4 ms·

There's one thing I don't understand. Why was the colon dropped from the special name? I personally remember typing things such as "copy CON: sys.ini" to creat

There's one thing I don't understand. Why was the colon dropped from the special name? I personally remember typing things such as "copy CON: sys.ini" to create heredocs. Programs could have redirect their output to "AUX:.H" or "CON:.TXT" and the problem described by the author would not exist since the colon is not a valid character for a filename. Is it because programs did not let you pick a name with a colon in it?

int_19h 8y ago
There never was a colon in special device names in DOS.
- gpvos 8y ago
  I remember using colons for these, and have never used CP/M.
  - Narishma 8y ago
    The colon wasn't needed in DOS. If you added it, it was just ignored.
ezoe 8y ago
Perhaps NTFS's alternative data stream has different treatment?
mormegil 8y ago
This addendum is now in the article: > CP/M actually didn't do these special names as simply as I described them, which is a fact I either never learned or had since forgot. > It actually required them to be followed by a colon, as if they were a drive name. > So PRN: is the printer, PRN is not.