From: genew@mail.ocis.net (Gene Wirchenko) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Origin of the 8.3 Filename Convention Date: Mon, 08 Apr 2002 14:05:35 GMT Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Message-ID: <3cb1a341.65680@news.ocis.net> Reply-To: genew@mail.ocis.net X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.21/32.243 X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@supernews.com Lines: 20 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-out.spamkiller.net!propagator2-maxim!propagator-maxim!news-in.spamkiller.net!tethys.csu.net!news-hog.berkeley.edu!ucberkeley!newsfeed.stanford.edu!sn-xit-01!sn-post-01!supernews.com!corp.supernews.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:105532 I asked this question a few months ago. I have yet to see a credible answer here or anywhere else. This is despite much searching. I'll try again: What is the origin of the 8.3 filename convention? This has gone beyond that it is worth a 1% bonus in course I'm taking (as I mentioned first time around). This is a piece of knowledge that could be on the verge of extinction. Does anybody know? Sincerely, Gene Wirchenko Computerese Irregular Verb Conjugation: I have preferences. You have biases. He/She has prejudices. ###### From: "Charlie Gibbs" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Origin of the 8.3 Filename Convention Date: 11 Apr 02 10:39:11 -0800 Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com Lines: 51 Message-ID: <2307.866T598T6393423@sky.bus.com> References: <3cb1a341.65680@news.ocis.net> <3CB35C05.F5F9316F@sun.com> <3CB47A4B.C2BBE54F@ev1.net> <4y7t8.34240$CA6.432377@newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: p-744.newsdawg.com X-Newsreader: THOR 2.5a (Amiga;TCP/IP) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!pln-e!spln!dex!extra.newsguy.com!newsp.newsguy.com!enews2 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:105809 In article <4y7t8.34240$CA6.432377@newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net> haynes@alumni.uark.edu (Jim Haynes) writes: >Eric Sosman wrote: > >> Jim Haynes wrote: >> >>> In article , >>> Alan J. Wylie wrote: >>> >>>>Not ASCII. >>> >>> OK, I shoulda said what I meant, a subset of ASCII consisting >>> of A-Z, 0-9, and a few other things. >> >> No; that's a subset of EBCDIC. Or of the MIX 1009 characters. >> >> (In other words: ASCII is not just a set of glyphs and control >> functions, but a particular encoding for them. RAD50 encodes some >> of the same glyphs found in ASCII and EBCDIC and other codes, but >> since the encoding is completely different, RAD50 is neither of >> those codes, nor is it a subset of those codes.) > >We may be getting into hair splitting here, but the reason it is a >subset of ASCII is that for the machines I'm talking about the software >and terminals used ASCII as the character code. The software provides >functions to convert between ASCII codes and RAD50 codes. It's these >codes, not the glyphs, that appear inside the machine. Those codes are generated by the routine that unpacks RAD50 codes. They're not intrinsic to RAD50. I once wrote a program that read a tape containing RAD50 data on an EBCDIC machine; by your logic I could argue just as strongly that RAD50 is a subset of EBCDIC. For that matter, you could legitimately say that RAD50 is a subset of any character code that includes the 40 characters in question. But that's pretty meaningless, really. Now you could start making mathematical statements about whether the set of all characters that can be represented in RAD50 is a subset of the set of all characters represented by any other encoding - Baudot, Fieldata, or whatever - and that might be of interest if you're trying to determine whether it's possible to properly interpret RAD50 on a particular machine. But at this point I'm starting to see those old high-school Venn diagrams, and my head is beginning to hurt... -- cgibbs@sky.bus.com (Charlie Gibbs) Remove the first period after the "at" sign to reply. I don't read top-posted messages. If you want me to see your reply, appropriately trim the quoted text and put your reply below it. ###### From: ignatios@tarski.cs.uni-bonn.de (Ignatios Souvatzis) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Origin of the 8.3 Filename Convention Date: 8 Apr 2002 15:23:16 GMT Organization: RHRZ - University of Bonn (Germany) Lines: 15 Message-ID: References: <3cb1a341.65680@news.ocis.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: tarski.cs.uni-bonn.de Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: f1node01.rhrz.uni-bonn.de 1018279396 36584 131.220.4.200 (8 Apr 2002 15:23:16 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@f1node01.rhrz.uni-bonn.de NNTP-Posting-Date: 8 Apr 2002 15:23:16 GMT X-Newsreader: knews 1.0b.1 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newscore.univie.ac.at!194.25.134.126.MISMATCH!newsfeed01.sul.t-online.de!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!news-lei1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news.rhrz.uni-bonn.de!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:105563 In article <3cb1a341.65680@news.ocis.net>, genew@mail.ocis.net (Gene Wirchenko) writes: > I asked this question a few months ago. I have yet to see a > credible answer here or anywhere else. This is despite much > searching. I'll try again: > > What is the origin of the 8.3 filename convention? Seeing that the ~2 dozen discussion in this very newsgroup, with the different contributions outlined, doesn't satisfy you ... what is your definition of "origin"? Regards, -is ###### From: "Rupert Pigott" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Origin of the 8.3 Filename Convention Date: Mon, 8 Apr 2002 16:10:27 +0000 (UTC) Organization: BT Openworld Lines: 16 Message-ID: References: <3cb1a341.65680@news.ocis.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: host213-1-137-223.btinternet.com X-Trace: knossos.btinternet.com 1018282227 7450 213.1.137.223 (8 Apr 2002 16:10:27 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news-complaints@lists.btinternet.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 8 Apr 2002 16:10:27 +0000 (UTC) X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2600.0000 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Priority: 3 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2600.0000 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newscore.univie.ac.at!skynet.be!skynet.be!proxad.net!proxad.net!isdnet!btnet-peer1!btnet-feed5!btnet!news.btopenworld.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:105564 "Gene Wirchenko" wrote in message news:3cb1a341.65680@news.ocis.net... > I asked this question a few months ago. I have yet to see a > credible answer here or anywhere else. This is despite much > searching. I'll try again: > > What is the origin of the 8.3 filename convention? Are you sure you're asking the right question ? Furthermore - why the hell does it matter ? :) Cheers, Rupert ###### From: "Peter Ibbotson" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Origin of the 8.3 Filename Convention Date: Mon, 8 Apr 2002 17:46:36 +0100 Message-ID: <1018284458.7287.0.nnrp-08.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> References: <3cb1a341.65680@news.ocis.net> Reply-To: "Peter Ibbotson" NNTP-Posting-Host: mailgate.lakeview.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: mailgate.lakeview.co.uk:62.49.243.90 X-Trace: news.demon.co.uk 1018284458 nnrp-08:7287 NO-IDENT mailgate.lakeview.co.uk:62.49.243.90 X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2600.0000 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2600.0000 Lines: 29 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-out.spamkiller.net!propagator2-maxim!propagator-maxim!news-in.spamkiller.net!news.he.net!news-hog.berkeley.edu!ucberkeley!news.maxwell.syr.edu!colt.net!newspeer.clara.net!news.clara.net!kibo.news.demon.net!news.demon.co.uk!demon!mailgate.lakeview.co.uk!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:105579 "Gene Wirchenko" wrote in message news:3cb1a341.65680@news.ocis.net... > I asked this question a few months ago. I have yet to see a > credible answer here or anywhere else. This is despite much > searching. I'll try again: > > What is the origin of the 8.3 filename convention? > > This has gone beyond that it is worth a 1% bonus in course I'm > taking (as I mentioned first time around). This is a piece of > knowledge that could be on the verge of extinction. > > Does anybody know? > The short answer is not really, MSDOS and windows definitely got it from CPM, and I suspect that CPM picked up the three letter extension stuff from DEC but expanded the filename size from 6 to 8 letters. (PIP and DDT are commands available for both DEC & CPM systems so some common ancestory here) I suspect the answer being looked for here is "CP/M" but quite why CP/M used 8.3 is lost (they had two spare bytes in the directory format which could have been used to give 10.3) . -- Work peteri@lakeview.co.uk.plugh.org | remove magic word .org to reply Home peter@ibbotson.co.uk.plugh.org | I own the domain but theres no MX ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Origin of the 8.3 Filename Convention References: <3cb1a341.65680@news.ocis.net> <1018284458.7287.0.nnrp-08.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> Reply-To: jhaynes@alumni.uark.edu Organization: University of Arkansas Alumni X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test72 (19 April 1999) From: haynes@alumni.uark.edu (Jim Haynes) Lines: 9 Message-ID: Date: Mon, 08 Apr 2002 17:35:21 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 158.252.141.29 X-Complaints-To: abuse@earthlink.net X-Trace: newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net 1018287321 158.252.141.29 (Mon, 08 Apr 2002 10:35:21 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 08 Apr 2002 10:35:21 PDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-out.spamkiller.net!propagator2-maxim!propagator-maxim!news-in.spamkiller.net!feed.newsfeeds.com!news-out.visi.com!hermes.visi.com!newsfeed1.earthlink.net!newsfeed.earthlink.net!stamper.news.pas.earthlink.net!newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:105539 In article <1018284458.7287.0.nnrp-08.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk>, Peter Ibbotson wrote: >I suspect the answer being looked for here is "CP/M" but quite why CP/M used >8.3 is lost (they had two spare bytes in the directory format which could >have been used to give 10.3) . Now DEC used, at least in the PDP-11, Radix-50 coding of the alphabet in file names. Seems like this got them 3 ASCII characters into 16 bits, or something like that. ###### From: alan.nospam@glaramara.freeserve.co.uk (Alan J. Wylie) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Origin of the 8.3 Filename Convention Date: 08 Apr 2002 20:30:36 +0100 Organization: very little Lines: 26 Message-ID: References: <3cb1a341.65680@news.ocis.net> <1018284458.7287.0.nnrp-08.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: modem-619.hodad.dialup.pol.co.uk Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: news8.svr.pol.co.uk 1018294255 2355 62.25.162.107 (8 Apr 2002 19:30:55 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: 8 Apr 2002 19:30:55 GMT X-Complaints-To: abuse@theplanet.net User-Agent: Gnus/5.09 (Gnus v5.9.0) Emacs/21.2 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news-fra1.dfn.de!news-han1.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!diablo.theplanet.net!diablo.theplanet.net!news.theplanet.net!bilbo!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:105541 On Mon, 08 Apr 2002 17:35:21 GMT, haynes@alumni.uark.edu (Jim Haynes) said: > Now DEC used, at least in the PDP-11, Radix-50 coding of the > alphabet in file names. Seems like this got them 3 ASCII characters > into 16 bits, or something like that. Not ASCII. The 50 in Rad50 is octal. 50 octal = 40 decimal (decimal) 40 ^ 3 = 64000 2 ^ 16 = 65536 A-Z 26 0-9 10 punctuation 4 ("$", "." ???) -- 40 -- Alan J. Wylie http://www.glaramara.freeserve.co.uk/ "Perfection [in design] is achieved not when there is nothing left to add, but rather when there is nothing left to take away." Antoine de Saint-Exupery ###### From: Bernie Cosell Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Origin of the 8.3 Filename Convention Date: Tue, 09 Apr 2002 07:19:09 -0400 Organization: Fantasy Farm Fibers Lines: 27 Message-ID: X-Orig-Message-ID: References: <3cb1a341.65680@news.ocis.net> <1018284458.7287.0.nnrp-08.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> Abuse-Reports-To: abuse at airmail.net to report improper postings NNTP-Proxy-Relay: library2.airnews.net NNTP-Posting-Time: Tue Apr 9 06:17:55 2002 NNTP-Posting-Host: !]-r(1k-XOhh-hEG]ag6Ht6tt (Encoded at Airnews!) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.9/32.560 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news.airnews.net!cabal11.airnews.net!cabal1.airnews.net!news-f.iadfw.net!usenet Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:105616 haynes@alumni.uark.edu (Jim Haynes) wrote: } In article <1018284458.7287.0.nnrp-08.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk>, } Peter Ibbotson wrote: } >I suspect the answer being looked for here is "CP/M" but quite why CP/M used } >8.3 is lost (they had two spare bytes in the directory format which could } >have been used to give 10.3) . } } Now DEC used, at least in the PDP-11, Radix-50 coding of the alphabet in } file names. Seems like this got them 3 ASCII characters into 16 bits, or } something like that. Not ascii and not into 16 bits. Pre-PDP-11, DECs computers had multiple-of-6-bit word lengths [18 and 36] and the 'natural' character coding on the system was [not surprisingly] 6-bit-chars. And so the software naturally gravitated to 6 [and 9 for some langs, I think] character symbols. The hack with Rad50 was that in the symbol table, you could pack three characters into 17 bits. This gave you two 'free' bits [for a 6-char-symbol] to use as flag bits, one in each word. I once knew what those bits were used for in Midas [the assembler we used to use] but the memory is long-gone. /Bernie\ -- Bernie Cosell Fantasy Farm Fibers bernie@fantasyfarm.com Pearisburg, VA --> Too many people, too few sheep <-- ###### From: greenaum@BOLLOCKSyahoo.co.uk Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Origin of the 8.3 Filename Convention Date: Tue, 9 Apr 2002 15:15:13 +0000 (UTC) Organization: Rossum's Universal Robots Lines: 15 Message-ID: <3cb9f494.4986669@news.btopenworld.com> References: <3cb1a341.65680@news.ocis.net> Reply-To: greenaum@BOLLOCKSyahoo.co.uk NNTP-Posting-Host: host213-122-137-126.in-addr.btopenworld.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: helle.btinternet.com 1018365313 8590 213.122.137.126 (9 Apr 2002 15:15:13 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news-complaints@lists.btinternet.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 9 Apr 2002 15:15:13 +0000 (UTC) X-No-Archive: yes X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.5/32.452 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!fu-berlin.de!news-feed1.de1.concert.net!newsr1.ipcore.viaginterkom.de!btnet-peer1!btnet-feed5!btnet!news.btopenworld.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:105704 On Mon, 08 Apr 2002 14:05:35 GMT, genew@mail.ocis.net (Gene Wirchenko) sprachen: >This is a piece of >knowledge that could be on the verge of extinction. It's obviously already extinct. Which is a bit wierd for such a modern idea. Anyway I'm dying to know, did you get the 1%? What was your prof's explanation? