[Info-vax] DCL, was: Re: Microkernel

[Paul Sture]

On Fri, 17 Aug 2012 09:43:31 -0500, Bob Koehler wrote:

> In article <howard-91AFF9.16234514082012 at news.giganews.com>, Howard S
> Shubs <howard at shubs.net> writes:
>> 
>> Remember command and filename completion on TOPS-20?  Fantastic.
> 
>    Yes, but TOPS-20 EXEC had those (flavor) words in the middle of it's
>    commands, and the blasted sub-command entries.
> 
>    For those who didn't use it, the (flavor) words were optional and
>    enclosed in parentheses.  Nobody typed them in, but command
>    completion would put them in:
> 
>    Entered manually (@ is the prompt):
> 
>       @COPY A.MAC B.MAC
> 
>    Entered with the help of file name and command completion:
> 
>       @COPY A.MAC (TO) B.MAC

ISTR that CP/M had the COPY foo TO bar syntax.  Even as someone 
maintaining COBOL when I came across that, I thought it was too verbose.


>    And to get a subcommand, you had to end a line with a ",", this is
>    the equivalent of DCL PURGE (@@ is the subcommand prompt):
> 
>       @DELETE *.*,
>       @@KEEP 1
> 
>    Can you imagine what happened when you forgot the ","?  Well, no, it
>    wasn't that bad.  "DELETE *.*" always prompted with "ARE YOU SURE?".

Bad memories of the various versions of PIP across various DEC operating 
systems there.  IIRC on the RT-11 flavour confirmation for a wildcard 
delete was "ARE YOU SURE?", but when I was working on a RSTS system at a 
bureau the default was the other way around.

Ah well. The bureau concerned had a decent backup system and I didn't 
have to wait long to get my files back :-)

>    You also couldn't readily stuff those into command scripts, as EXEC
>    had no ability to pass arguments to command scripts.  To do that you
>    had to switch to a different interpreter, which was available on a
>    free "tools" tape, along with other goodies like the BLISS-10
>    compiler.

As I have discovered in more recent times, many places don't install 
"extras".  The installation of the "Enterprise Version" of MS Office I 
was working with a couple of years ago didn't have the kind of import/
export add-ons that were available in an "Extras" folder of Office 97, 
for example.

-- 
Paul Sture