Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcvax!hp4nl!kunivv1!phoibos!ge
From: ge@phoibos.UUCP (Ge Weijers)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: on shells and os features
Summary: Some systems
Keywords: shell, wildcard
Message-ID: <489@phoibos.UUCP>
Date: 12 Jan 89 14:45:55 GMT
References: <28200249@mcdurb> <451@babbage.acc.virginia.edu> <1951@scolex> <4205@psuvax1.cs.psu.edu>
Organization: University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Lines: 21

In article <4205@psuvax1.cs.psu.edu>, schwartz@shire.cs.psu.edu (Scott Schwartz) writes:
) In article <5657@cbmvax.UUCP>, jesup@cbmvax (Randell Jesup) writes:
) >	You're talking shells, not "Unix".  It should be possible to write
) >a shell for almost any usable computer, a shell that does wildcarding 
) >ala Unix.
) 
) Correct, of course.  But consider this: standard features affect how
) utilities will be designed and used.  Most unix programs expect to
) take a list of items on the command line. If you put a unix style
) shell on VM/CMS, say, you will also have to replace lots of utilities,
) like LISTFILES.  At this late stange in the evolution of these
) systems, certain characteristics are so deeply ingrained that they
) can't be easily changed.
) -- 
) Scott Schwartz		<schwartz@shire.cs.psu.edu>

You could also emulate/implement unix-style system calls, which would
make porting programs to the IBM/VM etc easy, see Eunice, which emulates
BSD 4.x on VMS (more or less, no symbolic links etc.)

Ge' Weijers, KUN Nijmegen, the Netherlands, ge@cs.kun.nl