Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!UIAMVS.BITNET!AWCTTYPA
From: AWCTTYPA@UIAMVS.BITNET ("David A. Lyons")
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: No 'more' in MS-DOS, continued
Message-ID: <8808030126.aa00913@SMOKE.BRL.MIL>
Date: 3 Aug 88 06:47:50 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 93
X-Unparsable-Date: Wednesday 03 Aug 88 12:03 AM CT

>Date: Tue, 2 Aug 88 16:19:43 PDT
>From: rupp@cod.nosc.mil (William L. rupp)
>Subject: Re: No 'more' in MS-DOS either

>Picky, picky, picky!  My point was, and is, that ProDOS is
>*relatively* primitive when compared to MS-DOS.  COMMAND.COM always,
>to my knowledge, comes with an MS-DOS system.  Therefore, I think it
>is reasonable to assume that ANY user of MS-DOS will be able to use
>'type,' 'more,' 'sort,' etc., at will.

I don't think I'm being that picky when I ask that you distinguish
between an operating system and a command shell.

I certainly agree that BASIC.SYSTEM (which is bundled with ProDOS
and was never intended to be a full command shell) is not nearly as
good a command shell as COMMAND.COM is.  Fine.

I don't necessarily agree that ProDOS is primitive compared to
MS-DOS.  I don't know enough about MS-DOS to defend my position, and
you [as you show in a few paragraphs] don't know enough about ProDOS
to defend yours.

>Sure, equivalents of these commands could be, and probably have been,
>written for ProDOS.  But can one count on *every* ProDOS user's
>having taken the time and spent the money to obtain these
>"enhancements"?

It only takes a couple minutes at your local Apple user group, and
it's free (or maybe the cost of copying a disk from the club
library).  Many users are probably reasonably happy reading files in
a word processor.  I'm not, so I use a $25 command shell.

>By the way, how do you change directories in ProDOS?  As I understand
>it, there is no 'present working directory,' as such, in ProDOS.
>There is certainly not a command such as 'cd' with which a user can
>change directories easily.

The "current directory" is specified by a "prefix" in ProDOS
terminology.  In BASIC.SYSTEM (the thing that's bundled w/ ProDOS),
you type PREFIX alone to see your current prefix, and you type
PREFIX followed by the pathname of a directory to change it.  For
example, PREFIX /MYDISK/JUNK.

From my command shell, you can use 'prefix' or 'cd' or 'chdir' or
whatever else you alis into 'prefix'.  Or you can just type the
pathname of a directory with *no* command, and the effect is the
same.  Of course, commands like 'up' and 'over' are available to
make it easy to travel around a directory structure.

(ProDOS 16 [IIgs only] supports 8 different prefixes; this can be
handy.)

>I don't mean to sound hostile towards ProDOS.

You don't.  You sound like you haven't used it.

>My pessimism, such as it it, regarding the fate of the Apple IIGS is
>based on a couple of points.  First, the original II line is, in a
>sense, at its end.  The IIGS is really a different computer that
>happens to have a IIe inside it, and that only because of the desire
>to keep software compatibility.

Even if the original II line eventually dies, as "experts" have been
predicting for years (getting close to a decade??), why should that
doom the IIgs to death along with it?  And why do you say "only"
because of software compatibility?  I still run a lot of //e
software on the IIgs, and I'm not ashamed of it.

>The IIe and IIc are pretty much frozen as is, aren't they?

I think that remains to be seen.

>Second, the "different computer" that I claim the IIGS to be is really
>a watered-down, low-cost color Mac.  At least, it appears that Apple
>intends for the IIGS to look something like the Macintosh.  With color
>and slots, it might be called a low-budget version of the Mac II (the
>Mac II is admittedly much, much more powerful, of course).

Apple is pushing for a reasonably-consistent human interface across
both product lines.  This doesn't make the IIgs a watered-down Mac.
It's a very different machine.  They run none of the same software,
use different CPUs, and have completely independent system software.
Some of the system software is *similar* between the machines;
QuickDraw is probably most similar.  But just ask somebody who's
*ported* something from Mac to GS (or vice-versa!) how much work it
is.

>Bill

--David A. Lyons  a.k.a.  DAL Systems
  PO Box 287 | North Liberty, IA 52317
  BITNET: AWCTTYPA@UIAMVS
  CompuServe: 72177,3233
  GEnie mail: D.LYONS2