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>> I always wondered why the hell AmigaDOS provided this lame little "more"
>> command. Or why it had "type". I was even more perplexed by "ed" - a
>> program that lets you edit a text file one line at a time by typing in
>> utterly cryptic instructions. And I often wondered why the "dir" command
>> has a "SHOW=" option.
>
> That sounds to me more like DOS than unix.
Actually, FWIW, AmigaDOS accepts both "dir" and "list". (But NOT "ls".
Although you can create it as a shell alias if you want...)
AmigaDOS uses pathname syntax similar to MS-DOS. (There is no "/". There
is "FD0:", "FD1:", "CD0:", "RAM:", "PAR:", "SER:"...) But in places it
uses paths in a vaguely Unix way. (There is a "CON:", which opens a new
GUI window. There is a "SPK:" or similar which renders using the speach
synthesizer.) It had Unix-style piping, and the famous Unix "ed"
program. (Don't ask me if it was compatible! But it certainly worked in
a similarly cryptic way to the real Unix program does.)
It also had the ability to create "assigns", which are very vaguely like
symlinks. Basically I can create a thing called "FOO:" which actually
points to any folder in the system - or possibly another assign! Rather
than always looking for the fonts on C:\FONTS or some such like Windoze
does, it would look in FONTS: - which could be assigned to any pathname
in the system. [Hence my ability to split my system disk across two
floppies.]
In fact, unlike a symlink, you could assign FOO: to *multiple* paths. So
it's kind of like having a search path - but not just for executable
files, for ANY kind of file! (That includes any arbitrary kind a file an
application might want to track down.) And it just looks like a normal
pathname.
Basically, AmigaDOS was "like" MS-DOS and also "like" Unix and also
completely unlike either of them. Strange little hybrid thing... but
very useful.
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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