Concise Command Language

Last updated
Concise Command Language (CCL)
Developer(s) Digital Equipment Corporation
Operating system OS/8, TOPS-10, RSTS/E
Platform PDP-6, PDP-8, PDP-10, PDP-11
Successor DIGITAL Command Language (DCL)
Available inEnglish
Type Command shell

Concise Command Language (CCL) was the term used by Digital Equipment Corporation for the Command-line interpreter / User interface supplied on several of their computing systems; its successor was named DIGITAL Command Language (DCL).

Contents

CCL provides the user with an extensive set of terminal commands. [1]

The first system to include CCL was DEC's PDP-10. [2]

History

The PDP-6 monitor came with a simple set of commands. To compile and run a FORTRAN program, one would

(The DOT is a monitor prompt and the Star/Asterisk is an application prompt)

The PDP-10 had CCL. Key to its improvements over its predecessor were: [2]

  • would check to see if any of the 3 needed to be recompiled (and did so if necessary)
  • run the object program loader (including needed subroutine libraries)
  • start running the program
  • would run the command(s) in the .CMD file

Commands

The following table contains a list of CCL commands. [1]

List of CCL commands
CCL command
(full form)
CCL command
(short form)
Description
BACKSPACEBACRuns CAMP. A magnetic tape or cassette is spaced backward a specified number of files or records.
BOOTBO
CCLCCLDisables the CCL program on the OS/8 Keyboard Monitor residing on the system device.
COMPARE COMP Runs SRCCOM. Compares/shows differences between two source files. Although line by line, permits "catch up."
COMPILECOMProduces binary files and/or compilation listings for specified program files.
COPY COPTransfers files from one I/O device to another.
CORECOR
CREATECREARuns EDIT and opens a new file for creation.
CREFCREF
DATE DA
DEASSIGNDEA
DELETE DEL Deletes one or more files from disk or DECtape.
DIRECT DIR
EDITEDRuns EDIT. Opens an already existing file for editing.
EOFEOF
EXECUTEEXE
HELP HEPrints information on specified OS/8 programs.
LISTLI
LOADLO
MAKEMAKRuns TECO. Opens the specified file for output.
MAPMAPRuns BITMAP.
MUNGMUNGRuns a TECO Macro; command line parameters give added adaptability.
PALPALRuns PAL8. Assembles the source file specified as the argument.
PRINT PRIRuns a program named LPTSPL.
PUNCHPURuns PIP. Punches the file specified on paper tape.
RENAME REN Renames one or more files on disk or DECtape.
RESRESRuns RESORC.
REWINDREW
SKIPSKIP
SQUISHSQRuns PIP's "squeeze" / defrag tool[ citation needed ]
SUBMITSURuns the BATCH program.
TECO TE(Text Editor and COrrector, a sophisticated text editor with MACRO capabilities).
TYPE TY
UAUA
UBUB
UCUC
UNLOADUNL
VERSION VER Prints the version numbers of the OS/8 Keyboard Monitor and CCL.
ZEROZERO

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BASIC</span> Family of programming languages

BASIC is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages designed for ease of use. The original version was created by John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz at Dartmouth College in 1963. They wanted to enable students in non-scientific fields to use computers. At the time, nearly all computers required writing custom software, which only scientists and mathematicians tended to learn.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">PDP-8</span> Minicomputer product line

The PDP-8 is a family of 12-bit minicomputers that was produced by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). It was the first commercially successful minicomputer, with over 50,000 units being sold over the model's lifetime. Its basic design follows the pioneering LINC but has a smaller instruction set, which is an expanded version of the PDP-5 instruction set. Similar machines from DEC are the PDP-12 which is a modernized version of the PDP-8 and LINC concepts, and the PDP-14 industrial controller system.

TECO, short for Text Editor & Corrector, is both a character-oriented text editor and a programming language, that was developed in 1962 for use on Digital Equipment Corporation computers, and has since become available on PCs and Unix. Dan Murphy developed TECO while a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

RT-11 is a discontinued small, low-end, single-user real-time operating system for the full line of Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-11 16-bit computers. RT-11 was first implemented in 1970. It was widely used for real-time computing systems, process control, and data acquisition across all PDP-11s. It was also used for low-cost general-use computing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Library (computing)</span> Collection of non-volatile resources used by computer programs

In computer science, a library is a collection of non-volatile resources used by computer programs, often for software development. These may include configuration data, documentation, help data, message templates, pre-written code and subroutines, classes, values or type specifications. In IBM's OS/360 and its successors they are referred to as partitioned data sets.