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ if love is a drug, then, ideally, it's a healing, healthful drug... it's kind of like prozac is supposed to work (without the sexual side effects and long-term damage to the brain and psyche) ###### From: genew@mail.ocis.net (Gene Wirchenko) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Origin of the 8.3 Filename Convention Date: Tue, 09 Apr 2002 18:46:04 GMT Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Message-ID: <3cb3304d.781134@news.ocis.net> Reply-To: genew@mail.ocis.net References: <3cb1a341.65680@news.ocis.net> <3cb9f494.4986669@news.btopenworld.com> X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.21/32.243 X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@supernews.com Lines: 23 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.cwix.com!sjc-peer.news.verio.net!news.verio.net!sn-xit-01!sn-post-01!supernews.com!corp.supernews.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:105613 greenaum@BOLLOCKSyahoo.co.uk wrote: >On Mon, 08 Apr 2002 14:05:35 GMT, genew@mail.ocis.net (Gene Wirchenko) >sprachen: > >>This is a piece of >>knowledge that could be on the verge of extinction. > >It's obviously already extinct. Which is a bit wierd for such a modern >idea. Anyway I'm dying to know, did you get the 1%? What was your >prof's explanation? I haven't gotten it yet, and he hasn't given the explanation. The course isn't over yet. Sincerely, Gene Wirchenko Computerese Irregular Verb Conjugation: I have preferences. You have biases. He/She has prejudices. ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Origin of the 8.3 Filename Convention References: <3cb1a341.65680@news.ocis.net> <1018284458.7287.0.nnrp-08.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> Reply-To: jhaynes@alumni.uark.edu Organization: University of Arkansas Alumni X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test72 (19 April 1999) From: haynes@alumni.uark.edu (Jim Haynes) Lines: 7 Message-ID: Date: Tue, 09 Apr 2002 20:43:03 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 158.252.140.249 X-Complaints-To: abuse@earthlink.net X-Trace: newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net 1018384983 158.252.140.249 (Tue, 09 Apr 2002 13:43:03 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 09 Apr 2002 13:43:03 PDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!netnews.com!xfer02.netnews.com!newsfeed2.earthlink.net!newsfeed.earthlink.net!stamper.news.pas.earthlink.net!newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:105645 In article , Alan J. Wylie wrote: > >Not ASCII. > OK, I shoulda said what I meant, a subset of ASCII consisting of A-Z, 0-9, and a few other things. ###### From: Eric Sosman Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Origin of the 8.3 Filename Convention Date: Tue, 09 Apr 2002 17:24:21 -0400 Organization: Sun Microsystems Lines: 20 Message-ID: <3CB35C05.F5F9316F@sun.com> References: <3cb1a341.65680@news.ocis.net> <1018284458.7287.0.nnrp-08.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: tardis.east.sun.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en] (X11; I; SunOS 5.8 sun4u) X-Accept-Language: en Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!colt.net!kibo.news.demon.net!demon!btnet-peer0!btnet-feed5!btnet!carbon.eu.sun.com!new-usenet.uk.sun.com!eastnews1.East.Sun.COM!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:105759 Jim Haynes wrote: > > In article , > Alan J. Wylie wrote: > > > >Not ASCII. > > > OK, I shoulda said what I meant, a subset of ASCII consisting of A-Z, > 0-9, and a few other things. No; that's a subset of EBCDIC. Or of the MIX 1009 characters. (In other words: ASCII is not just a set of glyphs and control functions, but a particular encoding for them. RAD50 encodes some of the same glyphs found in ASCII and EBCDIC and other codes, but since the encoding is completely different, RAD50 is neither of those codes, nor is it a subset of those codes.) -- Eric.Sosman@sun.com ###### From: "Stephen G. McKenna" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers References: <3cb1a341.65680@news.ocis.net> <1018284458.7287.0.nnrp-08.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> Subject: Re: Origin of the 8.3 Filename Convention Lines: 38 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2600.0000 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2600.0000 Message-ID: Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 00:14:21 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.112.173.80 X-Complaints-To: abuse@rogers.com X-Trace: news01.bloor.is.net.cable.rogers.com 1018397661 24.112.173.80 (Tue, 09 Apr 2002 20:14:21 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 09 Apr 2002 20:14:21 EDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!nf3.bellglobal.com!novia!novia!teleglobe.net!teleglobe.net!66.185.86.143.MISMATCH!news03.bloor.is.net.cable.rogers.com!news01.bloor.is.net.cable.rogers.com.POSTED!12dc6cf53ab2750!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:105662 Its been about 20 years, but I recall using 8.3 file names with PDP-11/Rsx "Peter Ibbotson" wrote in message news:1018284458.7287.0.nnrp-08.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk... > "Gene Wirchenko" wrote in message > news:3cb1a341.65680@news.ocis.net... > > I asked this question a few months ago. I have yet to see a > > credible answer here or anywhere else. This is despite much > > searching. I'll try again: > > > > What is the origin of the 8.3 filename convention? > > > > This has gone beyond that it is worth a 1% bonus in course I'm > > taking (as I mentioned first time around). This is a piece of > > knowledge that could be on the verge of extinction. > > > > Does anybody know? > > > > The short answer is not really, MSDOS and windows definitely got it from > CPM, and I suspect that CPM picked up the three letter extension stuff from > DEC but expanded the filename size from 6 to 8 letters. (PIP and DDT are > commands available for both DEC & CPM systems so some common ancestory here) > > I suspect the answer being looked for here is "CP/M" but quite why CP/M used > 8.3 is lost (they had two spare bytes in the directory format which could > have been used to give 10.3) . > > -- > Work peteri@lakeview.co.uk.plugh.org | remove magic word .org to reply > Home peter@ibbotson.co.uk.plugh.org | I own the domain but theres no MX > > ###### From: Elliott Roper Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Origin of the 8.3 Filename Convention Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 02:34:21 +0100 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Message-ID: <100420020234216732%elliott@yrl.co.uk> References: <3cb1a341.65680@news.ocis.net> <1018284458.7287.0.nnrp-08.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 8bit User-Agent: Thoth/1.5.1 (Carbon/OS X) X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@supernews.com Lines: 12 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-out.spamkiller.net!propagator2-maxim!propagator-maxim!news-in.spamkiller.net!news-xfer.newsread.com!netaxs.com!newsread.com!newspeer.monmouth.com!skynet.be!skynet.be!sn-xit-03!sn-post-01!supernews.com!corp.supernews.com!elliott Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:105653 In article , Stephen G. McKenna wrote: > Its been about 20 years, but I recall using 8.3 file names with PDP-11/Rsx Can you remember any filenames in RSX that were more than 6.3? It's that RAD-50 again. Any three from a set of 40 crammed into a 16 bit word. Rad-50? Sort of a bad joke in octal notation. You remember the cheatsheet blue booklet with the sailing ship on the front, complete with a snippet of the John Masefield poem? "And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by," With the RAD-50 table toward the back. RSX11M-3.2 The best RSX of all. ###### Message-ID: <3CB47A4B.C2BBE54F@ev1.net> From: Charles Richmond Reply-To: richmond@ev1.net Organization: Cannine Computer Center X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7C-CCK-MCD {C-UDP; EBM-APPLE} (Macintosh; I; PPC) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Origin of the 8.3 Filename Convention References: <3cb1a341.65680@news.ocis.net> <1018284458.7287.0.nnrp-08.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> <3CB35C05.F5F9316F@sun.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 27 NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.237.69.87 X-Complaints-To: abuse@attbi.com X-Trace: rwcrnsc53 1018453577 12.237.69.87 (Wed, 10 Apr 2002 15:46:17 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 15:46:17 GMT Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 15:46:17 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news-xfer.newsread.com!netaxs.com!newsread.com!nntp.abs.net!feed2.news.rcn.net!rcn!wn1feed!worldnet.att.net!204.127.198.203!attbi_feed3!attbi.com!rwcrnsc53.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:105755 Eric Sosman wrote: > > Jim Haynes wrote: > > > > In article , > > Alan J. Wylie wrote: > > > > > >Not ASCII. > > > > > OK, I shoulda said what I meant, a subset of ASCII consisting of A-Z, > > 0-9, and a few other things. > > No; that's a subset of EBCDIC. Or of the MIX 1009 characters. > > (In other words: ASCII is not just a set of glyphs and control > functions, but a particular encoding for them. RAD50 encodes some > of the same glyphs found in ASCII and EBCDIC and other codes, but > since the encoding is completely different, RAD50 is neither of > those codes, nor is it a subset of those codes.) > So why did CDC *not* adopt RAD50 as their 6-bit character set, instead of developing their own??? -- +-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Charles and Francis Richmond | +-------------------------------------------------------------+ ###### Reply-To: "Douglas H. Quebbeman" From: "Douglas H. Quebbeman" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers References: <3cb1a341.65680@news.ocis.net> <1018284458.7287.0.nnrp-08.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> <3CB35C05.F5F9316F@sun.com> <3CB47A4B.C2BBE54F@ev1.net> Subject: Re: Origin of the 8.3 Filename Convention Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 13:12:54 -0400 Lines: 37 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4807.1700 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4910.0300 NNTP-Posting-Host: 204.250.0.238 X-Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: 204.250.0.238 Message-ID: <3cb47297$1_1@news.iglou.com> X-Trace: news.iglou.com 1018458775 204.250.0.238 (10 Apr 2002 13:12:55 -0400) X-Authenticated-User: dougq X-Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: 204.250.0.238 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-out.spamkiller.net!propagator2-maxim!propagator-maxim!news-in.spamkiller.net!feed.newsfeeds.com!news-out.cwix.com!newsfeed.cwix.com!nntp.abs.net!uunet!dca.uu.net!news.iglou.com Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:105609 "Charles Richmond" wrote in message = news:3CB47A4B.C2BBE54F@ev1.net... > Eric Sosman wrote: > >=20 > > Jim Haynes wrote: > > > > > > In article , > > > Alan J. Wylie wrote: > > > > > > > >Not ASCII. > > > > > > > OK, I shoulda said what I meant, a subset of ASCII consisting of = A-Z, > > > 0-9, and a few other things. > >=20 > > No; that's a subset of EBCDIC. Or of the MIX 1009 characters. > >=20 > > (In other words: ASCII is not just a set of glyphs and control > > functions, but a particular encoding for them. RAD50 encodes some > > of the same glyphs found in ASCII and EBCDIC and other codes, but > > since the encoding is completely different, RAD50 is neither of > > those codes, nor is it a subset of those codes.) > >=20 > So why did CDC *not* adopt RAD50 as their 6-bit character set, > instead of developing their own??? Mark Crispin has stated he thought that Radix-50 was in use on the PDP-1, which would date it back to what, '61? He says he's sure it was in use on the PDP-6 during the pre-timesharing days. HOWEVER, the design of the CDC 6000 series computers began in 1959, and if RAD50 was in use by that time, it wasn't likely being used widely. And they appear to have not wanted to continue using BCD... Regards, -doug q ###### From: Eric Sosman Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Origin of the 8.3 Filename Convention Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 13:15:08 -0400 Organization: Sun Microsystems Lines: 16 Message-ID: <3CB4731C.D66D896A@sun.com> References: <3cb1a341.65680@news.ocis.net> <1018284458.7287.0.nnrp-08.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> <3CB35C05.F5F9316F@sun.com> <3CB47A4B.C2BBE54F@ev1.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: tardis.east.sun.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en] (X11; I; SunOS 5.8 sun4u) X-Accept-Language: en Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!fr.clara.net!heighliner.fr.clara.net!newsfeed.online.be!feed1.news.be.easynet.net!easynet-monga!easynet-melon!easynet.net!btnet-feed5!btnet!carbon.eu.sun.com!new-usenet.uk.sun.com!eastnews1.East.Sun.COM!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:105760 Charles Richmond wrote: > > So why did CDC *not* adopt RAD50 as their 6-bit character set, > instead of developing their own??? I'm not familiar with what CDC came up with, but RAD50 is obviously not a "6-bit character set." If anything, it's a 5.32193-bit character set. (Hmmm: Did anybody ever come up with a use for the 0.034216 bit wasted when three RAD50 characters occupied one sixteen-bit word? 1536 unused codes were available; did anybody use, say, 0177777 as a special flag value?) -- Eric.Sosman@sun.com ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Origin of the 8.3 Filename Convention References: <3cb1a341.65680@news.ocis.net> <1018284458.7287.0.nnrp-08.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> <100420020234216732%elliott@yrl.co.uk> Organization: Daedalus Consulting X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test72 (19 April 1999) From: don@news.daedalus.co.nz (Don Stokes) Lines: 17 Message-ID: Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 20:11:15 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 203.96.144.16 X-Complaints-To: abuse@tsnz.net X-Trace: news02.tsnz.net 1018469475 203.96.144.16 (Thu, 11 Apr 2002 08:11:15 NZST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 08:11:15 NZST Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!cyclone.bc.net!news-out.newsfeeds.com!propagator2-maxim!propagator-maxim!news-in.spamkiller.net!news02.tsnz.net!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:105857 Elliott Roper wrote: >G. McKenna wrote: >> Its been about 20 years, but I recall using 8.3 file names with PDP-11/Rsx >Can you remember any filenames in RSX that were more than 6.3? >It's that RAD-50 again. Any three from a set of 40 crammed into a 16 >bit word. Rad-50? Sort of a bad joke in octal notation. >You remember the cheatsheet blue booklet with the sailing ship on the >front, complete with a snippet of the John Masefield poem? >"And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by," >With the RAD-50 table toward the back. RSX11M-3.2 The best RSX of all. RSX uses 9.3, stored in RAD-50 format in three 16 bit words for the file name plus one for the extension. RT11 and RSTS/E use 6.3. -- don ###### Message-ID: <3CB4DD09.9DCA8323@yahoo.com> From: CBFalconer Reply-To: cbfalconer@worldnet.att.net Organization: Ched Research X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.75 [en] (Win98; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Origin of the 8.3 Filename Convention References: <3cb1a341.65680@news.ocis.net> <1018284458.7287.0.nnrp-08.