Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!ucsd!sdcsvax!trantor.harris-atd.com!melmac!chuck
From: chuck@melmac.harris-atd.com (Chuck Musciano)
Newsgroups: comp.cog-eng
Subject: Re: A real-world user interface example (was: Re: replacing the desktop ...)
Message-ID: <1440@trantor.harris-atd.com>
Date: 16 Jan 89 19:49:37 GMT
References: <1989Jan5.224743.8165@mntgfx.mentor.com> <3500003@hpindda.HP.COM> <5317@pdn.UUCP>
Sender: news@trantor.harris-atd.com
Reply-To: chuck@trantor.harris-atd.com (Chuck Musciano)
Organization: Advanced Technology Dept., Harris Corp., Melbourne, Fl.
Lines: 20

In article <5317@pdn.UUCP> reggie@pdn.UUCP (George W. Leach) writes:
>      8th Edition UNIX would try to correct eroniously typed path strings.
>I forget if it would handle commands or not?  Confirmation was utilized, if
>I remember correctly.  And it did not appear to cause much noticable delay
>in responce time.

     Win Strickland, a Georgia Tech grad student, did his master's thesis
in the '82-'83 time frame on just such error correction.  It would analyze
typing errors due to erroneous keystrokes, rather than misspelling.  It was
called a "backstop", and you would place it as the last element of your
path.  The Ga Tech Software Tools shell ("swt", for those who might care)
would let you put a command as the last element of your path, which made such
a backstop possible.  I wish my Unix shell would allow such things, I would
write my own backstop.

Chuck Musciano
Advanced Technology Department
Harris Corporation
(407) 727-6131
ARPA: chuck@trantor.harris-atd.com