OS/8 is the primary operating system used on the Digital Equipment Corporation's PDP-8 minicomputer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">RSTS/E</span> Computer operating system

RSTS is a multi-user time-sharing operating system developed by Digital Equipment Corporation for the PDP-11 series of 16-bit minicomputers. The first version of RSTS was implemented in 1970 by DEC software engineers that developed the TSS-8 time-sharing operating system for the PDP-8. The last version of RSTS was released in September 1992. RSTS-11 and RSTS/E are usually referred to just as "RSTS" and this article will generally use the shorter form. RSTS-11 supports the BASIC programming language, an extended version called BASIC-PLUS, developed under contract by Evans Griffiths & Hart of Boston. Starting with RSTS/E version 5B, DEC added support for additional programming languages by emulating the execution environment of the RT-11 and RSX-11 operating systems.

IDL, short for Interactive Data Language, is a programming language used for data analysis. It is popular in particular areas of science, such as astronomy, atmospheric physics and medical imaging. IDL shares a common syntax with PV-Wave and originated from the same codebase, though the languages have subsequently diverged in detail. There are also free or costless implementations, such as GNU Data Language (GDL) and Fawlty Language (FL).

TOPS-10 System is a discontinued operating system from Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) for the PDP-10 mainframe computer family. Launched in 1967, TOPS-10 evolved from the earlier "Monitor" software for the PDP-6 and PDP-10 computers; this was renamed to TOPS-10 in 1970.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">IBM 1130</span> 16-bit IBM minicomputer introduced in 1965

The IBM 1130 Computing System, introduced in 1965, was IBM's least expensive computer at that time. A binary 16-bit machine, it was marketed to price-sensitive, computing-intensive technical markets, like education and engineering, succeeding the decimal IBM 1620 in that market segment. Typical installations included a 1 megabyte disk drive that stored the operating system, compilers and object programs, with program source generated and maintained on punched cards. Fortran was the most common programming language used, but several others, including APL, were available.

Coarray Fortran (CAF), formerly known as F--, started as an extension of Fortran 95/2003 for parallel processing created by Robert Numrich and John Reid in the 1990s. The Fortran 2008 standard now includes coarrays, as decided at the May 2005 meeting of the ISO Fortran Committee; the syntax in the Fortran 2008 standard is slightly different from the original CAF proposal.

FOCAL is an interactive interpreted programming language based on JOSS and mostly used on Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) Programmed Data Processor (PDP) series machines.

VSI BASIC for OpenVMS is the latest name for a dialect of the BASIC programming language created by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) and now owned by VMS Software Incorporated (VSI). It was originally developed as BASIC-PLUS in the 1970s for the RSTS-11 operating system on the PDP-11 minicomputer. It was later ported to OpenVMS, first on VAX, then Alpha, and most recently Integrity.

In computer programming, an entry point is the place in a program where the execution of a program begins, and where the program has access to command line arguments.

TSS/8 is a discontinued time-sharing operating system co-written by Don Witcraft and John Everett at Digital Equipment Corporation in 1967. DEC also referred to it as Timeshared-8 and later the EduSystem 50.

The GEC 2050 was an 8-bit minicomputer produced during the 1970s, initially by Marconi Elliott Computer Systems of the UK, before the company renamed itself GEC Computers Limited. The first models were labeled MECS 2050, before being renamed GEC 2050.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Command-line interface</span> Computer interface that uses text

A command-line interface (CLI) is a means of interacting with a device or computer program with commands from a user or client, and responses from the device or program, in the form of lines of text. Such access was first provided by computer terminals starting in the mid-1960s. This provided an interactive environment not available with punched cards or other input methods.

In computer programming, a function or subroutine is a sequence of program instructions that performs a specific task, packaged as a unit. This unit can then be used in programs wherever that particular task should be performed.

The OS/360 Object File Format is the standard object module file format for the IBM DOS/360, OS/360 and VM/370, Univac VS/9, and Fujitsu BS2000 mainframe operating systems. In the 1990s, the format was given an extension with the XSD-type record for the MVS Operating System to support longer module names in the C Programming Language. This format is still in use by the z/VSE operating system. In contrast, it has been superseded by the GOFF file format on the MVS Operating System and on the z/VM Operating System. Since the MVS and z/VM loaders will still handle this older format, some compilers have chosen to continue to produce this format instead of the newer GOFF format.

The GOFF specification was developed for IBM's MVS operating system to supersede the IBM OS/360 Object File Format to compensate for weaknesses in the older format.

References

  1. 1 2 "Concise Command Language" (CCL). "OS/8 Handbook" (PDF). April 1974. Retrieved 28 November 2017.
  2. 1 2 Peter Clark (July 1982). "DEC TIMESHARING (1965)". The DEC Professional. p. 34.