29 Oct
2019
29 Oct
'19
2:43 a.m.
On 10/28/19, Dave Horsfall <dave(a)horsfall.org> wrote:
On Mon, 28 Oct 2019, Steve Nickolas wrote:
RT-11 was following standard DEC practice by using "." as its command
prompt. The "monitor dot" was the command prompt in both TOPS-10 and
TOPS-20.
Most DEC operating systems, including RT-11, TOPS-10/20, and VMS, used
"/" as a prefix on command options; "-" performs this function on
UNIX
since "/" is the directory delimiter. Back in the days of stand-alone
programs, physical switches on the console were used to set program
options. This of course won't work when you have multiprogramming. I
was told that DEC chose "/" because it looks like a toggle switch.
Command options in fact were initially called "switches".
-Paul W.
86-DOS actually did use ":" as a prompt
character. This was changed for
IBM's release, for some clone releases, and for MS-DOS 2.0.
The best I've ever seen was RT-11's "." - talk about minimalist...
Actually this thread probably belongs on COFF by now.