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> <3CB35C05.F5F9316F@sun.com> <3CB47A4B.C2BBE54F@ev1.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 34 Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 03:17:37 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.90.171.74 X-Complaints-To: abuse@worldnet.att.net X-Trace: bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net 1018495057 12.90.171.74 (Thu, 11 Apr 2002 03:17:37 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 03:17:37 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-out.spamkiller.net!propagator2-maxim!propagator-maxim!news-in.spamkiller.net!news-xfer.newsread.com!netaxs.com!newsread.com!nntp.abs.net!newsfeed.cwix.com!wn2feed!worldnet.att.net!135.173.83.55!bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:105799 Charles Richmond wrote: > Eric Sosman wrote: > > ... snip ... > > > > (In other words: ASCII is not just a set of glyphs and control > > functions, but a particular encoding for them. RAD50 encodes some > > of the same glyphs found in ASCII and EBCDIC and other codes, but > > since the encoding is completely different, RAD50 is neither of > > those codes, nor is it a subset of those codes.) > > > So why did CDC *not* adopt RAD50 as their 6-bit character set, > instead of developing their own??? It is not a character set. It is a way of packing 3 of a 40 char set into 16 bits. You also need a translation table or equivalent. The usual set is 'A'..'Z', '0'..'9', ' ', and your choice of 3 more glyphs, in no particular order. If the chars are represented by integers 0..39, then the 16 bit value of chars xyz will be: (((x)*40 + y)*40 +z) and keeping the blank representation as 0 is handy, because it allows you to do string compares with integer instructions. MOD 40 is used to extract. -- Chuck F (cbfalconer@yahoo.com) (cbfalconer@worldnet.att.net) Available for consulting/temporary embedded and systems. USE worldnet address! ###### Message-ID: <3CB4DD09.9DCA8323@yahoo.com> From: CBFalconer Reply-To: cbfalconer@worldnet.att.net Organization: Ched Research X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.75 [en] (Win98; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Origin of the 8.3 Filename Convention References: <3cb1a341.65680@news.ocis.net> <1018284458.7287.0.nnrp-08.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> <3CB35C05.F5F9316F@sun.com> <3CB47A4B.C2BBE54F@ev1.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 34 Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 03:17:37 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.90.171.74 X-Complaints-To: abuse@worldnet.att.net X-Trace: bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net 1018495057 12.90.171.74 (Thu, 11 Apr 2002 03:17:37 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 03:17:37 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-out.spamkiller.net!propagator2-maxim!propagator-maxim!news-in.spamkiller.net!news-xfer.newsread.com!netaxs.com!newsread.com!nntp.abs.net!newsfeed.cwix.com!wn2feed!worldnet.att.net!135.173.83.55!bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:105799 Charles Richmond wrote: > Eric Sosman wrote: > > ... snip ... > > > > (In other words: ASCII is not just a set of glyphs and control > > functions, but a particular encoding for them. RAD50 encodes some > > of the same glyphs found in ASCII and EBCDIC and other codes, but > > since the encoding is completely different, RAD50 is neither of > > those codes, nor is it a subset of those codes.) > > > So why did CDC *not* adopt RAD50 as their 6-bit character set, > instead of developing their own??? It is not a character set. It is a way of packing 3 of a 40 char set into 16 bits. You also need a translation table or equivalent. The usual set is 'A'..'Z', '0'..'9', ' ', and your choice of 3 more glyphs, in no particular order. If the chars are represented by integers 0..39, then the 16 bit value of chars xyz will be: (((x)*40 + y)*40 +z) and keeping the blank representation as 0 is handy, because it allows you to do string compares with integer instructions. MOD 40 is used to extract. -- Chuck F (cbfalconer@yahoo.com) (cbfalconer@worldnet.att.net) Available for consulting/temporary embedded and systems. USE worldnet address! ###### Message-ID: <3CB4DEA7.DDF2647E@yahoo.com> From: CBFalconer Reply-To: cbfalconer@worldnet.att.net Organization: Ched Research X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.75 [en] (Win98; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Origin of the 8.3 Filename Convention References: <3cb1a341.65680@news.ocis.net> <1018284458.7287.0.nnrp-08.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 26 Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 03:17:39 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.90.171.74 X-Complaints-To: abuse@worldnet.att.net X-Trace: bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net 1018495059 12.90.171.74 (Thu, 11 Apr 2002 03:17:39 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 03:17:39 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-out.spamkiller.net!propagator2-maxim!propagator-maxim!news-in.spamkiller.net!news-xfer.newsread.com!netaxs.com!newsread.com!nntp.abs.net!newsfeed.cwix.com!wn2feed!worldnet.att.net!135.173.83.55!bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:105800 Bernie Cosell wrote: > ... snip ... > > Not ascii and not into 16 bits. Pre-PDP-11, DECs computers had > multiple-of-6-bit word lengths [18 and 36] and the 'natural' > character coding on the system was [not surprisingly] 6-bit-chars. > And so the software naturally gravitated to 6 [and 9 for some > langs, I think] character symbols. The hack with Rad50 was that > in the symbol table, you could pack three characters into 17 bits. > This gave you two 'free' bits [for a 6-char-symbol] to use as flag > bits, one in each word. I once knew what those bits were used for > in Midas [the assembler we used to use] but the memory is long-gone. See the packing algorithm I posted elsethread. You can actually let one of the three packed chars have 41 possible values, provided you preselect the position. And the word is 16, not 17 bits. No need for it with an 18 bit word, you can just pack 6 bit chars. -- Chuck F (cbfalconer@yahoo.com) (cbfalconer@worldnet.att.net) Available for consulting/temporary embedded and systems. USE worldnet address! ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Origin of the 8.3 Filename Convention References: <3cb1a341.65680@news.ocis.net> <3CB35C05.F5F9316F@sun.com> <3CB47A4B.C2BBE54F@ev1.net> Reply-To: jhaynes@alumni.uark.edu Organization: University of Arkansas Alumni X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test72 (19 April 1999) From: haynes@alumni.uark.edu (Jim Haynes) Lines: 25 Message-ID: <4y7t8.34240$CA6.432377@newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net> Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 03:37:36 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 158.252.141.5 X-Complaints-To: abuse@earthlink.net X-Trace: newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net 1018496256 158.252.141.5 (Wed, 10 Apr 2002 20:37:36 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 20:37:36 PDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-out.spamkiller.net!propagator2-maxim!propagator-maxim!news-in.spamkiller.net!newsfeed2.earthlink.net!newsfeed.earthlink.net!stamper.news.pas.earthlink.net!newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:105835 >Eric Sosman wrote: > > Jim Haynes wrote: > > > > In article , > > Alan J. Wylie wrote: > > > > > >Not ASCII. > > > > > OK, I shoulda said what I meant, a subset of ASCII consisting of A-Z, > > 0-9, and a few other things. > > No; that's a subset of EBCDIC. Or of the MIX 1009 characters. > > (In other words: ASCII is not just a set of glyphs and control > functions, but a particular encoding for them. RAD50 encodes some > of the same glyphs found in ASCII and EBCDIC and other codes, but > since the encoding is completely different, RAD50 is neither of > those codes, nor is it a subset of those codes.) > We may be getting into hair splitting here, but the reason it is a subset of ASCII is that for the machines I'm talking about the software and terminals used ASCII as the character code. The software provides functions to convert between ASCII codes and RAD50 codes. It's these codes, not the glyphs, that appear inside the machine. ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Origin of the 8.3 Filename Convention References: <3cb1a341.65680@news.ocis.net> <3CB35C05.F5F9316F@sun.com> <3CB47A4B.C2BBE54F@ev1.net> Reply-To: jhaynes@alumni.uark.edu Organization: University of Arkansas Alumni X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test72 (19 April 1999) From: haynes@alumni.uark.edu (Jim Haynes) Lines: 25 Message-ID: Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 03:44:08 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 158.252.141.5 X-Complaints-To: abuse@earthlink.net X-Trace: newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net 1018496648 158.252.141.5 (Wed, 10 Apr 2002 20:44:08 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 20:44:08 PDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-out.spamkiller.net!propagator2-maxim!propagator-maxim!news-in.spamkiller.net!newsfeed2.earthlink.net!newsfeed.earthlink.net!stamper.news.pas.earthlink.net!newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:105825 >Eric Sosman wrote: >> >> Jim Haynes wrote: >> > >> > In article , >> > Alan J. Wylie wrote: >> > > >> > >Not ASCII. >> > > >> > OK, I shoulda said what I meant, a subset of ASCII consisting of A-Z, >> > 0-9, and a few other things. >> >> No; that's a subset of EBCDIC. Or of the MIX 1009 characters. >> >> (In other words: ASCII is not just a set of glyphs and control >> functions, but a particular encoding for them. RAD50 encodes some >> of the same glyphs found in ASCII and EBCDIC and other codes, but >> since the encoding is completely different, RAD50 is neither of >> those codes, nor is it a subset of those codes.) >> We are probably splitting hairs here, but the reason it is a subset of ASCII is that for the machines I'm talking about ASCII was the character code of the software and terminals. The software provided functions to convert between RAD50 and ASCII. The software doesn't know about the glyphs; it only knows the codes that represent them. ###### X-Trace-PostClient-IP: 24.67.16.79 From: Brian Inglis Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Origin of the 8.3 Filename Convention Organization: Systematic Software Reply-To: Brian.Inglis@SystematicSw.ab.ca Message-ID: <92aabuoko5l9pb2hjh2rk9ji3iduhpmaad@4ax.com> References: <3cb1a341.65680@news.ocis.net> <1018284458.7287.0.nnrp-08.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> <3CB35C05.F5F9316F@sun.com> <3CB47A4B.C2BBE54F@ev1.net> <3CB4731C.D66D896A@sun.com> X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.9/32.560 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 39 Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 06:20:58 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.71.223.147 X-Complaints-To: abuse@shaw.ca X-Trace: news2.calgary.shaw.ca 1018506058 24.71.223.147 (Thu, 11 Apr 2002 00:20:58 MDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 00:20:58 MDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-out.spamkiller.net!propagator2-maxim!propagator-maxim!news-in.spamkiller.net!out.nntp.be!propagator-SanJose!in.nntp.be!pd2nf2so.cg.shawcable.net!residential.shaw.ca!news2.calgary.shaw.ca.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:105926 On Wed, 10 Apr 2002 13:15:08 -0400, Eric Sosman wrote: >Charles Richmond wrote: >> >> So why did CDC *not* adopt RAD50 as their 6-bit character set, >> instead of developing their own??? > > I'm not familiar with what CDC came up with, but RAD50 is >obviously not a "6-bit character set." If anything, it's a >5.32193-bit character set. > > (Hmmm: Did anybody ever come up with a use for the >0.034216 bit wasted when three RAD50 characters occupied >one sixteen-bit word? 1536 unused codes were available; >did anybody use, say, 0177777 as a special flag value?) No, but the two extra bits per word on 18 bit machines e.g PDP-15 were used to encode a variable's data type in the symbol table e.g. TTRRR TTRRR where T are the type bits and R the 6 RAD50 chars allowed per symbol. IIRC in PDP-15 4K/8K ForTran one set of type bits were used to encode the base data type (int, float, double) and the other the number of array dimensions, or something like that. They might also have been used in the reserved word table as length flags or for dispatching, but it's been a long while. RAD50 made a lot more sense than the "standard" 5x7 ASCII packing conventionally used for strings on DEC's 18/36 bit machines. Six and nine bit bytes would have been a lot easier to deal with. -- Thanks. Take care, Brian Inglis Calgary, Alberta, Canada Brian.Inglis@CSi.com (Brian dot Inglis at SystematicSw dot ab dot ca) fake address use address above to reply tosspam@aol.com abuse@aol.com abuse@yahoo.com abuse@hotmail.com abuse@msn.com abuse@sprint.com abuse@earthlink.com abuse@cadvision.com abuse@ibsystems.com uce@ftc.gov spam traps ###### From: Bernie Cosell Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Origin of the 8.3 Filename Convention Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 08:06:08 -0400 Organization: Fantasy Farm Fibers Lines: 31 Message-ID: <9F36772BDFFCC10A.1883119B0501B94D.2787486A40865D03@lp.airnews.net> X-Orig-Message-ID: References: <3cb1a341.65680@news.ocis.net> <1018284458.7287.0.nnrp-08.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> <3CB4DEA7.DDF2647E@yahoo.com> Abuse-Reports-To: abuse at airmail.net to report improper postings NNTP-Proxy-Relay: library1-aux.airnews.net NNTP-Posting-Time: Thu Apr 11 07:04:32 2002 NNTP-Posting-Host: ![9NJ1k-W)c5 wrote: } Bernie Cosell wrote: } > } ... snip ... } > } > Not ascii and not into 16 bits. Pre-PDP-11, DECs computers had } > multiple-of-6-bit word lengths [18 and 36] and the 'natural' } > character coding on the system was [not surprisingly] 6-bit-chars. } > And so the software naturally gravitated to 6 [and 9 for some } > langs, I think] character symbols. The hack with Rad50 was that } > in the symbol table, you could pack three characters into 17 bits. } > This gave you two 'free' bits [for a 6-char-symbol] to use as flag } > bits, one in each word. I once knew what those bits were used for } > in Midas [the assembler we used to use] but the memory is long-gone. } } See the packing algorithm I posted elsethread. You can actually } let one of the three packed chars have 41 possible values, } provided you preselect the position. And the word is 16, not 17 } bits. No need for it with an 18 bit word, you can just pack 6 bit } chars. If you're talking about the RAD50, the first I ran into it was on the PDP1 which *DID* have 18 bit words and the 'packing' was used to program-bum a couple of flag bits into the symbol table. I wasn't addressing the question of whether RAD-50 was used later on other computers and with other packing schemes. /bernie\ -- Bernie Cosell Fantasy Farm Fibers bernie@fantasyfarm.com Pearisburg, VA --> Too many people, too few sheep <-- ###### From: "Russell P. Holsclaw" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers References: <3cb1a341.65680@news.ocis.net> <1018284458.7287.0.nnrp-08.