[TUHS] Dash options

Steffen Nurpmeso steffen at sdaoden.eu
Thu Nov 30 05:16:43 AEST 2017


Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog at lemis.com> wrote:
 |On Monday, 27 November 2017 at 21:51:13 -0800, Jon Steinhart wrote:
 |> Does anybody know the history of dash options?  Were they
 |> a UNIX thing or did UNIX borrow them from something earlier?
 |
 |If you mean specificall the dash, I can't help much.  But there were
 |similar ideas elsewhere.  UNIVAC EXEC-8 (for the 1108, late 1960s) had
 |options that followed the command with a comma, like:
 |
 |  @RUN,G GOPU,STANDARD,STANDARD
 |  @ADD,PL ASGDMS              . ASSIGNIERT DATENBASIS

"WEIßT DATENBASIS ZU" or "ZUWEISUNG DATENBASIS"

 |  @ASG,A PF.                  . PF IST PROGRAMM-FILE MIT GOPU

"PF IST PROGRAMM-DATEI MIT GOPU" or so.

 |  @XQT PF.GOPU
 |
 |The letters after the comma were option letters, conveniently packed
 |into a machine word so that they didn't require parsing.

Or.  Or the person who wrote the code above knew how German will
look like 50 years later.  Which could very well be, of course.
I am still impressed by the Lidlicker film the URL of which was
posted on this list, and the spirit and, well, let me say
progressiveness of the intellect of all the portrayed persons.
It was elevating to witness and also, a bit, become reminded of
this America in 2017.  A few weeks ago i could not do any
different but spent quite a few hours reading and thinking about,
and admiring Jacqueline Kennedy!  I was born almost a decade
later, but nonetheless seeing her sitting straight beside the
remains of her husband, i will never admire this woman enough.
And her naturalness.

--steffen
|
|Der Kragenbaer,                The moon bear,
|der holt sich munter           he cheerfully and one by one
|einen nach dem anderen runter  wa.ks himself off
|(By Robert Gernhardt)



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