Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!wuarchive!udel!haven!decuac!hussar.dco.dec.com!mjr
From: mjr@hussar.dco.dec.com (Marcus J. Ranum)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.dec
Subject: poking around partial or trashed systems
Message-ID: <1990Oct18.132856.6312@decuac.dec.com>
Date: 18 Oct 90 13:28:56 GMT
References: <88858@aerospace.AERO.ORG>
Sender: news@decuac.dec.com (Network News)
Reply-To: mjr@hussar.dco.dec.com (Marcus J. Ranum)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Digital Equipment Corp., Washington Ultrix Resource Center
Lines: 22

In article <88858@aerospace.AERO.ORG> sinclair@aerospace.aero.org (William S. Sinclair) writes:

>By the way, is there anything that tells me what the stand-alone 
>ULTRIX can or can't do? It won't even do an "ls" command. How do I find 
>my way around in it?

	as long as you can get a shell running, you can do the moral
equivalent of "ls" using echo, EG:
echo *
echo /bin/*

	you can even do a fair emulation of the "cat" command using:
(while read line; do echo $line; done) < /etc/passwd

	if you have a shell with a built-in test(1) then there's a
whole lot you can do.

mjr.
-- 
Nothing is beautiful unless it is large. Vastness and immensity can make 
you forget a great many weaknesses.
			- Emperor Napoleon I