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Message-ID: <F77432C810A08E469EA51DF6F3C1EDD8CA8889@EX_RASW2>
From: Dennis McCunney <DMcCunney AT roperasw DOT com>
To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Subject: RE: how do i simulate a null character from the keyboard?
Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 13:31:49 -0500
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: szeil AT notesmail DOT cs DOT odu DOT edu [mailto:szeil AT notesmail DOT cs DOT odu DOT edu]
> Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2002 1:08 PM
> To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
> Cc: emallove AT yahoo DOT com
> Subject: Re: how do i simulate a null character from the keyboard?
 
> ctrl-z, by the way, used as the terminator by MSDOS and other
> early PC operating systems was an unintentionally humorous
> choice. It's defined as the SUB character, used as
> a placeholder to indicate the data lost during a garbled 
> transmission.

MS-DOS inherited the usage from CP/M.  CP/M used it because the CP/M
directory did not store exact length of the file.  A marker was needed to
specify where the file actually ended if the file size was not an exact
multiple of disk block size.
 
> Steve Z
______
Dennis
 

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