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<REFERENCE>PRIME

Prime Computer

Collected hereunder are publications related to Prime Computer. Some are items I have scanned. Others come from a variety of sources, including Bitsavers, 1000BiT, Jim Wilcoxson, James Cosper, Miguel Pebre Rodrigues, Peter Eriksson, William Maddox, Mark Brennan, Daiyu Hurst, and others.

Prime Publications

These items were published by Prime Computer, and relate to their 50 Series or EXL family computer systems. For more information on how Prime organized and labeled their publications, see Notes about Prime publications et seq on the Manual Numbers page.

Third Party Publications

These items were written by other organizations, but have some relationship to Prime's 50 Series as noted.

Stop Bit

The Languishing of the PRIMEal Command Environment

        By Mosley A. Meer, Ph. D.

In the beginning was PRIMEal Chaos.
And out of the Chaos came the substance of RDTK$$.
And after the putting on of many hands and the bloodying of some noses
    came the form of RDTK$$.
And RDTK$$ parsed the Command Line.
And RDTK$$ was found to be little better than Chaos.

At the time of RDTK$$ there came the plea for restrictions on the
    characters allowed in File Names.
But the plea was only partially heeded.
For it would cause Pain to the User.
And File Names were only partially removed from the Chaos.
And COMPATIBILITY shall Rule Forever.

And after the establishment of RDTK$$ came a plea for the consistency
    of Pathnames.
And the plea went unheeded.
For the inconsistent Pathnames were (already) of the FUTIL,
And Change would confuse the User,
And COMPATIBILITY shall Rule Forever.

And the inconsistent Pathnames were distributed to the Users.
And the inconsistent Pathnames were hardened into Steel and were fixed
Forever.

But the Brad of Hampson and the George of Stabler and the Mosley of Meer
    were dissatisfied with the inconsistent Pathnames,
For the Brad of Hampson had made the original plea on their behalf.
And they each tried to reform the inconsistent Pathnames.
But COMPATIBILITY Rules Forever.
And the inconsistent Pathnames were hardened into Steel and were fixed
    Forever.

[And the Brad of Hampson, noting that RDTK$$ was little better than
    Nothing, begat CL$PAR.
And it parsed the whole Command Line at once.
But it was compatible with RDTK$$,
For COMPATIBILITY Rules Forever.
But it was little better than RDTK$$.
And it too was better than Nothing.]

And there came the Bill of Silver to view the PRIMEal Command Line
    and bring it to order.
But another took him and he was no more of PRIME.

And there came the UISC which some thought would "clean up and fix up
    and bring Order to the Command Line."
But the UISC said, "We will try to bring Order within our limits and
    the limits of COMPATIBILITY."

And Len of Fehskens was appointed and anointed and command, "Create
    Order for the PRIMEal Command Line."
But Len of Fehskens was appointed other Tasks and was unable to do so.

And Steve of Chapin was appointed and anointed and command, "Create
    Order for the PRIMEal Command Environment."
But there was dissention.
And it was told that a Committee will be appointed to appoint a
    committee which will "Create Order for the PRIMEal Command
    Environment."

And it was told that Max of Smith has been appointed and anointed and
    commanded to "Create order for the PRIMEal Command Environment."
And Max of Smith syeth, "Yea, I must first understand my New Position
and write me a New Charter and then consider Creating Order for
    the PRIMEal Command Environment.
For I have been told to Consult of the Marketing and Note of Thier needs
    and write a report."

And thus lieth the Primeal Command Environment in disarray to this day.