SYS$DECDTM_INHIBIT TRUE

[John Gillings]

re Joseph:

> if assign/deassign was really case
>insensitive until DEFINE was introduced in
>VMS (version?).

DEFINE has been around since day 1, but in V1.0, the ASSIGN form was preferred in documentation and system provided command procedures.

My recollection was that all the DCL logical name commands uppercased everything, so in a sense they were case insensitive. I remember an issue using $crelog (not $crelnm, which didn't exist). I managed to create a lower case logical name which was effectively invisible to DCL. You could see it with SHOW LOGICAL, but not translate or DEASSIGN. Back then there were only 3 logical name tables PROCESS, GROUP and SYSTEM. $CRELOG and $TRNLOG still exist for compatibility, but are no longer documented. They can only see the original 3 tables.

Documentation changed with VMS V2.0 to favour DEFINE over ASSIGN, which was a throwback to earlier operating systems, RSTS and/or RSX. Makes me wonder why some folk still use the archaic ASSIGN form, since it was superceeded over 30 years ago! But then some people still persist with EDT. Thank the stars engineering didn't insist on compatibility and keep SOS ;-)

The more general logical name structures we know today were introduced with VMS V4.0, early 1980's.