friendly messages

[Dave Smith]

[much funny material about VMSization of Unix deleted]

This reminds me of when DEC was VMSizing RSTS/E (a PDP-11 operating system
sometimes reminiscent of CP/M).  Digital was making a push to get rid of
the old commands, like PIP, SYSTAT (similar to who) and replace them with
the Damned Command Language, which had verbose monstrosities like 
SHOW USERS/ALL.  My complaint was that commands like this were entirely
too verbose to use all the time and too easy to misspell.  DEC's answer
was that one, these verbose commands were more mnemonic and two, if you
wanted to you could abbreviate to SH US/AL.  Somehow, SH US/AL made a lot
less sense to me than SYSTAT which was mnemonic and easy to type.

Oh well, that was about the time I discovered Unix and found out what cryptic
_really_ meant!


David L. Smith
FPS Computing, San Diego
ucsd!celerity!dave
"Repent, Harlequin!," said the TickTock Man