[Tutor] slashes in paths

[eryksun]

On Sun, Jul 21, 2013 at 9:18 PM, Marc Tompkins <marc.tompkins at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> But back in the late 1970s, no way in Hell did Gates see Linux on the
> horizon.  He saw CP/M, and the choices that he (and MS in general) made at
> that time were intended to be compatible with CP/M, not incompatible with
> UNIX.  You wanna blame somebody, blame Gary Kildall.

Using '/' switches primarily comes from DEC operating systems, such as
TOPS-10 on the PDP-10. TOPS-10 had commands with dozens of switches
(not just 2 or 3 like DOS commands). Of course in DEC systems the
notation for paths is completely different (e.g.
DSKA:DOC.TXT[14,5,DIRA,DIRB]), so using '/' for switches was a
non-issue.

CP/M itself didn't use '/' switches in its internal CCP commands, even
if some 3rd party programs did. Neither did COMMAND.COM in Tim
Paterson's 86-DOS. Microsoft added the switches (but Paterson was
there in 81-82). By the time PC-DOS 2.0 shipped there were switches
for FORMAT, COPY, DIR, DISKCOMP, DISKCOPY, BACKUP, CHKDSK, PRINT,
RESTORE, and TREE (is that ironic?).