6 Apr
2018
6 Apr
'18
5:23 a.m.
On 4/5/18, Clem Cole <clemc(a)ccc.com> wrote:
Case folding I find funnier however. Back in the days of 5 and 6 bit codes,
particularly when file names were stored in things like rad50 it made
perfect sense. The basic character code did not handle upper and lower
well, and many keyboards were only one case anyway. But by the time of
the 8 bit byte, CP/M and it's child DOS, blindly follow along. Instead of
thinking why it was done and since we have a new file system format and
thinking -- hmmm maybe we don't need to have the same limitation.
Maybe CP/M and DOS stored file names internally in rad50 or some other
compressed form, to save space? The first PCs didn't have much memory
(64K), and floppies didn't have much capacity. It was a throwback to
the "every bit counts" design and programming days of the 60s/early
70s.
-Paul W.