TOPS-20 EXEC

[ucbvax!works]

>From Joe.Newcomer@Cmu-10a Thu Mar 11 12:25:58 1982
The last I looked, DEC was nut fussy at all about releasing the source code
to the EXEC; for a modest number of dollars you can get a source license
but I don't know if that is a site license or a processor license. Modest
is under $10K, which on a typical $750,000 KL20 just ain't all that much
additional.

One major difference between Unix and TOPS-20 is that on Unix I felt a
compulsion to rewrite the shell because it was so bad, but never had the
time to engage in the compulsion. I would like to do a few tweaks on
the TOPS-20 EXEC, which has it s own problems, but they are not a
major departure from the basic philosophy of the TOPS-20 EXEC. In the
case of Unix, I would never have considered using the shell code at all,
except possibly to see how some bizarre interface to the kernel was done.
It is such a poor piece ofinterface that I found it a constant aggravation
every time I typed a command.
joe