On 9/15/24 15:25, John Dow via TUHS wrote:

On 15 Sep 2024, at 20:21, Rik Farrow <rik@rikfarrow.com> wrote:


Was the brevity typical of Unix command names a function of the tiny disk and memory available? Or more a function of having a Teletype 33 for input? Of course, it could simply be that 'cat' is more convenient than 'catenate'...

Hangover from assembly mnemonics, perhaps.

Multics had long names and short names for many commands. `ls` was the short name for `list`, for instance. See "additional names" in https://multicians.org/mga.html.

Dan H
(original author of the `more` command`, considered to be a long name by some and short by others! https://danhalbert.org/more.html)