Re: The Apple II Shell Game at the AppleOldies Website

[Bill Buckels <bbuckels@escape.ca>]

The Aztec Museum also has a new page devoted to the Aztec Shell and
Other Shells which will be expanded as required. I expect more shells
in shortly and the possibility of a MacIntosh 68K Aztec C Shell and
Compiler from a couple of different sources. In the meantime please
visit the following link andalso read the blurb below:

http://www.aztecmuseum.ca/shell.htm


Introduction

The various versions of the Aztec C Shell address the lack of a decent
(or "sufficiently robust") command interpreter in computers like the
Apple II. Manx's solution was to make these computers look and act
like "little Unix" systems. They were not alone in this either.
Several others wrote Unix-like shells as general working environments
or for various compilers "back in the day".

The Aztec C Shells for Apple II computers running DOS 3.3 and ProDOS
are up for download from the link above. You do not need Aztec C to
use these. However please also note that the native mode compilers for
the Apple II listed on the compilers page all come with the Aztec C
Shell for their respective target OS's, be they DOS 3.3 or ProDOS 8.

"Curating" the Aztec C Shells for the Apple II was not a solo effort
by any means. Phoenyx and Rubywand and Paul R. Santa-Maria provided
most of the pieces of this perfectly enjoyable puzzle. If you have not
yet experienced just how well-done James Goodnow's efforts in making
the Apple II into a Unix-like environment were "back in the day", you
really must play with these even if you are not a programmer.

Please see the ReadMe's below and the Docs in the ZIP files for
additional details. The SHELL commands for the ProDOS shell version
are also described at the following link in the Shell Commands
sections:

http://www.aztecmuseum.ca/cat2.htm

As noted above, it was not only Aztec C who made these Unix-like
shells and several more are also available from here and others will
be added as time permits.

See Also:

http://www.aztecmuseum.ca/shell.htm#dos33
http://www.aztecmuseum.ca/shell.htm#prodos
http://www.appleoldies.ca/anix/index.htm
http://www.appleoldies.ca/davex/index.htm
http://www.appleoldies.ca/kix/index.htm
http://www.appleoldies.ca/michaelpender/index.htm
http://www.appleoldies.ca/phade/shell.htm


Happy New Year!

Bill Buckels