"Mike A. Harris" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said:
> On Fri, 11 May 2001 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
[...]
> >why creat doesn't end in an "e;" and so forth. I tell the
The old C compiler/old Unix linker guaranteed 6 chars in an external symbol
name only, and C functions got an underscore prepended: _creat. I guess
this is the reason for this wart. As to why 6 chars only, I'd guess some
data structure in the linker was laid out that way. Machines had a few
dozen Kbs of RAM then, space was precious.
> What is the reason for that? Also wondered why it is resolv.conf
> and not resolve.conf or resolver.conf...
Old FS handled only 14 chars in names, but that clearly isn't the reason
here (11 chars). Some other operating system perhaps?
> Were they afraid that "e" being the most widely used letter in
> the English language was going to war out thir xpnsiv kyboards if
> thy usd it all th tim?
Funny conspiracy suscpicion, that... ;-)
--
Horst von Brand [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Casilla 9G, Vin~a del Mar, Chile +56 32 672616
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