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From: rickc@agora.UUCP (Rick Coates)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc,comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Subject: Re: DOS's Hidden UN*X-like Behavior
Message-ID: <1762@agora.UUCP>
Date: 23 Dec 89 15:56:00 GMT
References: <1989Dec23.024131.6399@eng.umd.edu>
Reply-To: rickc@.UUCP (Rick Coates)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Organization?  You've got to be kidding!
Lines: 30

In article <1989Dec23.024131.6399@eng.umd.edu> linco@eng.umd.edu (Sam Lin) writes:
>I have been experimenting with trying to make DOS 3.1 more UN*X-like, because
>it is a real pain switching between UN*X and DOS between my Sun and my PC.
>Recently, I got a hold of PICNIX3 from grape.ecs.clarkson.edu, and playing
>with the SWITCHAR command has yielded some interesting discoveries.
>
...



I have no answers for MSDOS's behavior (I'm glad I'm not responsible for
THAT code!), but can give you some more problems with using the
switchar bit.  A number of applications simply will not run with the
switchar set to '-' (Norton utilities and SuperCalc, to name two).  This
is highly annoying.  Also, if you use 'system()' call in Microsoft C,
the spawned job dies with an 'Invalid path specification' message.  Due
to this (and the already mentioned problems) I have pulled switchar - off
my DOS  system.  Sigh. Maybe 1990 will be the year I can get Unix running
at home!


PS - sorry to all about the post about SIMTEL20 - I now see they have
a UUCP mail server - thanks, Keith!!


Rick Coates
Consulting H/W - S/W engineer
(Graphics - Sun - Unix - ASIC design - imbedded systems)

...!tektronix!tessi!agora!rickc