scott@cs.hw.ac.uk (Scott Telford) (01/15/91)
In article <1991Jan14.071740.5103@mks.com> andy@mks.com (Andy Toy) writes: >In article <9354@ccicpg.UUCP> mahrk@ccicpg.UUCP (MHR {who?}) writes: >>When the notion of hard disks, complete with >>paths and subdirectories suddenly became relevant, around xxDOS >>version 1.2 (which was actually later released as 2.0 and fixed to work >>in 2.1), the '/' as switch character had become so firmly entrenched >>that they had to use something else, so they picked the '\'. > >However, if one has `switchar=-' in their config.sys file then one can >use `-' as the switch character and `/' as the directory separator >(this works on my Toshiba T1000 with DOS 2.11). This disappeared around DOS 3.0, I think (it was undocumented anyway). The DOS system call, also undocumented (INT 21h Function 37h, if memory serves me) to change the switchar is still there, at least up to 3.30. The shareware PiCnix utilities for DOS have a "switchar" command that uses this. I think this is fairly common knowledge now, but the reason for "/" being the default switchar was due to MS-DOS being initially a CP/M clone and so inheriting some of the conventions that CP/M borrowed from early DEC OS's (OS/8, RT-11 etc.). You can still see the resemblance in VAX/VMS: volume names ending in ":", three-character filename extensions, and of course "/"-prefixed switches. ____________________________________________________________________________ | Scott Telford scott@cs.hw.ac.uk | | Dept of Comp Sci, Heriot-Watt Uni, UK. scott%hwcs@ukc.uucp | |_____ "Expect the unexpected" (The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy) ______|