Re: Calling names - System i5

[James Lampert <jamesl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

<grumble grumble>
When I was learning to code (on an IBM 370/135 running McGill University 
MUSIC, talking to the machine over leased phone lines from a motley 
collection of mismatched terminals), we had FOUR-character user-IDs, 
SIX-character passwords, SIX-character filenames, and ALL THE FILES, 
including private ones, in ONE BIG LIBRARY. We thought it was great, and 
we loved it.

When I got my TRS-80, and had it bumped up to Level II BASIC, we could 
have ONE-character(!) filenames on tape. I thought it was great, and I 
loved it.

When I got my first floppy disk drive (the drive itself was 40-track 
double-density, but the controller only supported 35-track 
single-density), I had my first introduction to 8.3 (actually, under 
TRSDOS, it was 8/3) filenames. And around the same time, MUSIC got 
upgraded to allow users to have their own libraries for private files 
(and maybe slightly longer filenames). And we all thought it was great, 
and we loved it.

When I first learned about subdirectories under PC-DOS, I thought it was 
great, and I loved it.

When I encountered my first Macintosh, I first encountered long 
filenames with spaces. I thought it was great, and I loved it.

But I NEVER forgot how to live with short filenames!

(If I seem irritable this morning, it's because over the weekend, I 
discovered that sometime in the past three years, some idiot incestuous 
son-of-a-female-canid motherboard/BIOS designer decided that there was 
not only no reason to still support a second physical floppy drive, but 
a reason to REMOVE support for it!)