Re: Wonderful ProDOS patch!

[binder@caliph.zk3.dec.com (Cum dignitate otium)]

mfischer@nyx10.cs.du.edu (Matthew Fischer) writes:

> David E A Wilson <david@wraith.cs.uow.edu.au> wrote:
>> ProDOS 8 (perhaps we should call it ProDOS 9?). Why Apple put these
>> restrictions in ProDOS v1.0 I do not know (unless it was backwards
>> compatibility with SOS on the Apple /// - in which case why did Apple
>> restrict SOS (after all the DOS 3.x could always use a wider range of
>> characters in file names and the Apple /// had a full keyboard with U/LC
>>support)).
> 
> Am I alone in thinking that it's really annoying to type in filenames with
> funny punctuation characters in them? I think letters, numbers, and periods
> do the job just fine. I realise that the Patch :) increases cross-platform
> compatibility, but I know that, given this new capability, people will come
> up with Apple-specific files with really bad filenames.

Actually, it was a deliberate attempt to make first SOS and then ProDOS look
more Professional.
     ^^^
The popular operating systems at that time were CP/M and the newly-hatched
MS-DOS, both of which restricted things even further, limiting names to 8 and
9 characters respectively, with a 3-character filetype extension that was (and
still is) the mechanism the OS used to decide what to do with the file.  These
two systems have no concept of real file typing the way Apple does it; with an
Apple II or Macintosh, you can change a file's name without changing its type,
but CP/M and MS-DOS don't like that.  Rename MUMBLE.EXE, and MS-DOS won't be
able to run it.

Anyway, Apple wanted ProDOS to resemble MS-DOS, which was IBM and therefore a
professional operating system.  BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

-dick binder

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