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> Subject: Re: Origin of the 8.3 Filename Convention Lines: 25 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2600.0000 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2600.0000 Message-ID: Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 14:58:32 -0600 NNTP-Posting-Host: 216.183.117.237 X-Trace: news.uswest.net 1018558749 216.183.117.237 (Thu, 11 Apr 2002 15:59:09 CDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 15:59:09 CDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-out.spamkiller.net!propagator2-maxim!propagator-maxim!news-in.spamkiller.net!feed.newsfeeds.com!cyclone-sf.pbi.net!151.164.30.35!cyclone.swbell.net!easynews!feed.news.qwest.net!news.uswest.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:105866 I would guess, based on what I see here and elsewhere, that CP/M was the first system to have 8.3 names. How did Gary Kildall come up with that combination? My theories: 1. The standard CP/M disk sector size was 128 bytes, and he wanted to have 32-byte directory entries, so that they would come out even ... a whole number per sector. It had to be a power of 2, anyway. He laid out all the fields that the directory entry needed according to his file system ideas, and there were 11 bytes left over for the file name and extension. Since DEC systems were already using 3-character extensions, which seemed to be a practical minimum, that left 8 for the name. 2. There is evidence that Gary was one of those rare individuals with both DEC and IBM influences in his background. DEC had established the 3-character file extension as a standard on its systems, and IBM mainframes of the time had 8 characters as a common namespace size. Put the two together, and you get 8.3. (BTW, the IBM influence can be seen his his PL/M language, with PL/I-like syntax and his choice of PL/I for his first application language compiler.) -- Russ Holsclaw ###### From: "Peter Ibbotson" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Origin of the 8.3 Filename Convention Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 09:41:41 +0100 Message-ID: <1018600901.11906.0.nnrp-12.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> References: <3cb1a341.65680@news.ocis.net> <1018284458.7287.0.nnrp-08.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> Reply-To: "Peter Ibbotson" NNTP-Posting-Host: mailgate.lakeview.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: mailgate.lakeview.co.uk:62.49.243.90 X-Trace: news.demon.co.uk 1018600901 nnrp-12:11906 NO-IDENT mailgate.lakeview.co.uk:62.49.243.90 X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2600.0000 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2600.0000 Lines: 43 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!uni-erlangen.de!news-nue1.dfn.de!news-lei1.dfn.de!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!newsfeed01.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!news5-gui.server.ntli.net!ntli.net!peernews2.colt.net!colt.net!kibo.news.demon.net!news.demon.co.uk!demon!mailgate.lakeview.co.uk!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:105919 "Russell P. Holsclaw" wrote in message news:xOmt8.84$LA3.82939@news.uswest.net... > I would guess, based on what I see here and elsewhere, that CP/M was the > first system to have 8.3 names. How did Gary Kildall come up with that > combination? > > My theories: > > 1. The standard CP/M disk sector size was 128 bytes, and he wanted to have > 32-byte directory entries, so that they would come out even ... a whole > number per sector. It had to be a power of 2, anyway. He laid out all the > fields that the directory entry needed according to his file system ideas, > and there were 11 bytes left over for the file name and extension. Since DEC > systems were already using 3-character extensions, which seemed to be a > practical minimum, that left 8 for the name. > > 2. There is evidence that Gary was one of those rare individuals with both > DEC and IBM influences in his background. DEC had established the > 3-character file extension as a standard on its systems, and IBM mainframes > of the time had 8 characters as a common namespace size. Put the two > together, and you get 8.3. (BTW, the IBM influence can be seen his his PL/M > language, with PL/I-like syntax and his choice of PL/I for his first > application language compiler.) > Number 1 I don't like as there are two spare bytes left over in CPM 1.4 directory structure (Perhaps gary did this on purpose) Number 2 I like much better and perhaps he felt that he'd like some spare in the directory structure (Possibly he was thinking of time and date stamping later on?) I suppose the best question would be to ask what Intel development systems had? -- Work peteri@lakeview.co.uk.plugh.org | remove magic word .org to reply Home peter@ibbotson.co.uk.plugh.org | I own the domain but theres no MX ###### From: "Russell P. Holsclaw" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers References: <3cb1a341.65680@news.ocis.net> <1018284458.7287.0.nnrp-08.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> <1018600901.11906.0.nnrp-12.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> Subject: Re: Origin of the 8.3 Filename Convention Lines: 49 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2600.0000 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2600.0000 Message-ID: Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 08:33:32 -0600 NNTP-Posting-Host: 216.183.117.237 X-Trace: news.uswest.net 1018622045 216.183.117.237 (Fri, 12 Apr 2002 09:34:05 CDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 09:34:05 CDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed.news.qwest.net!news.uswest.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:105867 > Number 1 I don't like as there are two spare bytes left over in CPM 1.4 > directory structure (Perhaps gary did this on purpose) ISTR that these bytes were used up by the time of CP/M 2.0, but I frankly don't remember what for. I do recall that one of the things was the existence of the "user number", which was used to distinguish files owned by different users of the computer, although I think it was only a 4-bit number (users numbered 1-15 with user#0 used to indicate files that were commonly owned (like system files). Also CP/M 1.4 only supported floppy disks of a certain size, and later versions supported other disks, including hard drives. The extra two bytes may have been spent on something related to hard drive support. I have some documentation at home for CP/M 2.x, and I'll try to find the references. > Number 2 I like much better and perhaps he felt that he'd like some spare in > the directory structure (Possibly he was thinking of time and date stamping > later on?) As I said above, I recall the other bytes getting used later. Timestamps were not part of it, though. I don't remember seeing timestamps until MS-DOS 1.1 (1.0 didn't even have them, although they were planned.) > I suppose the best question would be to ask what Intel development systems > had? CP/M *was* the Intel development system, as far as I can remember. At least it was proposed to them for that purpose by Digital Research, who developed the PL/M language for them. As I remember it, Intel didn't view their microprocessor chips as being suitable for general-purpose computing, but only as embedded controllers (you know... traffic lights, microwave ovens, etc). Therefore, they didn't really envision a native "development environment" They used cross-assemblers and PL/M cross-compilers for code development. It was the hobbyists who finally convinced them that an 8080 could really serve as the CPU for a "personal computer". Until then, they rejected the idea of CP/M, or any operating system at all --- so therefore Intel didn't have any independent idea of a file system for microcomputers. It was a classic example of a "paradigm shift". The people who made microprocessors really didn't envision the personal computer. They set their sights much lower. It was the hobbyists who created the revolution, not the semiconductor companies. The chip-makers didn't realize the implications of what they had created. The idea of an affordable computer for the home was just too far-out for them to contemplate, so they rejected any idea that suggested that possibility until they were forced to deal with it. ###### From: "Peter Ibbotson" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Origin of the 8.3 Filename Convention Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 15:51:06 +0100 Message-ID: <1018623066.24342.0.nnrp-08.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> References: <3cb1a341.65680@news.ocis.net> <1018284458.7287.0.nnrp-08.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> <1018600901.11906.0.nnrp-12.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> Reply-To: "Peter Ibbotson" NNTP-Posting-Host: mailgate.lakeview.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: mailgate.lakeview.co.uk:62.49.243.90 X-Trace: news.demon.co.uk 1018623066 nnrp-08:24342 NO-IDENT mailgate.lakeview.co.uk:62.49.243.90 X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2600.0000 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2600.0000 Lines: 48 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!fr.clara.net!heighliner.fr.clara.net!diablo.netcom.net.uk!netcom.net.uk!194.159.246.34.MISMATCH!kibo.news.demon.net!news.demon.co.uk!demon!mailgate.lakeview.co.uk!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:105921 "Russell P. Holsclaw" wrote in message news:xfCt8.400$rB5.25965@news.uswest.net... > > Number 2 I like much better and perhaps he felt that he'd like some spare > in > > the directory structure (Possibly he was thinking of time and date > stamping > > later on?) > > As I said above, I recall the other bytes getting used later. Timestamps > were not part of it, though. I don't remember seeing timestamps until MS-DOS > 1.1 (1.0 didn't even have them, although they were planned.) There were a few schemes that did and I think CPM3.0 had at least one. One of the other bytes was used for making files bigger than 512K on CPM2.2 More info at http://www.seasip.demon.co.uk/Cpm/formats.html > > > I suppose the best question would be to ask what Intel development systems > > had? > > CP/M *was* the Intel development system, as far as I can remember. At least > it was proposed to them for that purpose by Digital Research, who developed > the PL/M language for them. As I remember it, Intel didn't view their > microprocessor chips as being suitable for general-purpose computing, but > only as embedded controllers (you know... traffic lights, microwave ovens, > etc). Therefore, they didn't really envision a native "development > environment" They used cross-assemblers and PL/M cross-compilers for code > development. It was the hobbyists who finally convinced them that an 8080 I meant the "cross compiler" Intel used before CPM got started, if that system had 8 character files names then it would be natural to give 8 character files on the newer development system. -- Work peteri@lakeview.co.uk.plugh.org | remove magic word .org to reply Home peter@ibbotson.co.uk.plugh.org | I own the domain but theres no MX ###### Message-ID: <3CB6FE79.2D7EB32A@earthlink.net> From: jchausler X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.72 [en] (Win95; I) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Origin of the 8.3 Filename Convention References: <3cb1a341.65680@news.ocis.net> <1018284458.7287.0.nnrp-08.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> <1018600901.11906.0.nnrp-12.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 77 Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 15:35:33 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 168.191.123.171 X-Complaints-To: abuse@earthlink.net X-Trace: newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net 1018625733 168.191.123.171 (Fri, 12 Apr 2002 08:35:33 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 08:35:33 PDT Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-out.spamkiller.net!propagator2-maxim!propagator-maxim!news-in.spamkiller.net!newsfeed2.earthlink.net!newsfeed.earthlink.net!stamper.news.pas.earthlink.net!newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:105829 "Russell P. Holsclaw" wrote: > CP/M *was* the Intel development system, as far as I can remember. At least > it was proposed to them for that purpose by Digital Research, who developed > the PL/M language for them. As I remember it, Intel didn't view their > microprocessor chips as being suitable for general-purpose computing, but > only as embedded controllers (you know... traffic lights, microwave ovens, > etc). Therefore, they didn't really envision a native "development > environment" They used cross-assemblers and PL/M cross-compilers for code > development. It was the hobbyists who finally convinced them that an 8080 > could really serve as the CPU for a "personal computer". Until then, they > rejected the idea of CP/M, or any operating system at all --- so therefore > Intel didn't have any independent idea of a file system for microcomputers. This thinking wasn't limited to Intel. I was an early Motorola 6800 "hacker" and Moto's thinking was the same. (I actually didn't think of the 8080 as a computer, at least not enough of one to want to use it. Only when the 6800 came along with its PDP-11 style operation did I "byte" ;-) I think Moto eventually developed their own OS for their development system but the hobby user already had a choice of several OS's to work with by that time. I don't think Moto ever adopted any of them although they did make a foray into the hobby SS-50 bus with a SS-50 bus dynamic memory card. I eventually went with FLEX for both the 6800 and 6809. I did once buy CP/M 2.2 in 81 for an Intel MDS development system but then never used it as at the customer site there was an IMSAI already available with CP/M on it to use as a development system (developing code for a Moto 6801 target :-) I still have the virgin CP/M distribution diskette and docs. The whole development was over in two months and I was back in mini land so I never had a use for it. > It was a classic example of a "paradigm shift". The people who made > microprocessors really didn't envision the personal computer. They set their > sights much lower. It was the hobbyists who created the revolution, not the > semiconductor companies. The chip-makers didn't realize the implications of > what they had created. The idea of an affordable computer for the home was > just too far-out for them to contemplate, so they rejected any idea that > suggested that possibility until they were forced to deal with it. This was true out in industry too. I worked primarily in a software development group using mini's at that time. An entirely different group, with little communications between us, was doing micro work. Our background was software, theirs was hardware design. At that time typical hardware designer's did not think much about or of software. All you have to do is read some of the vendor docs to see this. The feeling was that a mini was a "computer" and a micro was just a "part", that there was no real commonality between the two worlds. This, of course, had previously occurred between the mainframe and mini worlds as well. Now all the same mistakes were being made a third time with micros. Anyway, a sort of turf war developed. At this time, early 77, I acquired my first micros, a Moto D2 kit shortly followed by a D1 kit. Most of my software colleagues looked at the simple printed circuit cards with their few chips on it and said "not a computer", what are you bothering with it for? I was always impressed that my mentor at the time, who had no hardware experience or interest looked at the instruction card and said, "Its a computer, what's the big deal?" The D1 required an external terminal, an ASR 33 tty to be specific. The micro folks across the hall had a number of them and so I went over there one day and got permission to use them and their lab after hours to "play" with my D1. My management got pissed at me and theirs at them. This didn't change the arrangement but was "funny" none the less. My management's complaint was that because "they" had allowed me in their world, now "we" would have to allow them into ours and it was all my fault. Fortunately the man I had made the arrangement with was one of their managers and had more sense than that and ignored his colleagues' complaints. Chris AN GETTO$;DUMP;RUN,ALGOL,TAPE $$ ###### From: d_lau@my-deja.com (Dee) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Origin of the 8.3 Filename Convention Date: 12 Apr 2002 16:26:54 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Lines: 28 Message-ID: References: <3cb1a341.65680@news.ocis.net> <1018284458.7287.0.nnrp-08.