this post was submitted on 29 Feb 2024
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History of Computer Hardware
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What about the existence of the "shell" utility? I know that Unix has the
sh
program, but before the OS-era, this wasn't the case, right? When and how was it implemented? Is there any example of a computer before the shell era?Not op but...
The shell is nothing but a program that reads input and parses commands and then does the things asked and print output.
That's not really all that different from a Commodore 64 in concept. You could type in commands to load / save / run other programs.
I'm glossing over a lot here. :)
I will add that Unix is a multitasking, multi user operating system which adds complexity and a lot more to explain. :)
Anyway I'm pretty sure the very first electronic computers were single user and may not have had more modern input/output like terminals or CRT display & keyboard.