Which OS is behind IOS ?

In article <Sam.Wilson->,
Sam Wilson <> wrote:

> In article <barmar->,
> Barry Margolin <> wrote:
>
> > In article < .com>,
> > "roger t" <> wrote:
> >
> > > When I use cisco IOS all I see is unix customized by cisco
> >
> > There's nothing Unix-related in IOS. The original designers came from
> > DEC, I believe, and patterned its CLI somewhat after TENEX and TOPS-20.
> > If you're talking about the automatic completion, that's something Unix
> > adopted from DEC (it first appeared in tcsh, and the "t" is often
> > considered to stand for TENEX).
>
> <nitpick>
> I believe, from messages from within Cisco on the old
> mailing list, that what was implemented was
> taken from the Korn shell (ksh) rather than tcsh.
> </nitpick>

Since I didn't say that it was taken from tcsh, your "rather than"
doesn't really make sense. I said that Cisco got it from DEC (maybe it
was VMS rather than TENEX/TOPS-20), not from any Unix source.

The most obvious way that IOS differs from Unix is the lack of "-" to
introduce command options. On the other hand, there are a few commands
that use /option:value, a very VMS-ish thing.

--
Barry Margolin,
Arlington, MA
*** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me ***
*** PLEASE don't copy me on replies, I'll read them in the group ***

Barry Margolin

Some UNIX based Cisco appliances like the WLSE have a IOS-like interface.
Maybe that is what "roger t" means ...

"Neil Cherry" <> wrote in message
news:...
> On 26 Sep 2006 20:00:49 -0700, roger t wrote:
>> When I use cisco IOS all I see is unix customized by cisco
>
> When I use Cisco IOS all I see is VMS. Don't worry I know
> Cisco isn't VMS. I really don't know how you get Unix though.
> (???).
>
>
> --
> Linux Home Automation Neil Cherry
> http://www.linuxha.com/ Main site
> http://linuxha.blogspot.com/ My HA Blog
> http://home.comcast.net/~ncherry/ Backup site

Pirke

In article <barmar->,
Barry Margolin <> wrote:

> In article <Sam.Wilson->,
> Sam Wilson <> wrote:
>
> > In article <barmar->,
> > Barry Margolin <> wrote:
> >
> > > In article < .com>,
> > > "roger t" <> wrote:
> > >
> > > > When I use cisco IOS all I see is unix customized by cisco
> > >
> > > There's nothing Unix-related in IOS. The original designers came from
> > > DEC, I believe, and patterned its CLI somewhat after TENEX and TOPS-20.
> > > If you're talking about the automatic completion, that's something Unix
> > > adopted from DEC (it first appeared in tcsh, and the "t" is often
> > > considered to stand for TENEX).
> >
> > <nitpick>
> > I believe, from messages from within Cisco on the old
> > mailing list, that what was implemented was
> > taken from the Korn shell (ksh) rather than tcsh.
> > </nitpick>
>
> Since I didn't say that it was taken from tcsh, your "rather than"
> doesn't really make sense. I said that Cisco got it from DEC (maybe it
> was VMS rather than TENEX/TOPS-20), not from any Unix source.

How nitpicky do you want to get? I concede that you didn't say
Cisco got the command completion from Unix, however since it did come
from ksh then in fact they DID get it from Unix. If you really want to
get picky then your parenthetical comment about it first appearing in
tcsh is only true for Unix since it had previously appeared in TENEX.

> The most obvious way that IOS differs from Unix is the lack of "-" to
> introduce command options. On the other hand, there are a few commands
> that use /option:value, a very VMS-ish thing.

A very DEC thing in general - I was a relatively late user of DEC OSs -
TOPS-10 and various stuff on PDP-8s in the late 1970s, and RT-11 in the
early 80s, by which time CP/M had also borrowed the command names and
syntax.


Sam

Sam Wilson

Every history I have ever read of Cisco says that the two original
founders were long-time Stanford DECSystem-10/DECSystem-20 hackers (and
perhaps PDP-6 as well), which would make sense since Stanford in that
era was a fanatical bastion of 36-bit Digital systems. After cashing
out one of the Cisco founders want on to fund XKL which for a while was
building new DEC-10 compatibles running a clone of TOPS-10.

TOPS-10 hackers in particular found Unix(tm) sort of amusing in a
pat-the-little-brother-on-the-head way, and I doubt that when starting
out to create a new CLI that any Unix variant would have been the basis
of choice.

sPh

sphealey

Pirke wrote:
> Some UNIX based Cisco appliances like the WLSE have a IOS-like interface.
> Maybe that is what "roger t" means ...
>

>From a useability standpoint it all looks like *nix to me. Being that I
was born in 1984,
I had no idea what DEC was. Thanks to the users who pointed DEC out and
for
the history lesson.
http://www.networkworld.com/supp/200...routerman.html

this article confirms what you guys are saying.
Roger Thompson

roger t