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> <1018600901.11906.0.nnrp-12.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: 143.183.152.17 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 1018654014 6930 127.0.0.1 (12 Apr 2002 23:26:54 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 12 Apr 2002 23:26:54 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news-fra1.dfn.de!news-han1.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!postnews1.google.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:105966 "Russell P. Holsclaw" wrote in message news:... > > I suppose the best question would be to ask what Intel development systems > > had? > > CP/M *was* the Intel development system, as far as I can remember. At least > it was proposed to them for that purpose by Digital Research, who developed > the PL/M language for them. Wrong. Gary Kildall was contracted to develop the PL/M language and (cross) compiler for Intel. He then proposed to develop CP/M for Intel, who rejected the proposal because they already have their own OS project underway (called ISIS originally, later called ISIS-II). Gary Kildall then started Digital Research for the purpose of marketing CP/M (notice this is all AFTER his Intel contracts). CP/M was developed on the same Intel Microprocessor Development System (MDS, which was a marketing term only for Intel, not to be confused with Mohawk Data Systems, who has the term MDS trademarked) that Intel used to run their own ISIS-II on. The MDS was given by Intel for Kildall to do compiler development/test. And for you real historians, the origin of the BIOS is the Intel MDS, which has a small monitor in ROM at high memory. The original PL/M was developed on a PDP-10 system by Kildall. As for the Intel ISIS-II system, it has file names of the form :XX:YYYYYY.ZZZ, where XX is a 2-character device name (:CI: for console in, :CO: for console out, :Fn: for the floppy or hard drive, :LP: for line printer, etc.), followed by a 6-character file name with a 3-character extension. ###### From: ab528@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Heinz W. Wiggeshoff) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Origin of the 8.3 Filename Convention Date: 13 Apr 2002 03:25:56 GMT Organization: The National Capital FreeNet Lines: 13 Message-ID: References: <3cb1a341.65680@news.ocis.net> <1018284458.7287.0.nnrp-08.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> <1018600901.11906.0.nnrp-12.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> Reply-To: ab528@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Heinz W. Wiggeshoff) NNTP-Posting-Host: freenet10 X-Trace: freenet9.carleton.ca 1018668356 20289 134.117.136.30 (13 Apr 2002 03:25:56 GMT) X-Complaints-To: complaints@ncf.ca NNTP-Posting-Date: 13 Apr 2002 03:25:56 GMT X-Given-Sender: ab528@freenet10.carleton.ca (Heinz W. Wiggeshoff) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.cwix.com!nntp1.roc.gblx.net!nntp.gblx.net!nntp.gblx.net!xcski.com!freenet-news!FreeNet.Carleton.CA!ab528 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:105957 Dee (d_lau@my-deja.com) writes: > ... > The original PL/M was developed on a PDP-10 system by Kildall. As for ... That's interesting. I used PL/M at a defunct John Kelly outfit called NABU on a Z80 CP/M system, back in Sept. 82. (Some people in Ottawa may recall the names.) I will swear on a stack of Bible/Torah/Koran/ McKeeman-Wortman-Hornings that PL/M is directly derived from XPL, the latter's simple PL student language for compiler writing. That it ever crossed over to PDP is amazing, given it's heavy IBM 360 heritage. ###### Sender: eric@ruckus.brouhaha.com From: Eric Smith Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Origin of the 8.3 Filename Convention References: <3cb1a341.65680@news.ocis.net> <1018284458.7287.0.nnrp-08.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> <1018600901.11906.0.nnrp-12.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs X-Eric-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy. Date: 13 Apr 2002 00:41:52 -0700 Message-ID: Lines: 9 User-Agent: Gnus/5.0807 (Gnus v5.8.7) Emacs/20.7 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii NNTP-Posting-Host: ruckus.brouhaha.com X-Trace: 13 Apr 2002 00:50:29 -0700, ruckus.brouhaha.com Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news.kjsl.com!news.spies.com!ruckus.brouhaha.com Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:105964 "Russell P. Holsclaw" writes: > CP/M *was* the Intel development system, as far as I can remember. Nope. Intel shipped the systems with ISIS-II. I presume that before ISIS-II there was an ISIS-I or an ISIS with no suffix, but I've never seen that. ISIS-II is a lot different than CP/M, but it does use 8+3 filenames IIRC. ###### From: Dave Daniels Subject: Re: Origin of the 8.3 Filename Convention Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Date: Sun, 14 Apr 2002 10:53:08 +0100 Message-ID: <4b26fd41e3dave_daniels@argonet.co.uk> References: <3cb1a341.65680@news.ocis.net> <1018284458.7287.0.nnrp-08.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> <1018600901.11906.0.nnrp-12.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> User-Agent: Pluto/2.02e (RISC-OS/4.27) Organization: None Lines: 37 NNTP-Posting-Host: userca91.uk.uudial.com X-Trace: 1018780499 news.dial.pipex.com 230 62.188.150.159 X-Complaints-To: abuse@uk.uu.net Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!uni-erlangen.de!news-nue1.dfn.de!news-lei1.dfn.de!newsfeed.freenet.de!amsnews01.chello.com!news-hub.cableinet.net!blueyonder!btnet-peer!btnet!lnewspeer01.lnd.ops.eu.uu.net!lnewsifeed03.lnd.ops.eu.uu.net!lnewspost00.lnd.ops.eu.uu.net!emea.uu.net!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:106040 In article , Heinz W. Wiggeshoff wrote: > That's interesting. I used PL/M at a defunct John Kelly outfit called > NABU on a Z80 CP/M system, back in Sept. 82. (Some people in Ottawa > may recall the names.) I will swear on a stack of Bible/Torah/Koran/ > McKeeman-Wortman-Hornings that PL/M is directly derived from XPL, the > latter's simple PL student language for compiler writing. > That it ever crossed over to PDP is amazing, given it's heavy IBM 360 > heritage. I heard of PL/M a few years ago. When the source code of CP/M became available I took the opportunity to have a closer look at the language as much of CP/M and MP/M are written in it. I was impressed by it and thought it was quite a neat little systems programming language. I would say that it is of a lower level than C but has a cleaner syntax. The way it handled things like data structures (declare a variable with the given structure, not a type) was interesting. The 'literally' facility struck me as being like C macros with most of the opportunities for evilness removed. Variables, both global and local, were limited to more-or-less the equivalent of 'static' variables in C. No recursion - Eek! OTOH, CP/M consists of yards and yards of source code, and not a bicapitalised variable name in sight. Lovely. You can get a compiler for PL/M that runs on a PC, so you can write and compile PL/M programs, but I have not found a way of running them yet. From what I have seen, I think it would still be a useful language today and feel it would be quite rewarding to write programs in it. However, there does not seem to be that much information on it around. Also, Digital Research seem to have switched to C for later versions of CP/M, for example, CP/M 68K. It looks to me as if PL/M is regarded as a dead language by the majority today, but that sort of thing have never stopped this newsgroup, has it? Dave Daniels ###### From: jmfbahciv@aol.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Origin of the 8.3 Filename Convention Date: Mon, 15 Apr 02 08:57:46 GMT Organization: UltraNet Communications, Inc. Lines: 49 Message-ID: References: <3cb1a341.65680@news.ocis.net> <1018284458.7287.0.nnrp-08.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> <3CB35C05.F5F9316F@sun.com> <3CB47A4B.C2BBE54F@ev1.net> <3cb47297$1_1@news.iglou.com> X-Trace: UmFuZG9tSVb56M98abWZmjWajlPxUpIEf4Evu5XEtCSOwSu5QG52/to/a+9IN1LU X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 15 Apr 2002 12:21:57 GMT X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #4 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-out.spamkiller.net!propagator2-maxim!propagator-maxim!news-in.spamkiller.net!sfo2-feed1.news.algx.net!dca6-feed2.news.algx.net!allegiance!feed2.news.rcn.net!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!207-172-102-4 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:106088 In article <3cb47297$1_1@news.iglou.com>, "Douglas H. Quebbeman" wrote: >"Charles Richmond" wrote in message news:3CB47A4B.C2BBE54F@ev1.net... >> Eric Sosman wrote: >> > >> > Jim Haynes wrote: >> > > >> > > In article , >> > > Alan J. Wylie wrote: >> > > > >> > > >Not ASCII. >> > > > >> > > OK, I shoulda said what I meant, a subset of ASCII consisting of A-Z, >> > > 0-9, and a few other things. >> > >> > No; that's a subset of EBCDIC. Or of the MIX 1009 characters. >> > >> > (In other words: ASCII is not just a set of glyphs and control >> > functions, but a particular encoding for them. RAD50 encodes some >> > of the same glyphs found in ASCII and EBCDIC and other codes, but >> > since the encoding is completely different, RAD50 is neither of >> > those codes, nor is it a subset of those codes.) >> > >> So why did CDC *not* adopt RAD50 as their 6-bit character set, >> instead of developing their own??? > >Mark Crispin has stated he thought that Radix-50 was in use on the >PDP-1, which would date it back to what, '61? He says he's sure it >was in use on the PDP-6 during the pre-timesharing days. MACRO-10 used it for the hash tables. (Don't ask me what that means, it's just something I heard over the wall.) We did not use if for the filenames that were stored on the disk in the RIBs. /BAH > >HOWEVER, the design of the CDC 6000 series computers began in 1959, >and if RAD50 was in use by that time, it wasn't likely being used >widely. And they appear to have not wanted to continue using BCD... > >Regards, >-doug q > Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail. ###### From: jmfbahciv@aol.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Origin of the 8.3 Filename Convention Date: Mon, 15 Apr 02 09:08:21 GMT Organization: UltraNet Communications, Inc. Lines: 30 Message-ID: References: <3cb1a341.65680@news.ocis.net> <1018284458.7287.0.nnrp-08.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> <1018600901.11906.0.nnrp-12.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> X-Trace: UmFuZG9tSVZiWRFEtYymPu0VF0qbYSPgv+lohfmuNRmrbRUD1N1WvQApULfWktcE X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 15 Apr 2002 12:32:32 GMT X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #4 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-out.spamkiller.net!propagator2-maxim!propagator-maxim!news-in.spamkiller.net!sfo2-feed1.news.algx.net!dca6-feed2.news.algx.net!allegiance!feed2.news.rcn.net!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!207-172-102-4 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:106083 In article , ab528@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Heinz W. Wiggeshoff) wrote: >Dee (d_lau@my-deja.com) writes: >> >.... >> The original PL/M was developed on a PDP-10 system by Kildall. As for >.... > That's interesting. I used PL/M at a defunct John Kelly outfit called > NABU on a Z80 CP/M system, back in Sept. 82. (Some people in Ottawa > may recall the names.) I will swear on a stack of Bible/Torah/Koran/ > McKeeman-Wortman-Hornings that PL/M is directly derived from XPL, the > latter's simple PL student language for compiler writing. > > That it ever crossed over to PDP is amazing, given it's heavy IBM 360 > heritage. Why is it amazing? Look. A university would go from IBM to DEC PDP-10. Now all those kiddies who had waited in line for their batch jobs could pound the terminal to their hearts' (or at least RUNMAX) content. Directors of those computer centers, who grew up with IBM, wanted to feel warm and loved. So they "assigned" their work study kiddies, (or homework), to develop whatever the directors liked about the IBM. Why do think those PDP-10s were bought? You could do just about anything with a -10...including getting screwed. /BAH Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail. ###### Message-ID: From: Jonathan Griffitts Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Origin of the 8.3 Filename Convention References: <3cb1a341.65680@news.ocis.net> <1018284458.7287.0.nnrp-08.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> <1018600901.11906.0.nnrp-12.