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To: python-list@python.org
From: Dennis Lee Bieber <wlfraed@ix.netcom.com>
Subject: Re: Python shell wont open idle or an exisiting py file
Date: Sat, 01 Feb 2014 11:24:04 -0500
Organization: IISS Elusive Unicorn
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On Sat, 01 Feb 2014 00:44:22 -0500, Terry Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu>
declaimed the following:

>
>Which started with Microsoft's decision to reuse the string excape 
>character '\' as a directory separator.

	Which itself may partly be blamed on CP/M using "/" as command line
option prefix; since subdirectories didn't really exist on that class of
machine. Just the mysterious "user space" setting.

	Hmmm... I don't recall my college mainframe syntax for subdirectories
-- if it even had them. As a recall, a file spec had the file name (which
could include nonprintable characters -- I used to embed the BEL character
in the file names), did NOT use filetype extensions (we had a convention of
using prefixes: S: [source], R: [relocatable object module/ROM], L: [load
module/LMN {no idea where the N came from]). Let's see... I think the next
part was .user if accessing a file belonging to another account, and
finally .password (which mean to access one's own password file gave the
interesting result of S:mainprogram..pass)

	I think VMS was the first OS I used that had subdirectories. VMS also
used "/" for command line options, but the file spec was
DL:[top.sub.subsub...]name.ext;version (where DL was either a physical
device name or a logical name referencing a path; top was commonly the
user's account name)

	TRSDOS/LSDOS faded away before drives really got big enough to require
subdirectory support. I think the last add-on utility was one that allowed
one to mount a pre-allocated file AS a drive. Prior to that was a
"Partitioned Data Set" utility which allowed for storing multiple files
into a single one, but had rather complex operations to access them. File
spec was name/ext.password:drive (with the advantage that one often did not
have to specify the drive -- LSDOS would scan all drives for the specified
file and open the first one found; and creating new files would be done on
the first non-write-protected drive).

	Amiga? a mix... VMS style logical names, / path separator, and no
formal extensions (extensions were convention, but basically found by
splitting on the last . in the name)


-- 
	Wulfraed                 Dennis Lee Bieber         AF6VN
    wlfraed@ix.netcom.com    HTTP://wlfraed.home.netcom.com/