Re: Apple model history?

[pausch@saafNOSPAM.se (Paul Schlyter)]

In article <Sm_I4.15103$l7.2901239@news-west.usenetserver.com>,
Randy Shackelford  <shack@onyx.southwind.net> wrote:
 
> Paul Guertin <pg@sff.net> wrote:
> 
>>>> One thing about ProDOS, or rather Basic.system -- how come there is
>>>> no equivalent of the "cd .." command, to go up one level in the
>>>> directory hierarchy? I've always found that odd.
>>> 
>>> There is an equivelent of the cd command. It's called PREFIX.
> 
>> Yes, but there is no equivalent of "cd .." with PREFIX. E.g., if I
>> am in /HD/PERSONAL/LETTERS/JOE and want to see letters to Bill, I
>> have to type PREFIX /HD/PERSONAL/LETTERS/BILL whereas in Unix I
>> would simply type "cd ../bill".
> 
> I expect that directory walking would have been tough to implement in the
> amount of memory available to either the kernel or BASIC.
 
No it wouldn't really -- all that had to be done would to let ProDOS
in every newly created subdirectory add a directory entry named ".."
and linked to the parent directory.  It's been done in DOS/Windows as
well as in UNIX -- had it been done in ProDOS too, then "directory
walking" would have been more or less automatic.
 
It may even be possible to do some "surgery" on a ProDOS disk:
examine all subdirectories and check for a directory entry named
".." -- if it's not there, add it and link it to the parent directory.
This could be done by a separate utility program.
 
 
>>>> DOS 3.3 having a two-letter command for a seldom-used function (FP)
>>> Is that really included with plain-vanilla DOS 3.3? I always thought that
>>> the FP/INT command was an add-on thing.
> 
>> FP and INT have always been part of DOS 3.3, to the best of my knowledge.
> 
> Exactly. How else would you swap between integer and Applesoft?
 
E.g. by commands like APPLESOFT and INTEGERBASIC.  The much more
commonly used CATALOG could have been named CAT or DIR or even LS .....
 
There is a piece of very sound logic in the idea that common commands
should be short (unless they're potentially destructive, such as e.g.
DELETE) while less common commands could be longer.  UNIX uses this
philosophy -- Apple apparently didn't.

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