thomas@utah-gr.UUCP (Spencer W. Thomas) (08/24/83)
We're running a shell with filename completion, and it handles 90% of the times I want completion. Requires NO kernel mods (as suggested by somebody), sets the alternate break character to ESC and uses ^D for ?. As a side effect, it cleans up your terminal mode whenever you return to the shell. I love it. (Another nice side effect - you can get a quick "ls" by typing <space><ctrl-D> (the space is there because a bare ^D either logs you out or gets the "type logout to log out" message).) I have occasionally wished for command recognition, though. Mostly for the long aliases we tend to use (try typing show_defaults right every time). BTW, one of the worst things about the TOPS-20 filename completion is that each component must be *uniquely* identified by what you have typed so far. Thus, if you have two files, names "ta-ra-asgn-f83.txt" and "ta-ra-asgn-s83.txt", you must type "ta-ra-asgn-f<esc>" to get the first. Our shell would complete up to "ta-ra-asgn-", and beep. So much nicer. What good is completion if it only does two chars for you? Also, if you type ? on TOPS-20, it tells you "filespec". Really useful. =Spencer