[net.micro.pc] pcdos is not unix

nather@utastro.UUCP (Ed Nather) (04/12/84)

[]  -- someday ...

	I don't know if this only applies to the IBM PC or not, but if you put

				SWITCHAR=-

	in your CONFIG.SYS file you can use "/" instead of "\" for pathnames
	and "-" instead of "/" for options.

	Has anyone done any hacking to COMMAND.COM to rename some of the
	internal commands?  I tried but so far have had only limited success.
	Using DEBUG on COMMAND.COM is not a pleasant chore.

						Danny Sykora
						AT&T Bell Labs (Holmdel)
						(201)949-7358
						houxf!micom

Unfortunately this change has an ugly side-effect: once made, PC-DOS can no
longer find *any* file with a "-" in it -- e.g. PC-TALK, PC-WRITE, PC-FILE.
Apparently PC-DOS does not know about white space.  Since PC-TALK (which
is a very good program) creates files called PC-TALK.KEY etc. a complete
re-write would be required to change *all* such names.  Blaaaargh.

Anybody have a fix for this?

-- 

                                       Ed Nather
                                       ihnp4!{ut-sally,kpno}!utastro!nather
                                       Astronomy Dept., U. of Texas, Austin

bamford@ihuxw.UUCP (bamford) (04/13/84)

For awhile, I had my config.sys set with "switchar=-" and was able to
use pc-talk.  I had to rename the program to pctalk, but its utility
files still had "-" embedded in their names.  It is true that referring
to files with a "-" on a command line was tricky, but the programs
seemed to not have any trouble.

-- 
			Harold Bamford
			AT&T Bell Labs @ Naperville, Illinois
			(312) 979-0837
			ihuxw!bamford

chenr@tilt.UUCP (Raymond Chen ) (04/13/84)

<not indented>

The question was "Does anyone have a fix for MS-DOS not being able to
find files with a "-" in them such as PC-TALK, etc. if you set SWITCHAR = -
in your CONFIG.SYS file.

The answer:  Don't set SWITCHAR = -.  You can set switchar to be anything you
want.  I set mine to "\".  If what you really want is to make MS-DOS look
like UNIX, good luck... Among other things, you'll have to hack the command
line parser.  Using debug, that would *not* be fun.  It'd be easier to write
your own COMMAND.COM.

-- 

From the Random Fingers of --

		Ray Chen
		{allegra | ihnp4 | mhuxi}!princeton!down!tilt!chenr	

"It's amazing what a thousand monkeys and a few typewriters can accomplish..."

bae@fisher.UUCP (The Master of Sinanju) (04/13/84)

If you set your switchar=\, you can use - in filenames, and / for path
seperators.  Unfortunately, you then have to remember to type such
monstrosities as 
	format a: \v \1

Well, you bought an IBM, you deserve what you get...  :-)

-- 
            Brian A. Ehrmantraut

            Ad Maioram Gloriam Hasturi!

    {ihnp4, decvax, ucbvax}!allegra!fisher!bae