Re: Happy 30th Birthday to Disk ][ and Apple DOS

[pausch@saaf.se (Paul Schlyter)]

In article <zI-dnc1MsPMR--vVnZ2dnUVZ_gmdnZ2d@comcast.com>,
Michael J. Mahon <mjmahon@aol.com> wrote:
>mdj wrote:
>> On Jul 10, 11:15 pm, pau...@saaf.se (Paul Schlyter) wrote:
>
>>> Apple DOS didn't even have a decent command line!  Only a very restricted
>>> syntax of the command line was allowed by Apple DOS - other needed input
>>> parameters had to be obtained though a user dialogue by the application
>>> itself, or perhaps through some data (text) file.  Compare this with the
>>> very flexible command line interface of CP/M (which was directly inherited
>>> by MS-DOS): after the name of the executable file you could type almost
>>> anything you wanted.  CP/M and MS-DOS didn't object, it simply passed it on
>>> to the application and then it was up to the application to try to make sense
>>> of the command line, and to determine whether it was legal or illegal.
>> 
>> It's a shame this was never fixed - 10 years later the Apple II
>> 'prompt' had much the same limitations.
>
>I agree.  It would have been easy to accept, say, a quoted string,
>and pass it into the invoked program using something like the
>"startup" protocol.
>
>Of course, one can still re-scan the input buffer...  ;-)

If the application gets executed it can do so, yes.  However, Apple DOS
won't even execute the application if it finds what it considers a
syntax error in the command line.  So the syntax check by Apple DOS
must then be changed, so it just passes on to the application whatever
it finds unintelligible.

>-michael
>
>AppleCrate: An Apple II "blade server"!
>Home page:  http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/
>
>"The wastebasket is our most important design
>tool--and it's seriously underused."


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