kind of `attach' and `detach' of I/O streams, well
known to Ossanna, so perhaps dup(2), and a Thompson-shell syntax to go
with it meant `>' was earmarked early on.

-- 
Cheers, Ralph.
https://plus.google.com/+RalphCorderoy