this post was submitted on 06 Sep 2024
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    [–] [email protected] 49 points 1 month ago (4 children)

    I can make a file named COM1 on Linux. That's on the forbidden list for Windows.

    The forbidden list:

    • CON
    • PRN
    • AUX
    • CLOCK$
    • NUL
    • COM1
    • COM2
    • COM3
    • COM4
    • COM5
    • COM6
    • COM7
    • COM8
    • COM9
    • LPT1
    • LPT2
    • LPT3
    • LPT4
    • LPT5
    • LPT6
    • LPT7
    • LPT8
    • LPT9
    [–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

    oh no, but com5 is one of my favorite words! literally unusable.

    [–] [email protected] 18 points 1 month ago (1 children)

    That's because Windows is generally very backwards compatible.

    [–] [email protected] 15 points 1 month ago (1 children)

    So is Linux, but it puts stuff like that in /dev

    [–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    The thing is, a lot of the legacy backwards compatible stuff that's in Linux is because a lot of things in Unix were actually pretty well thought out from the get go, unlike many of the ugly hacks that went into MSDOS and later Windows and overstayed their welcome.

    Things like: long case sensitive file names from the beginning instead of forced uppercase 8.3 , a hierarchical filesystem instead of drive letters, "everything is a file" concept, a notion of multiple users and permissions, pre-emptive multitasking, proper virtual memory management instead of a "640k is enough" + XMS + EMS, and so on.

    [–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago (1 children)

    It still amazes me how well thought out unix was for the era when computing was in its infancy. But I guess that is what you get with computer science nerds from Universities and a budget for development based on making a product the goal, not quarterly profit the goal.

    [–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

    It's what you get when you design an OS for a mainframe computer that is accessed by many users sharing its resources.
    DOS was designed for single-user PC's with very limited processing power, memory and storage, and no access to networked drives. Lots of its hacks and limitations saved a few hundred bytes of memory, which was crucial at the time.

    [–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

    I guess i was meaning compared to DOS but modern Windows, where stupid stuff is broken, and they care more about ads than creating a clean OS

    [–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

    Unix was designed for mainframes, qdos/msdos was designed to be a cpm knockoff the local nerd could use to play commander keen and do his taxes. It's actually impressive how much modern/business functionality they were able to cram into that.

    [–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

    Unix was designed for mainframes

    Unix was never for mainframes. It was for 16-bit minicomputers that sat below mainframes, but yes they were more advanced than the first personal computers.

    It’s actually impressive how much modern/business functionality they were able to cram into that.

    Absolutely, but you have to admit that it's a less solid foundation to build a modern operating system on.

    In the 80s, there were several Unices for PC too btw: AT&T, SCO, even Microsoft's own Xenix. Most of them were prohibitively expensive though.

    [–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

    LPT1 LPT2 LPT3 LPT4 LPT5 LPT6 LPT7 LPT8 LPT9

    Why does Microsoft hate Life Pro Top listicles?

    [–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

    You're probably joking, but in case you don't know: LPT stands for Line Printer Terminal, and LPT1, LPT2, LPT3... referred to parallel ports which were typically (though not exclusively) used to connect a printer.