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> Lines: 44 Organization: AnyWare Engineering MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain;charset=us-ascii User-Agent: Turnpike/6.01-M () Date: Sun, 14 Apr 2002 23:45:43 -0600 NNTP-Posting-Host: 205.238.99.68 X-Complaints-To: news@iccx.net X-Trace: news.incc.net 1018849552 205.238.99.68 (Sun, 14 Apr 2002 23:45:52 MDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 14 Apr 2002 23:45:52 MDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news-fra1.dfn.de!news-lei1.dfn.de!newsfeed.freenet.de!news2.euro.net!uunet!ash.uu.net!news.incc.net!spamcop.net!jgriffitts Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:106076 In article , Eric Smith writes >"Russell P. Holsclaw" writes: >> CP/M *was* the Intel development system, as far as I can remember. > >Nope. Intel shipped the systems with ISIS-II. I presume that before >ISIS-II there was an ISIS-I or an ISIS with no suffix, but I've never >seen that. > >ISIS-II is a lot different than CP/M, but it does use 8+3 filenames IIRC. I remember ISIS-II fondly. It was nicer than CP/M in a lot of ways. The filesystem was much better -- CP/M filesizes were multiples of 128 bytes where ISIS allowed arbitrary filesizes. Also, CP/M did all disk I/O operations in 128-byte sectors, ISIS let you stream arbitrary numbers of bytes. The major downside to ISIS-II was that its floppy handling was horribly inefficient, spending all its time seeking back and forth across the disk. I believe it was doing this to update a freespace bitmap on track 0, after every write operation. It took an outrageous amount of time to do a compilation. It worked much better if you had one of the CDC Hawk hard drives. Those would rock back and forth, but the seek time was quick enough to take the pain out of it. IMHO CP/M was seriously lame. Sometimes I see MS-DOS being compared unfavorably with CP/M, and I wonder if those writers ever actually used CP/M. I once wrote an ISIS emulator to run under CP/M. 8080 assembly language, of course. Now that was a fun hack! It worked -- I got the Intel PLM/80 compiler running under it on an Altair 8800 (which was itself modified with homebrew memory and I/O). It was interesting, because the low-memory structures of CP/M dovetailed nicely with the ISIS-II low-memory map without interference. I always suspected that this was not an accident, that CP/M might have been developed under ISIS or that they had to coexist at some point. I still have that ISIS emulator on 8" CP/M floppies, stored in the garage. Wonder if they're still readable. -- Jonathan Griffitts AnyWare Engineering Boulder, CO, USA voice/fax: 303 442-0556 email jgriffitts@spamcop.net ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers From: hoh@invalid.invalid (Goran Larsson) Subject: Re: Origin of the 8.3 Filename Convention Message-ID: Organization: [1] + 5934 done /bin/rm -rf ~/ & X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test73 (May 24, 2000) References: <3cb1a341.65680@news.ocis.net> Lines: 19 NNTP-Posting-Host: 212.151.134.222 X-Complaints-To: news-abuse@swip.net X-Trace: nntpserver.swip.net 1018870262 212.151.134.222 (Mon, 15 Apr 2002 13:31:02 MET DST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2002 13:31:02 MET DST X-Sender: q-11932@d212-151-134-222.swipnet.se Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2002 11:20:31 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-out.spamkiller.net!propagator2-maxim!propagator-maxim!news-in.spamkiller.net!sfo2-feed1.news.algx.net!jfk3-feed1.news.algx.net!allegiance!newsfeed1.swip.net!swipnet!nntpserver.swip.net!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:106126 In article , Jonathan Griffitts wrote: > IMHO CP/M was seriously lame. Sometimes I see MS-DOS being compared > unfavorably with CP/M, and I wonder if those writers ever actually used > CP/M. I have compared CP/M and MS-DOS in the past. If you compare MS-DOS and CP/M from the same era before CP/M development stopped then you will find that CP/M version 3 was way ahead of MS-DOS in 1982. Comparing CP/M 2.2 to MS-DOS 5 is not fair. Did you ever use CP/M version 3 on a system with more than 64KB of memory? It was a quite nice system with password protection on files, timestamp on files, automatic loading of system extensions (a form of early DLL-files), I/O redirection in the CCP, etc. -- Göran Larsson http://www.mitt-eget.com ###### From: Klemens Krause Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Origin of the 8.3 Filename Convention Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2002 13:33:29 +0200 Organization: Universitaet Stuttgart Lines: 68 Message-ID: <3CBABA89.B2B8A1B8@informatik.uni-stuttgart.de> References: <3cb1a341.65680@news.ocis.net> <1018284458.7287.0.nnrp-08.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> <1018600901.11906.0.nnrp-12.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> Reply-To: klemens.krause@informatik.uni-stuttgart.de NNTP-Posting-Host: defoe.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: inf2.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de 1018870335 13273 129.69.217.108 (15 Apr 2002 11:32:15 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@news.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de NNTP-Posting-Date: 15 Apr 2002 11:32:15 GMT X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.78 [de] (X11; U; Linux 2.4.10-4GB i686) X-Accept-Language: en Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!news-lei1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news.rwth-aachen.de!news.uni-stuttgart.de!news.belwue.de!news.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:106124 I have a running ISIS-II system. It's a Siemens SME-800, but in reality this is a relabeled Intel MDS-800 system. ISIS means: Intel Systems Implementation Supervisor. The ISIS-I-System had only 16K of memory and came without relocation or linking facility. It had only an absolute assembler. (ref.: Intel Microcomputer Systems Data Book 1976) And Intel means: INTegrated ELectronics On the ISIS-II filenames are 6+3. Extensions may be used, but have no meaning: My system utilities have names like: CREDIT GANEF KERMIT PLM48 Extensions were used for source files: TEST.ASM KERMIT.PLM and so on. The first version of CP/M was developped on such an Intel MDS-800 system. It was written in PL/M. The first version of PL/M was written in FORTRAN and ran on DECs PDP-10. In FORTRAN a maximal length of identifiers of 6 characters was not unusual. Also on the small DEC-machines (PDP/8 under OS/8) filenames were of the 6+2 format: 6 charcters of 6 Bit fitted in three 12-Bit words, and an additional word of 12 Bit contained the extension. (Memory was cotly at that time). Klemens Jonathan Griffitts schrieb: > > In article , Eric Smith > writes > >"Russell P. Holsclaw" writes: > >> CP/M *was* the Intel development system, as far as I can remember. > > > >Nope. Intel shipped the systems with ISIS-II. I presume that before > >ISIS-II there was an ISIS-I or an ISIS with no suffix, but I've never > >seen that. > > > >ISIS-II is a lot different than CP/M, but it does use 8+3 filenames IIRC. > > I remember ISIS-II fondly. It was nicer than CP/M in a lot of ways. The > filesystem was much better -- CP/M filesizes were multiples of 128 bytes > where ISIS allowed arbitrary filesizes. Also, CP/M did all disk I/O > operations in 128-byte sectors, ISIS let you stream arbitrary numbers of > bytes. > email jgriffitts@spamcop.net -- ---------------------------------------------- Klemens Krause Universitaet Stuttgart / Inst. f. Informatik Breitwiesenstr. 20-22 / 70565 Stuttgart Tel.: 0711/7816 341 ###### From: d_lau@my-deja.com (Dee) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Origin of the 8.3 Filename Convention Date: 15 Apr 2002 09:08:15 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Lines: 23 Message-ID: References: <3cb1a341.65680@news.ocis.net> <1018284458.7287.0.nnrp-08.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> <1018600901.11906.0.nnrp-12.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: 143.183.152.17 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 1018886895 14126 127.0.0.1 (15 Apr 2002 16:08:15 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 15 Apr 2002 16:08:15 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!out.nntp.be!propagator-SanJose!in.nntp.be!easynews!sn-xit-02!supernews.com!postnews1.google.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:106118 ab528@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Heinz W. Wiggeshoff) wrote in message news:... > Dee (d_lau@my-deja.com) writes: > > > ... > > The original PL/M was developed on a PDP-10 system by Kildall. As for > ... > That's interesting. I used PL/M at a defunct John Kelly outfit called > NABU on a Z80 CP/M system, back in Sept. 82. (Some people in Ottawa > may recall the names.) I will swear on a stack of Bible/Torah/Koran/ > McKeeman-Wortman-Hornings that PL/M is directly derived from XPL, the > latter's simple PL student language for compiler writing. > > That it ever crossed over to PDP is amazing, given it's heavy IBM 360 > heritage. There is no connection between PL/M and XPL. PL/M did not "cross over to PDP", it was developed from scratch on the PDP-10 by Kildall. The original compiler was written in FORTRAN, and it was "ported" to most mainframes of the day, including IBM, CDC, etc.. The source to the compiler is a deck of punched cards. When the PL/M-80 compiler was made native on the 8080 based ISIS-II system, it was re-written in PL/M by a company named "Caine Farber and Gordon" in the '70s (they are still in business at www.cfg.com). ###### From: Steve O'Hara-Smith Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Origin of the 8.3 Filename Convention Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2002 19:33:37 +0200 Organization: Wanadoo NL Lines: 18 Message-ID: <20020415193337.745f57ee.steveo@eircom.net> References: <3cb1a341.65680@news.ocis.net> <1018284458.7287.0.nnrp-08.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> <1018600901.11906.0.nnrp-12.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: p3563.vwr.wanadoo.nl Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: scavenger.euro.net 1018894325 67971 212.129.225.243 (15 Apr 2002 18:12:05 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@wanadoo.nl NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2002 18:12:05 +0000 (UTC) X-Newsreader: Sylpheed version 0.7.4 (GTK+ 1.2.10; i386-portbld-freebsd4.5) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!fr.clara.net!heighliner.fr.clara.net!skynet.be!skynet.be!transit.news.xs4all.nl!news2.euro.net!news.euronet.nl!ams-gw.sohara.org!nobody Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:106112 On Sun, 14 Apr 2002 23:45:43 -0600 Jonathan Griffitts wrote: JG> IMHO CP/M was seriously lame. Sometimes I see MS-DOS being compared JG> unfavorably with CP/M, and I wonder if those writers ever actually used JG> CP/M. I have often compared MS-DOS unfavourably with MP/M - I think that is quite justified. Most of my clients at the time went from MP/M to XENIX when they found that the mighty IBM PC couldn't do more than one thing at a time. I used to get very good results out of bank switched CP/M machines with 256K of memory - better than I could get out of XT clones with 640K. -- C:>WIN | Directable Mirrors The computer obeys and wins. |A Better Way To Focus The Sun You lose and Bill collects. | licenses available - see: | http://www.sohara.org/ ###### Message-ID: From: Jonathan Griffitts Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Origin of the 8.3 Filename Convention References: <3cb1a341.65680@news.ocis.net> Lines: 34 Organization: AnyWare Engineering MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain;charset=us-ascii User-Agent: Turnpike/6.01-M () Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2002 15:25:24 -0600 NNTP-Posting-Host: 205.238.99.135 X-Complaints-To: news@iccx.net X-Trace: news.incc.net 1018905977 205.238.99.135 (Mon, 15 Apr 2002 15:26:17 MDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2002 15:26:17 MDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-out.spamkiller.net!propagator2-maxim!propagator-maxim!news-in.spamkiller.net!sfo2-feed1.news.algx.net!dca6-feed1.news.algx.net!allegiance!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.gtei.net!nntp.abs.net!uunet!dca.uu.net!ash.uu.net!news.incc.net!spamcop.net!jgriffitts Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:106127 In article , Goran Larsson writes >In article , >Jonathan Griffitts wrote: > >> IMHO CP/M was seriously lame. Sometimes I see MS-DOS being compared >> unfavorably with CP/M, and I wonder if those writers ever actually used >> CP/M. > >I have compared CP/M and MS-DOS in the past. If you compare MS-DOS >and CP/M from the same era before CP/M development stopped then you >will find that CP/M version 3 was way ahead of MS-DOS in 1982. I'll admit I never saw CP/M 3 anywhere. I would have taken active action to avoid using it, but in fact I don't recall ever having the opportunity. When did CP/M 3 come out? I seem to remember 2.2 still being mainstream in 1983. >Comparing CP/M 2.2 to MS-DOS 5 is not fair. I agree. Was someone doing that? CP/M 2 looks pretty sick compared to MS-DOS 2. I can't remember MS-DOS 1 clearly enough to make that comparison. And my major point (you snipped it) was that CP/M looks really bad in comparison with ISIS-II, which predates it. MS-DOS is lame and irritating in a lot of ways, also. It never came close to taking advantage of the available hardware. But CP/M was not just limited, it was (IMO) seriously misdesigned. -- Jonathan Griffitts AnyWare Engineering Boulder, CO, USA voice/fax: 303 442-0556 email jgriffitts@spamcop.net ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers From: hoh@invalid.invalid (Goran Larsson) Subject: Re: Origin of the 8.3 Filename Convention Message-ID: Organization: [1] + 5934 done /bin/rm -rf ~/ & X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test73 (May 24, 2000) References: <3cb1a341.65680@news.ocis.net> Lines: 32 NNTP-Posting-Host: 212.151.132.234 X-Complaints-To: news-abuse@swip.net X-Trace: nntpserver.swip.net 1018915263 212.151.132.234 (Tue, 16 Apr 2002 02:01:03 MET DST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2002 02:01:03 MET DST X-Sender: q-11932@d212-151-132-234.swipnet.se Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2002 23:50:23 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed1.swip.net!swipnet!nntpserver.swip.net!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:106179 In article , Jonathan Griffitts wrote: > When did CP/M 3 come out? I seem to remember 2.2 still > being mainstream in 1983. I think it was some time in 1982. Due to, for me, unknown reasons most manufacturers continued with CP/M 2.2. The difference between 2.2 and 3 is quite large. Many features, like relocatable files, was inherited from MP/M. > And my major point (you > snipped it) was that CP/M looks really bad in comparison with ISIS-II, > which predates it. What I saw of ISIS-II did not impress me. The Intel MDS system impressed me even less after seeing my software running on it the first time. So much hardware for so little result... > But CP/M was not > just limited, it was (IMO) seriously misdesigned. What was so misdesigned about CP/M? For its time it was one of the few systems that ran on different hardware from many different manufacturers. It ran on systems with very little RAM. It managed to grow from the original limited CP/M 1 to CP/M 3 with memory management, passwords, timestamps, etc without major compatibility problems. Compared with systems of today it was limited and primitive, but I can't agree that it was misdesigned. -- Göran Larsson http://www.mitt-eget.com ###### From: genew@mail.ocis.net (Gene Wirchenko) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Origin of the 8.3 Filename Convention Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2002 15:02:41 GMT Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Message-ID: <3cbb24a1.11600945@news.ocis.net> Reply-To: genew@mail.ocis.net References: <3cb1a341.65680@news.ocis.net> <1018284458.7287.0.nnrp-08.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> <1018600901.11906.0.nnrp-12.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.21/32.243 X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@supernews.com Lines: 28 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-out.spamkiller.net!propagator2-maxim!propagator-maxim!news-in.spamkiller.net!out.nntp.be!propagator-SanJose!in.nntp.be!isdnet!sn-xit-02!sn-post-01!supernews.com!corp.supernews.