28 Oct
2019
28 Oct
'19
6:47 p.m.
On Mon, 28 Oct 2019, Steve Nickolas wrote:
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.
-- Dave
28 Oct
28 Oct
7:10 p.m.
New subject: Comparative promptology
Dave Horsfall wrote:
Steve Nickolas wrote:
I was bound to happen. List all the prompts!
"*" seems popular on PDP-10s.
86-DOS actually did use ":" as a prompt
character.
The best I've ever seen was RT-11's "." - talk about
minimalist...
Actually this thread probably belongs on COFF by now. 
7:57 p.m.
New subject: Comparative promptology
On Mon, Oct 28, 2019 at 1:51 PM Lars Brinkhoff <lars(a)nocrew.org> wrote:
Dave Horsfall wrote:
"@ " was the TOPS-20 prompt.
"$ " was the VMS prompt
RSTS/E was just "Ready\n"
But none of these get us closer to CP/M's > prompt.
Warner
Steve Nickolas wrote:
I was bound to happen. List all the prompts!
"*" seems popular on PDP-10s.
86-DOS actually did use ":" as a prompt
character.
The best I've ever seen was RT-11's "." - talk about
minimalist...
Actually this thread probably belongs on COFF by now. 
8:29 p.m.
New subject: Comparative promptology
A bit off-off-topic, but as I mentioned elsewhere, I was lucky enough to
have one of the (if not *the*) first CRT terminals in the Labs. It was an
HP 264?, and it supported scrolling back to stored lines, and re-entering
them. I quickly settled in on a prompt that ended with "@", the default
"line kill", so whatever came before was ignored, and only the command that
followed was effectively re-entered. Quaint that "@" was a seldom-seen
character then.
I now have a prompt that ends with a newline. Still convenient for
copy/paste. The prompt itself has colors, separating host name from current
directory. This makes it easy to spot non-prompt line in the command line
history, and to determine which host I am connected to in that window, and
where I am on that host.
On Mon, Oct 28, 2019 at 3:57 PM Warner Losh <imp(a)bsdimp.com> wrote:
On Mon, Oct 28, 2019 at 1:51 PM Lars Brinkhoff <lars(a)nocrew.org> wrote:
Dave Horsfall wrote:
"@ " was the TOPS-20 prompt.
"$ " was the VMS prompt
RSTS/E was just "Ready\n"
But none of these get us closer to CP/M's > prompt.
Warner
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Steve Nickolas wrote:
I was bound to happen. List all the prompts!
"*" seems popular on PDP-10s.
86-DOS actually did use ":" as a prompt
character.
The best I've ever seen was RT-11's "." - talk about
minimalist...
Actually this thread probably belongs on COFF by now. 
8:43 p.m.
New subject: [TUHS] UNIX Backslash History
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. 
11:17 p.m.
New subject: [TUHS] UNIX Backslash History
On 10/28/2019 4:43 PM, Paul Winalski 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.
In my many accesses of TOPS-20 systems back in the day, thanks to the
ARPANET, I am reasonably certain I never EVER once saw a TOPS-20 system
with a "." prompt.
art k.
7:57 p.m.
New subject: Comparative promptology
On 28 Oct 2019 13:57 -0600, from imp(a)bsdimp.com (Warner Losh):
"@ " was the TOPS-20 prompt.
"$ " was the VMS prompt
RSTS/E was just "Ready\n"
But none of these get us closer to CP/M's > prompt.
For micros, the Apple II used "]", didn't it?
That's not exactly a ">" either, but it's somewhat period- and
system
size-appropriate for early CP/M.
--
Michael Kjörling • https://michael.kjorling.se • michael(a)kjorling.se
“The most dangerous thought that you can have as a creative person
is to think you know what you’re doing.” (Bret Victor)
30 Oct
30 Oct
7:01 a.m.
New subject: Comparative promptology
Warner Losh wrote:
But none of these get us closer to CP/M's >
prompt.
To me > suggests an arrow indicating "enter your input here". Pure
speculation of course.
Interestingly, some ITS programs does the exact opposite. They use the
1963 ASCII character "left arrow" as a prompt. (Today it just outputs
as an underscore but printed texts and screenshots show that the 1963
character set was in use.)
8:19 a.m.
New subject: Comparative promptology
Harald Arnesen <skogtun(a)gmail.com> writes:
Harald Arnesen [29.10.2019 11:30]:
Not at the Norwegian Institute of Technology (now part of the Norwegian
University of Technology and Science). There, it was called "nabla",
because of the EXEC 8 operating system on UNIVAC mainframes, which used
the FIELDATA character set, and where the "Master Space" character,
(visually represented by nabla, which looks like an upside-down capital
delta: '∇' if what you're reading this text on supports Unicode) was
used as a prefix character indicating an operating system command. It
was mapped to ASCII 64 externally, a natural choice, because FIELDATA
had no @, ASCII had no nabla -- and Master Space was encoded as decimal
64 in FIELDATA already.
The name stuck, and @ kept being called nabla at least until 1990.
-tih
--
Most people who graduate with CS degrees don't understand the significance
of Lisp. Lisp is the most important idea in computer science. --Alan Kay
Warner Losh [28.10.2019 20:57]:
btw, we used to call it "grisehale" ("pig's tail"). "@ " was the TOPS-20 prompt.
Also the Sintran (Norsk Data) prompt. 
31 Oct
31 Oct
1:19 a.m.
New subject: Fieldata characters (was: Comparative promptology)
On Wednesday, 30 October 2019 at 9:19:20 +0100, COFF wrote:
Harald Arnesen <skogtun(a)gmail.com> writes:
I worked for and with UNIVAC for most of the 1970s and early 1980s,
including on EXEC 8/OS 1100, and the master space (binary 0) was
always represented by @, on punched cards, printouts, terminals and
the documentation. I've just confirmed with my copy of UP-4040,
dating from 1971. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fieldata#UNIVAC
agrees, though it notes:
Sometimes switched with Î
But that's a delta, not a nabla. Fieldata also had a Î (code 04), and
I have never seen this switch.
FWIW, this was in Germany, where we called the @ a âKlammeraffeâ
(originally a spider monkey). This wasn't limited to UNIVAC.
Greg
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Harald Arnesen [29.10.2019 11:30]:
Not at the Norwegian Institute of Technology (now part of the Norwegian
University of Technology and Science). There, it was called "nabla",
because of the EXEC 8 operating system on UNIVAC mainframes, which used
the FIELDATA character set, and where the "Master Space" character,
(visually represented by nabla, which looks like an upside-down capital
delta: '???' if what you're reading this text on supports Unicode) was
used as a prefix character indicating an operating system command. Warner Losh [28.10.2019 20:57]:
btw, we used to call it "grisehale" ("pig's tail"). "@Â Â " was the TOPS-20 prompt.
Also the Sintran (Norsk Data) prompt. 
1:59 a.m.
New subject: [TUHS] UNIX Backslash History
On 10/28/19 2:43 PM, Paul Winalski wrote:
rrrrrrrrrrr> Back in the days of stand-alone programs, physical switches
on the
console were used to set program options.
This helps explain why the option is called a "switch" in some OSs.
--
Grant. . . .
unix || die
1643
days inactive
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12 comments
11 participants
participants (11)
-
Arthur Krewat -
Dave Horsfall -
Grant Taylor -
Greg 'groggy' Lehey -
Harald Arnesen -
John P. Linderman -
Lars Brinkhoff -
Michael Kjörling -
Paul Winalski -
Tom Ivar Helbekkmo -
Warner Losh