File path formats. 2405

"bob7094"

I forgot about that one - First mini (2113) and first real-time OS I worked on. I recall the 5 letter + 'something" format, but I think the something was a single digit, somehow used as an extension to clbuttify file names. As in PROG.3 would be a source file, PROG.5 an object file, etc.

Ah the memories! What else was there? A FORTRAN compiler with 6 letter identifiers, but only 5 if you want to call a function compiled separately. "Variable length" Hollerith strings - they could hold either one or two characters. A 5 Mbyte disk drive that shook as a washing machine in an unbalanced spin cycle when asked to "pack" the files. A date format that used numbers between 1 and 365 to identify the days in an year. Somewhere in the system there was a routine to convert that into the more common day-month format, (because the buttembly listings would print a "normal" date,) but I could never find it. A "real programmer's don't eat quiche" SYSGEN system to reconfigure the OS. It was a big day when I finally got Ratfor and the Software Tools package running there, had to split the Ratfor preprocessor into 3 overlays.

Roberto Waltman

Please reply to the group, return address is invalid.