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:106146 jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote: [snip] >Why is it amazing? Look. A university would go from IBM to DEC >PDP-10. Now all those kiddies who had waited in line for their >batch jobs could pound the terminal to their hearts' (or at least >RUNMAX) content. Directors of those computer centers, who grew >up with IBM, wanted to feel warm and loved. So they "assigned" >their work study kiddies, (or homework), to develop whatever the >directors liked about the IBM. > >Why do think those PDP-10s were bought? You could do just about >anything with a -10...including getting screwed. Flexible hardware! Didn't you say in another thread about JMF derailing rants on the Next Big Thing with "But can it fuck?" Sincerely, Gene Wirchenko Computerese Irregular Verb Conjugation: I have preferences. You have biases. He/She has prejudices. ###### Message-ID: <3CBC954C.87B58AD0@ev1.net> From: Charles Richmond Reply-To: richmond@ev1.net Organization: Cannine Computer Center X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7C-CCK-MCD {C-UDP; EBM-APPLE} (Macintosh; I; PPC) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Origin of the 8.3 Filename Convention References: <3cb1a341.65680@news.ocis.net> <1018284458.7287.0.nnrp-08.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> <1018600901.11906.0.nnrp-12.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 28 NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.237.69.87 X-Complaints-To: abuse@attbi.com X-Trace: sccrnsc02 1018984782 12.237.69.87 (Tue, 16 Apr 2002 19:19:42 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2002 19:19:42 GMT Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2002 19:19:42 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-out.spamkiller.net!propagator2-maxim!propagator-maxim!news-in.spamkiller.net!feed.newsfeeds.com!news-out.cwix.com!newsfeed.cwix.com!wn2feed!wn1feed!worldnet.att.net!204.127.198.204!attbi_feed4!attbi.com!sccrnsc02.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:106186 Dee wrote: > > ab528@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Heinz W. Wiggeshoff) wrote in message news:... > > Dee (d_lau@my-deja.com) writes: > > > > > ... > > > The original PL/M was developed on a PDP-10 system by Kildall. As for > > ... > > That's interesting. I used PL/M at a defunct John Kelly outfit called > > NABU on a Z80 CP/M system, back in Sept. 82. (Some people in Ottawa > > may recall the names.) I will swear on a stack of Bible/Torah/Koran/ > > McKeeman-Wortman-Hornings that PL/M is directly derived from XPL, the > > latter's simple PL student language for compiler writing. > > > > That it ever crossed over to PDP is amazing, given it's heavy IBM 360 > > heritage. > > There is no connection between PL/M and XPL. > [snip...] [snip...] [snip...] > IMHO there *is* a connection between PL/M and XPL. The connection is that *both* were developed by people who were using PL/I as a model. So, PL/I *is* the connection... -- +-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Charles and Francis Richmond | +-------------------------------------------------------------+ ###### From: jmfbahciv@aol.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Origin of the 8.3 Filename Convention Date: Wed, 17 Apr 02 08:27:04 GMT Organization: UltraNet Communications, Inc. Lines: 34 Message-ID: References: <3cb1a341.65680@news.ocis.net> <1018284458.7287.0.nnrp-08.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> <1018600901.11906.0.nnrp-12.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> <3cbb24a1.11600945@news.ocis.net> X-Trace: UmFuZG9tSVZxr83OYNAlvZOe1yzfj94tP3S2A67EwtZD42MX9GjdZXcSdGYXbGk2 X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 17 Apr 2002 11:51:33 GMT X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #4 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed2.news.rcn.net!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!209-122-236-74 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:106233 In article <3cbb24a1.11600945@news.ocis.net>, genew@mail.ocis.net (Gene Wirchenko) wrote: >jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote: > >[snip] > >>Why is it amazing? Look. A university would go from IBM to DEC >>PDP-10. Now all those kiddies who had waited in line for their >>batch jobs could pound the terminal to their hearts' (or at least >>RUNMAX) content. Directors of those computer centers, who grew >>up with IBM, wanted to feel warm and loved. So they "assigned" >>their work study kiddies, (or homework), to develop whatever the >>directors liked about the IBM. >> >>Why do think those PDP-10s were bought? You could do just about >>anything with a -10...including getting screwed. > > Flexible hardware! And usually when you weren't looking. > > Didn't you say in another thread about JMF derailing rants on the >Next Big Thing with "But can it fuck?" Not JMF. That one was TW's line (Tony Wachs). In TW's opinion, if any idea coming from the first floor was so great, it had better include some sex. TW had many lines that became famous in the -10 world. /BAH Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail. ###### Reply-To: "Douglas H. Quebbeman" From: "Douglas H. Quebbeman" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers References: <3cb1a341.65680@news.ocis.net> Subject: Re: Origin of the 8.3 Filename Convention Date: Wed, 17 Apr 2002 11:36:08 -0400 Lines: 21 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4807.1700 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4910.0300 NNTP-Posting-Host: 204.250.0.238 X-Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: 204.250.0.238 Message-ID: <3cbd966c_2@news.iglou.com> X-Trace: news.iglou.com 1019057772 204.250.0.238 (17 Apr 2002 11:36:12 -0400) X-Authenticated-User: dougq X-Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: 204.250.0.238 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!nntp.abs.net!uunet!dca.uu.net!ash.uu.net!news.iglou.com Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:106214 "Goran Larsson" wrote in message = news:GuMvJz.K53@approve.se... > In article , > Jonathan Griffitts wrote: >=20 > > When did CP/M 3 come out? I seem to remember 2.2 still > > being mainstream in 1983. >=20 > I think it was some time in 1982. Due to, for me, unknown reasons > most manufacturers continued with CP/M 2.2. The difference between > 2.2 and 3 is quite large. Many features, like relocatable files, > was inherited from MP/M. The Resident System Extension (RSX) mechanism came with CP/M 3, or CP/M+ as it was more widely known. I back-ported the mechanism and a a few RSXs to CP/M 2.2, may still have that stuff somewhere. CP/M+ shipped as the OS for the Z-80 CPU in the Commodore 128, IIRC. -dq ###### From: stanb@dial.pipex.com (Stan Barr) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Origin of the 8.3 Filename Convention References: <3cb1a341.65680@news.ocis.net> <3cbd966c_2@news.iglou.com> Organization: Metropolis Grafix Reply-To: stanb@dial.pipex.com Message-ID: X-Newsreader: slrn (0.9.4.3 UNIX) Date: 17 Apr 2002 18:22:20 GMT Lines: 31 NNTP-Posting-Host: 62-190-200-17.pdu.pipex.net X-Trace: 1019067740 news.dial.pipex.com 238 62.190.200.17 X-Complaints-To: abuse@uk.uu.net Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!fr.clara.net!heighliner.fr.clara.net!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!transit.news.xs4all.nl!195.129.110.18.MISMATCH!bnewspeer00.bru.ops.eu.uu.net!bnewsifeed02.bru.ops.eu.uu.net!lnewspost00.lnd.ops.eu.uu.net!emea.uu.net!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:106218 On Wed, 17 Apr 2002 11:36:08 -0400, Douglas H. Quebbeman wrote: >"Goran Larsson" wrote in message = >news:GuMvJz.K53@approve.se... >> In article , >> Jonathan Griffitts wrote: >>=20 >> > When did CP/M 3 come out? I seem to remember 2.2 still >> > being mainstream in 1983. >>=20 >> I think it was some time in 1982. Due to, for me, unknown reasons >> most manufacturers continued with CP/M 2.2. The difference between >> 2.2 and 3 is quite large. Many features, like relocatable files, >> was inherited from MP/M. > >The Resident System Extension (RSX) mechanism came with CP/M 3, >or CP/M+ as it was more widely known. I back-ported the mechanism >and a a few RSXs to CP/M 2.2, may still have that stuff somewhere. > >CP/M+ shipped as the OS for the Z-80 CPU in the Commodore 128, IIRC. I had CP/M+ for my Einstein and my brother ran it on an Amstrad 464 so it must have been fairly common. There was also ZCPR3... -- Cheers, Stan Barr stanb@dial.pipex.com The future was never like this! ###### From: Will Salt Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Origin of the 8.3 Filename Convention Date: 18 Apr 2002 09:32:16 +0100 Organization: Pretty disorganised Lines: 22 Sender: caitlin@candle.btinternet.com Message-ID: References: <3cb1a341.65680@news.ocis.net> <3cbd966c_2@news.iglou.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: host213-122-104-220.in-addr.btopenworld.com (213.122.104.220) X-Trace: fu-berlin.de 1019122429 4495782 213.122.104.220 (16 [110004]) X-Orig-Path: candle.btinternet.com!nobody X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.5/XEmacs 20.4 - "Emerald" Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!host213-122-104-220.in-addr.btopenworld.COM!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:106316 stanb@dial.pipex.com (Stan Barr) writes: > On Wed, 17 Apr 2002 11:36:08 -0400, Douglas H. Quebbeman > wrote: > >CP/M+ shipped as the OS for the Z-80 CPU in the Commodore 128, IIRC. > > I had CP/M+ for my Einstein and my brother ran it on an Amstrad 464 > so it must have been fairly common. It was the Amstrad CPC6128 that came with CP/M+. You got CP/M 2.2 (IIRC) if you bought a CPC664, or the disk drive upgrade to the CPC464. The 6128 was supplied with both, for compatibility. It was possible to upgrade a 464 so it was essentially a 6128, though; I remember a magazine project which involved getting the extra memory and a 6128 firmware rom, and wiring them up in a wee box which connected to the expansion port and had a switch to select which computer you wanted to run. -- Will Salt ###### From: "Simon Bowring" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Origin of the 8.3 Filename Convention Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 17:43:39 +0100 (BST) Organization: MPC Data Limited Distribution: World Message-ID: References: <3cb1a341.65680@news.ocis.net> <1018284458.7287.0.nnrp-08.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> <1018600901.11906.0.nnrp-12.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> Reply-To: "Simon Bowring" NNTP-Posting-Host: bath.mpc-data.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: mpc-data.demon.co.uk:158.152.55.245 X-Trace: news.demon.co.uk 1019150405 nnrp-08:10345 NO-IDENT mpc-data.demon.co.uk:158.152.55.245 X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Newsreader: PMINews 2.00.1205 For OS/2 Lines: 14 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!fr.clara.net!heighliner.fr.clara.net!diablo.netcom.net.uk!netcom.net.uk!194.159.246.34.MISMATCH!kibo.news.demon.net!news.demon.co.uk!demon!mpc-data.demon.co.uk!burton.mpc-data.co.uk!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:106289 On Fri, 12 Apr 2002 08:33:32 -0600, Russell P. Holsclaw wrote: >As I said above, I recall the other bytes getting used later. Timestamps >were not part of it, though. I don't remember seeing timestamps until MS-DOS >1.1 (1.0 didn't even have them, although they were planned.) I'm certain CP/M 3.x (CP/M+) had filestamps (but in many ways CP/M 3.x was better than MS/PC DOS 1.x, which was a giant leap backwards) I have the sources somewhere.....! Simon ###### From: "Simon Bowring" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Origin of the 8.3 Filename Convention Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 18:31:30 +0100 (BST) Organization: MPC Data Limited Distribution: World Message-ID: References: <3cb1a341.65680@news.ocis.net> <1018284458.7287.0.nnrp-08.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> <1018600901.11906.0.nnrp-12.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> Reply-To: "Simon Bowring" NNTP-Posting-Host: bath.mpc-data.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: mpc-data.demon.co.uk:158.152.55.245 X-Trace: news.demon.co.uk 1019154018 nnrp-01:18766 NO-IDENT mpc-data.demon.co.uk:158.152.55.245 X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Newsreader: PMINews 2.00.1205 For OS/2 Lines: 46 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!fr.clara.net!heighliner.fr.clara.net!diablo.netcom.net.uk!netcom.net.uk!194.159.246.34.MISMATCH!kibo.news.demon.net!news.demon.co.uk!demon!mpc-data.demon.co.uk!burton.mpc-data.co.uk!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:106328 On Sun, 14 Apr 2002 23:45:43 -0600, Jonathan Griffitts wrote: >IMHO CP/M was seriously lame. Sometimes I see MS-DOS being compared >unfavorably with CP/M, and I wonder if those writers ever actually used >CP/M. Oooooh, bait me! I don't agree or understand how you came to that conclusion! MS-DOS 1.0 was really QDOS which was a quick and dirty "clone" of CP/M 2.2-ish, so at best MS-DOS 1.0 was approximately equivalent to CP/M 2.2 (can't think of anything they "improved" off-hand?). However by the time IBM PCs running PC-DOS 1.1, were on the streets, the superior CP/M 3.0 ("CP/M plus") was out IIRC, shortly followed by 3.1 CP/M 3.x was a big increment on CP/2.2, and certainly still better than MS DOS 1.x, though for *serious* use CP/M 3.x required an HD (a large £600 5Mb one would do ;-) I used to have a ginormous 43Mb HD on my CP/M system, years before DOS could handle a 32Mb unit! 3.0 had a proper RSX system (TSRs done right; have you ever had to program serious TSRs like I have?), supported a larger TPA than 2.2 by allowing bank switching (our Cifer systems had 128(-256)kB fitted with TPAs of up to about 61kB, the rest of RAM being used for disk-cache), CP/M supported the "user area" concept (poor man's directories) before MS-DOS had any dirs, it also had file system time-stamps, and a better architecture (BIOS, CBIOS and BDOS separation stuff), and supported interesting ideas like bothering to have an on-line help system (modelled after DECs). You could do stuff like configure CP/M 3's "search paths" e.g. to run a .SUB (".BAT") file before a .com (.EXE) of the same name, so that you could wrap programs up in a script, and PIP was way better than COPY Also quite a lot of "added value" was often deployed "behind" CP/M e.g.many OEMs allowed booting off arbitrary devices, offered better FD capacity (800kB vs 360kB), interrupt driven async comms etc, although this is admittedly a different argument!! Simon ###### Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!not-for-mail From: Neil Franklin Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Origin of the 8.3 Filename Convention Date: 18 Apr 2002 23:18:02 +0200 Organization: My own Private Self Lines: 24 Message-ID: <6ug01sd7ud.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> References: <3cb1a341.65680@news.ocis.net> <1018284458.7287.0.nnrp-08.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> <1018600901.11906.0.nnrp-12.