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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!sdcsvax!dcdwest!ittvax!decvax!ucbvax!info-vax
From: info-vax@ucbvax.ARPA
Newsgroups: fa.info-vax
Subject: "@" in DCL line
Message-ID: <4873@ucbvax.ARPA>
Date: Fri, 15-Feb-85 20:24:16 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.4873
Posted: Fri Feb 15 20:24:16 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 17-Feb-85 06:28:12 EST
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.ARPA
Organization: University of California at Berkeley
Lines: 34

From: engvax!KVC@cit-vax

The ability to reference an indirect file in the middle
of a DCL command has been there at least since VMS V1.6
(when I started on VMS).   I know it's documented because
I've seen it, but I'll be damned if I remember where.  I
only found it useful once:

We have a program called NAMES that shows who's on the system.
Now, in the days before port selectors, we used to be able
to tell where a terminal was by what it's TTxn: device name
was (only had DZ's then too!!).  The campus 780 had terminals
from several colleges sharing it (this is the Claremont
Colleges, if anyone cares).  Now, we had a logical name pointing
to a directory where software that each campus coordinator
administered lived.  These logical names were the common names
of the corresponding college (HMC:, CMC:, SCRIPPS:, etc...).
I got smart one day, and created a file in each of these directories
called ".COM" which was simply a one-line, "," separated list of
terminal names.  Thus, the users could say:

	$ names @hmc

and get a list of who was on the terminals at Harvey Mudd College...
I don't think anyone but a select few ever knew quite how NAMES
got so smart about the colleges...

Oh well, I hope no one thinks reminiscing over historical hackery
is inappropriate for INFO-VAX...

	/Kevin Carosso      engvax!kvc @ CIT-VAX.ARPA
	 Hughes Aircraft
	 (formerly of Harvey Mudd College)