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From: dlsc1509@dlscg3.dlsc.dla.mil (Bill Hoyt)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.misc
Subject: Re: Where is the long awaited MS DOS 5.0 ?
Message-ID: <609@dlscg3.dlsc.dla.mil>
Date: 29 Mar 91 16:30:10 GMT
References: <gsa8u1w163w@mantis.co.uk>
Organization: Defense Logistics Service Center, Battle Creek, MI
Lines: 31

In article <gsa8u1w163w@mantis.co.uk>, tony@mantis.co.uk (Tony Lezard) writes:
> In article <10110@lanl.gov>, crs@lanl.gov (Charlie Sorsby) writes:
> 
> >I've a question about DOS:  Is there a real reason for the choice
> >of switch character ("/") and path-element separator ("\")?  Or
> >was the choice made gratuitously (or, worse, just to be different
> >from Unix)?  I've always assumed that, since in some cases it's
> >possible to use the Unix counterparts, that the choice was
> >arbitrary.  In some ways, I find that more of a pain than the
> >baroque paths of VMS--the ??-DOS paths are enough like those of
> >Unix that I tend to type them as Unix paths--those of VMS are
> >enough different that I don't do that, I just hate to type them.
> 
> Naah. The "/" character is a well-recognised way of specifying command line
> options. Many systems use it. Hence a command such as "DOS\CHKDSK/F" will
> succeed in passing a parameter "F" to the program "CHKDSK" in directory "DOS".
> 
  I read somewhere awhile back the reason that MS-DOS uses the backslash as
  the pathname separator, but I can't remember where I read it.  It stated
  that when the original PC's were developed they did not look far enough
  into the future to see that pathnames would be needed, because the
  original PC only supported cassette and floppy drives, hense the
  term cassette basic.  When it became apparant that a pathname separator
  was needed for later versions of the PC that supported hard drives
  MicroSoft found themselves with a little problem.  Since, they had
  already used the slash character as a switch character, they had to use
  another character.  They selected the backslash as that character.

  Hope this clears that up for you...
  Bill Hoyt