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: chonsp.franklin.ch X-Trace: chonsp.franklin.ch 1019164682 801 10.0.3.2 (18 Apr 2002 21:18:02 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@chonsp.franklin.ch NNTP-Posting-Date: 18 Apr 2002 21:18:02 GMT X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 20.4 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:106332 "Simon Bowring" writes: > On Sun, 14 Apr 2002 23:45:43 -0600, Jonathan Griffitts wrote: > > >IMHO CP/M was seriously lame. Sometimes I see MS-DOS being compared > >unfavorably with CP/M, and I wonder if those writers ever actually used > >CP/M. > > I don't agree or understand how you came to that conclusion! > > MS-DOS 1.0 was really QDOS which was a quick and dirty "clone" of > CP/M 2.2-ish, so at best MS-DOS 1.0 was approximately equivalent > to CP/M 2.2 (can't think of anything they "improved" off-hand?). I can think of one thing: precise file lengths. Of course that does not change your basic statement that MS-DOS 1.x was inferiour to CM/P 2.2. -- Neil Franklin, neil@franklin.ch.remove http://neil.franklin.ch/ Hacker, Unix Guru, El Eng HTL/BSc, Sysadmin, Archer, Roleplayer - Make your code truely free: put it into the public domain ###### From: "Charlie Gibbs" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Origin of the 8.3 Filename Convention Date: 18 Apr 02 16:23:00 -0800 Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com Lines: 34 Message-ID: <1327.873T30T9833031@sky.bus.com> References: <6ug01sd7ud.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> NNTP-Posting-Host: p-210.newsdawg.com X-Newsreader: THOR 2.5a (Amiga;TCP/IP) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-out.spamkiller.net!propagator2-maxim!propagator-maxim!news-in.spamkiller.net!feed.newsfeeds.com!cyclone-sf.pbi.net!199.106.71.17!pln-w!spln!dex!extra.newsguy.com!newsp.newsguy.com!enews3 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:106351 In article <6ug01sd7ud.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> neil@franklin.ch.remove (Neil Franklin) writes: >"Simon Bowring" writes: > >> MS-DOS 1.0 was really QDOS which was a quick and dirty "clone" of >> CP/M 2.2-ish, so at best MS-DOS 1.0 was approximately equivalent >> to CP/M 2.2 (can't think of anything they "improved" off-hand?). > >I can think of one thing: precise file lengths. ...which made CP/M's EOF character (0x1A) completely unnecessary, but MS-DOS clung to it anyway. This caused all sorts of data loss. Also, as someone else pointed out, CP/M's PIP was superior to MS-DOS's COPY, if for no other reason than that it would copy zero-length files. Speaking of zero-length files, did anyone else use that trick of creating a zero-length .COM file? Nothing would load, but the machine would jump to 0x100. If the last program you ran was serially re-usable, this was a quick way to re-run it. >Of course that does not change your basic statement that MS-DOS 1.x >was inferiour to CM/P 2.2. Or, as they say, CP/M was a great improvement on its successors. -- cgibbs@sky.bus.com (Charlie Gibbs) Remove the first period after the "at" sign to reply. I don't read top-posted messages. If you want me to see your reply, appropriately trim the quoted text and put your reply below it. ###### From: "Daniel P. B. Smith" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Origin of the 8.3 Filename Convention Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 21:55:46 -0400 Lines: 53 Message-ID: References: <3cb1a341.65680@news.ocis.net> <1018284458.7287.0.nnrp-08.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> <3CB35C05.F5F9316F@sun.com> <3CB47A4B.C2BBE54F@ev1.net> <3cb47297$1_1@news.iglou.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: pool-151-203-19-105.bos.east.verizon.net (151.203.19.105) X-Trace: fu-berlin.de 1019181266 4927051 151.203.19.105 (16 [37534]) X-Orig-Path: dpbsmith User-Agent: MT-NewsWatcher/3.1 (PPC) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-out.spamkiller.net!propagator2-maxim!propagator-maxim!news-in.spamkiller.net!router2.news.adelphia.net!router1.news.adelphia.net!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!pool-151-203-19-105.bos.east.verizon.NET!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:106429 In article <3cb47297$1_1@news.iglou.com>, "Douglas H. Quebbeman" wrote: > "Charles Richmond" wrote in message > news:3CB47A4B.C2BBE54F@ev1.net... > > Eric Sosman wrote: > > > > > > Jim Haynes wrote: > > > > > > > > In article , > > > > Alan J. Wylie wrote: > > > > > > > > > >Not ASCII. > > > > > > > > > OK, I shoulda said what I meant, a subset of ASCII consisting of A-Z, > > > > 0-9, and a few other things. > > > > > > No; that's a subset of EBCDIC. Or of the MIX 1009 characters. > > > > > > (In other words: ASCII is not just a set of glyphs and control > > > functions, but a particular encoding for them. RAD50 encodes some > > > of the same glyphs found in ASCII and EBCDIC and other codes, but > > > since the encoding is completely different, RAD50 is neither of > > > those codes, nor is it a subset of those codes.) > > > > > So why did CDC *not* adopt RAD50 as their 6-bit character set, > > instead of developing their own??? > > Mark Crispin has stated he thought that Radix-50 was in use on the > PDP-1, which would date it back to what, '61? He says he's sure it > was in use on the PDP-6 during the pre-timesharing days. Yes, Radix-50 was used on the PDP-1. But maybe not in the way you'd expect. The PDP-1 had an eighteen-bit word and six-bit characters, so the NATURAL packing was three six-bit characters into a word. And you can't cram four letters of the alphabet into an eighteen bit word; 26^4 is greater than 2^18, or to put it another way the fourth root of 2^18 is 22.6... Anyway, I no longer remember the exact application but there WERE PDP-1 applications that used Radix-50 to store three characters in an 18-bit word and made some creative use of the two extra bits. I have an idea that perhaps some assemblers stored their symbol tables that way. Kind of surprising, in retrospect, since the PDP-1 had an 0.2 MHz clock and I believe that integer multiplies and divides took a significant number of clock cycles... -- Daniel P. B. Smith Email address: dpbsmith@world.std.com "Lifetime forwarding" address: dpbsmith@alum.mit.edu ###### Sender: eric@ruckus.brouhaha.com From: Eric Smith Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Origin of the 8.3 Filename Convention References: <3cb1a341.65680@news.ocis.net> <1018284458.7287.0.nnrp-08.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> <1018600901.11906.0.nnrp-12.3e31f35a@news.demon.co.uk> Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs X-Eric-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy. Date: 18 Apr 2002 22:50:27 -0700 Message-ID: Lines: 6 User-Agent: Gnus/5.0807 (Gnus v5.8.7) Emacs/20.7 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii NNTP-Posting-Host: ruckus.brouhaha.com X-Trace: 18 Apr 2002 23:00:09 -0700, ruckus.brouhaha.com Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-out.spamkiller.net!propagator2-maxim!propagator-maxim!news-in.spamkiller.net!news.he.net!news.kjsl.com!news.spies.com!ruckus.brouhaha.com Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:106421 "Simon Bowring" writes: > CP/M 2.2-ish, so at best MS-DOS 1.0 was approximately equivalent > to CP/M 2.2 (can't think of anything they "improved" off-hand?). One obvious improvement is that IBM-DOS (and MS-DOS) support byte-granularity for the end-of-file mark. ###### From: Klemens Krause Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Origin of the 8.3 Filename Convention Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2002 09:09:55 +0200 Organization: Universitaet Stuttgart Lines: 84 Message-ID: <3CBFC2C3.238E33B3@informatik.uni-stuttgart.de> References: <6ug01sd7ud.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <1327.873T30T9833031@sky.bus.com> Reply-To: klemens.krause@informatik.uni-stuttgart.de NNTP-Posting-Host: defoe.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: inf2.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de 1019200122 20441 129.69.217.108 (19 Apr 2002 07:08:42 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@news.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de NNTP-Posting-Date: 19 Apr 2002 07:08:42 GMT X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.78 [de] (X11; U; Linux 2.4.10-4GB i686) X-Accept-Language: en Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news-fra1.dfn.de!news.rwth-aachen.de!news.uni-stuttgart.de!news.belwue.de!news.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:106432 Charlie Gibbs schrieb: > > In article <6ug01sd7ud.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> neil@franklin.ch.remove > (Neil Franklin) writes: > > >"Simon Bowring" writes: > > > >> MS-DOS 1.0 was really QDOS which was a quick and dirty "clone" of > >> CP/M 2.2-ish, so at best MS-DOS 1.0 was approximately equivalent > >> to CP/M 2.2 (can't think of anything they "improved" off-hand?). > > > >I can think of one thing: precise file lengths. > > ...which made CP/M's EOF character (0x1A) completely unnecessary, > but MS-DOS clung to it anyway. This caused all sorts of data loss. > I think CP/M was a bad clone of the older DEC-operating systems, especially PS/8 and OS/8 from 1970. Those systems ran in 8K (12Bit) memory machines. Room for directory entries was limited, so they had no exact file lengths entries used 6.2 filenames and needed the EOF-character. But: They had a date stamp for file generation. Even if it was limited to 8 years. Also to save room in the directory. OS/8 had: * A multilevel HELP-system with topics and subtopics. Greetings to VMS. * A sorted directory listing (name, extension, date), 1 column, 2 columns 3 columns as you like it. * The possibility to assign logical devicenames to an physical device. Standard device names are SYS: and DSK: You can for example assign the DSK: device to a RK05-disk or to one of many DEC-Tape drives as needed. This is have way to subdirectories. * PIP. A multipurpose program, which also can copy files. It could be used to copy files, to show directories so you had not to leave it, while doing a multi-file copy, to unerase files, to install the operating system and others. * CCL a command processor which in CP/M became CCP. OS/8 is able to run without this CCL to speed up the system. > Also, as someone else pointed out, CP/M's PIP was superior to > MS-DOS's COPY, if for no other reason than that it would copy > zero-length files. > > Speaking of zero-length files, did anyone else use that trick > of creating a zero-length .COM file? Nothing would load, but > the machine would jump to 0x100. If the last program you ran > was serially re-usable, this was a quick way to re-run it. > In OS/8 .SV-files there is a header which contains some usefull tags: One indicates, that a program can be restarted without reloading it. If the program ist not restartable, CCP answers NO! if you try it. Another bit indicates if the programm uses system areas in the memory. If yes, they are reloaded after the program finished, if not, this is not done and you save speed. Some said, CP/M is lame: Is it really? OS/8 running with RK05 drives is very fast, OS/8 running with RX01-floppies is lame. I only know CP/M systems running with floppies. I never worked with a hardisk CP/M. > >Of course that does not change your basic statement that MS-DOS 1.x > >was inferiour to CM/P 2.2. > > Or, as they say, CP/M was a great improvement on its successors. > Please let me change this to: OS/8 was a great improvement to ... Klemens -- ---------------------------------------------- Klemens Krause Universitaet Stuttgart / Inst. f. Informatik Breitwiesenstr. 20-22 / 70565 Stuttgart Tel.: 0711/7816 341 ###### Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!not-for-mail From: Neil Franklin Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Origin of the 8.3 Filename Convention Date: 19 Apr 2002 23:16:10 +0200 Organization: My own Private Self Lines: 38 Message-ID: <6uofgfv17p.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> References: <6ug01sd7ud.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <1327.873T30T9833031@sky.bus.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: chonsp.franklin.ch X-Trace: chonsp.franklin.ch 1019250971 438 10.0.3.2 (19 Apr 2002 21:16:11 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@chonsp.franklin.ch NNTP-Posting-Date: 19 Apr 2002 21:16:11 GMT X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 20.4 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:106435 "Charlie Gibbs" writes: > Speaking of zero-length files, did anyone else use that trick > of creating a zero-length .COM file? Nothing would load, but > the machine would jump to 0x100. If the last program you ran > was serially re-usable, this was a quick way to re-run it. Now that is a nice hack. Hmmm, .COM files reminds me of one of the sillier things I once did (over 10 years ago): - have an MS-DOS PC (and be an total PC user, no clue of VMS) - have networking software (DEC Pathworks) with an VAX/VMS system as server (I was the first to get Ethernet in our group) - mount VMS home directory to PC, as intended - list its directory (yipee this network thing works!) - see an unknown "program" LOGIN.COM (must be from the network software) - wonder what it is and run it -> One PC crashed real fast For non-VMS-ers: .COM on VMS are command files (like .BAT under MS-DOS, LOGIN.COM is users equivalent AUTOEXEC.BAT or rather Unix .profile). 80486 does not like executing ASCII. > >Of course that does not change your basic statement that MS-DOS 1.x > >was inferiour to CM/P 2.2. > > Or, as they say, CP/M was a great improvement on its successors. That was the line I was looking for. -- Neil Franklin, neil@franklin.ch.remove http://neil.franklin.ch/ Hacker, Unix Guru, El Eng HTL/BSc, Sysadmin, Archer, Roleplayer - Make your code truely free: put it into the public domain ###### From: hawk@fac13.ds.psu.edu (Richard E. Hawkins) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Origin of the 8.3 Filename Convention Date: 20 Apr 2002 17:53:25 GMT Organization: Penn State University, Center for Academic Computing Lines: 14 Message-ID: References: <3cb1a341.65680@news.ocis.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: fac13.ds.psu.edu X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test76 (Apr 2, 2001) Originator: hawk@fac13.ds.psu.edu (Richard E. Hawkins) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news.cis.ohio-state.edu!news.ems.psu.edu!news3.cac.psu.edu!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:106510 In article , wrote: >Why do think those PDP-10s were bought? You could do just about >anything with a -10...including getting screwed. So like so many other things, computer sex originates with DEC? :) hawk -- Richard E. Hawkins, Asst. Prof. of Economics /"\ ASCII ribbon campaign dochawk@psu.edu Smeal 178 (814) 375-4700 \ / against HTML mail These opinions will not be those of X and postings. Penn State until it pays my retainer. / \ ###### From: jmfbahciv@aol.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Origin of the 8.3 Filename Convention Date: Sun, 21 Apr 02 09:38:03 GMT Organization: UltraNet Communications, Inc. Lines: 14 Message-ID: References: <3cb1a341.65680@news.ocis.net> X-Trace: UmFuZG9tSVb0PIQTu0V/dk5UcH5jL4NNQhkKY5+OvWeK9ffnABNp8F1Bg6bCjSH2 X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 21 Apr 2002 13:03:08 GMT X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #4 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed2.news.rcn.net!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!208-59-181-195 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:106541 In article , hawk@fac13.ds.psu.edu (Richard E. Hawkins) wrote: >In article , wrote: > >>Why do think those PDP-10s were bought? You could do just about >>anything with a -10...including getting screwed. > >So like so many other things, computer sex originates with DEC? :) We didn't originate it; we just made it easier to commit. /BAH Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail.