4 ms·

I've seen some discussion of this, I believe that DOS got some ideas from a DEC OS (not VMS) that they were familiar with from using PDP-10s. Or something like

I've seen some discussion of this, I believe that DOS got some ideas from a DEC OS (not VMS) that they were familiar with from using PDP-10s. Or something like that. Also, they had started using forward slashes to signify options to commands. Although I was a card-carrying Linux stan and Windows hater, starting with NT they have done a good job, overall. M$ makes backward compatibility a priority, and thus will not dump bad ideas that have become entrenched. I do think Jobs was right that M$ has "no taste". I am helping teach Intro to CS to HS students (ironically, through a M$ program) and even the teacher did not know why the C: drive is the letter that it is. AFAICT we're all condemned to live with choices made in a cheap clone of CP/M.... Of course other technologies have their bad choices as well (UNIX/C null-terminated strings, maybe, for instance?)

bena 2y ago
It's C: because A: and B: were already taken by your main drives, your floppy disks.
- jtotheh 2y ago
  I know, but when did you last see a floppy disk?
  - bugfix 2y ago
    What would be the benefits of changing it now? Change for the sake of change would only break backwards compatibility.
    - jtotheh 2y ago
      UNIX etc has all file access start from /. DOS/Windows has separate trees starting with different letters. I think having it all in one tree structure has some advantages. All paths can be expressed as relative paths, for instance.
      - wglb 2y ago
        VMS also has separate trees for different logical volumes.
        jasomill 2y ago
        VMS is a good example of a system that uses very un-UNIX-like file naming conventions, with ::, :, [], ., and ; used as separators for different path components: https://wiki.vmssoftware.com/File_specification https://wiki.vmssoftware.com/File_specification
        wglb 2y ago
        Additionally, VMS has versions of files following a semicolon.
      - somat 2y ago
        I think having one tree is a huge advantage. take the windows registry, on paper it sounds like a great idea. "lets make a single unified database to hold all config values" In reality, it sort of sucks. One of the reasons it is so unpleasant to use. Is that now you have another tree with different special access patterns and programs that are incompatible with your main tree(or trees in the case of windows). I really like the plan 9 ethos here, which can be summed up as "does it vaguely look like a tree? if yes, put it in the file system". My favorite one was html "Hmmm... An html document is tree structured.... hey guys lets make our web browser a filesystem driver. (enthusiastic clapping)". Having said that, having no mainstream browser on plan9 is what usually keeps me from using it. I keep telling myself that avoiding the web drivel that requires a mainstream browser would make me a happier person, but I keep coming back for more.
        lproven 2y ago
        > I really like the plan 9 ethos here Well, me too, but it is 2024 and we have half a dozen technologies that let us put a few terabytes of non-volatile directly-accessible memory on the CPU memory bus. Isn't it maybe time we relegated the technology of sequentially-accessed disk storage -- including SSD -- to legacy status, like tape drives, and stopped thinking about files and folders at all? We are one quarter of the way through the 21st century. "Disk drives", including flash memory pretending to be disks, is legacy tech. We do not need filesystems any more. Let's move on and banish this to VMs holding legacy OSes for backwards compatibility with existing workloads.
  - tredre3 2y ago
    You can set your main drive to the letter A or B, if it truly bothers you.
    - paulmooreparks 2y ago
      Of course, if you do, be prepared for a lot of software to break because it's hard-coded to use "C:" and not actually use the APIs or environment variables to find the system drive location, user files location, etc. A lot of what gets blamed on Microsoft is really down to poor third-party software. Microsoft goes to extremes to keep that stuff running.
doublepg23 2y ago
I’d be all for a GoboLinux revolution but it seems unlikely from a “if it ain’t broke…” POV.
pixelesque 2y ago
The article mentions your first few sentences... In the early DOS days, you didn't always have hard drives, but you'd always have floppy disks to boot from, and those letters were used first alphabetically.
lproven 2y ago
> I've seen some discussion of this Look, this is not a personal attack, but the reason I posted the link was that it answers the question... and your comment seems to indicate you didn't read it before commenting. So why comment at all then? And did you not think "hey, if I comment without reading and immediately indulge in speculation I will make it plain to everyone that I didn't read it and I am just guessing"?

bena 2y ago

It's C: because A: and B: were already taken by your main drives, your floppy disks.

jtotheh 2y ago
I know, but when did you last see a floppy disk?
- bugfix 2y ago
  What would be the benefits of changing it now? Change for the sake of change would only break backwards compatibility.
  - jtotheh 2y ago
    UNIX etc has all file access start from /. DOS/Windows has separate trees starting with different letters. I think having it all in one tree structure has some advantages. All paths can be expressed as relative paths, for instance.
    - wglb 2y ago
      VMS also has separate trees for different logical volumes.
      - jasomill 2y ago
        VMS is a good example of a system that uses very un-UNIX-like file naming conventions, with ::, :, [], ., and ; used as separators for different path components: https://wiki.vmssoftware.com/File_specification https://wiki.vmssoftware.com/File_specification
        wglb 2y ago
        Additionally, VMS has versions of files following a semicolon.
    - somat 2y ago
      I think having one tree is a huge advantage. take the windows registry, on paper it sounds like a great idea. "lets make a single unified database to hold all config values" In reality, it sort of sucks. One of the reasons it is so unpleasant to use. Is that now you have another tree with different special access patterns and programs that are incompatible with your main tree(or trees in the case of windows). I really like the plan 9 ethos here, which can be summed up as "does it vaguely look like a tree? if yes, put it in the file system". My favorite one was html "Hmmm... An html document is tree structured.... hey guys lets make our web browser a filesystem driver. (enthusiastic clapping)". Having said that, having no mainstream browser on plan9 is what usually keeps me from using it. I keep telling myself that avoiding the web drivel that requires a mainstream browser would make me a happier person, but I keep coming back for more.
      - lproven 2y ago
        > I really like the plan 9 ethos here Well, me too, but it is 2024 and we have half a dozen technologies that let us put a few terabytes of non-volatile directly-accessible memory on the CPU memory bus. Isn't it maybe time we relegated the technology of sequentially-accessed disk storage -- including SSD -- to legacy status, like tape drives, and stopped thinking about files and folders at all? We are one quarter of the way through the 21st century. "Disk drives", including flash memory pretending to be disks, is legacy tech. We do not need filesystems any more. Let's move on and banish this to VMs holding legacy OSes for backwards compatibility with existing workloads.
- tredre3 2y ago
  You can set your main drive to the letter A or B, if it truly bothers you.
  - paulmooreparks 2y ago
    Of course, if you do, be prepared for a lot of software to break because it's hard-coded to use "C:" and not actually use the APIs or environment variables to find the system drive location, user files location, etc. A lot of what gets blamed on Microsoft is really down to poor third-party software. Microsoft goes to extremes to keep that stuff running.

doublepg23 2y ago

I’d be all for a GoboLinux revolution but it seems unlikely from a “if it ain’t broke…” POV.

pixelesque 2y ago

The article mentions your first few sentences... In the early DOS days, you didn't always have hard drives, but you'd always have floppy disks to boot from, and those letters were used first alphabetically.

lproven 2y ago

> I've seen some discussion of this Look, this is not a personal attack, but the reason I posted the link was that it answers the question... and your comment seems to indicate you didn't read it before commenting. So why comment at all then? And did you not think "hey, if I comment without reading and immediately indulge in speculation I will make it plain to everyone that I didn't read it and I am just guessing"?