The shell reads its commands from STDIN line by line and executes them. First internal commands are compared with the input. Then, if no internal command has been found, the actual directory is searched for the file to be executed. The file is then loaded and executed in its own environment. The shell waits for its completion, if the command line is not ended with an ampersand '&'. Then the command is executed in the background. The STD* streams can be redirected with "<", ">", "!" for STDIN, STDOUT and STDERR respecitvely. A "|" between two external comands pipes the STDOUT of the first program to the STDIN of the second command.
Shell commands:
x: sets drive to 'x:'
DIR d:name?.* shows directory
TYPE filename print file on STDOUT
DEL filename delete file
FORMAT/x d:name format disk in drive d:, format x (which is a
number, see fsibm), and gives it a the name
'name'.
CHKDSK d: check disk
RENAME name1 name2 renames 'name1' to 'name2'
B filename
BATCH filename Switches STDIN to filename, until an EOF is
read, then returns to normal STDIN
MONITOR switch to machine language monitor
LOGOFF exit shell
COPYCON filename writes the terminal input to a file, until
a line with a "@" is read.
DUP >file1 <file2 !file3
redirects STDOUT to file1, STDIN to file2, and
STDERR to file3. STDOUT and STDERR can be redirected
to the same file with ">!".
CHDIR newdir
CD newdir change to a new directory
DEVCMD dev cmd par calls the DEVCMD kernel call. The device is given
as name, cmd as one of IRQ, RES, GETSTR, PUTSTR,
RXON, RXOFF, TXON, TXOFF, SPEED, HANDSHAKE, STATUS
and EXIT.
COPY file1 file2 copy file1 to file2 in background
(for multiple files better use mcopy, as
copying in the background eats up system resources
if too many files are copied)
GETSTR get a free stream
FRESTR x release the stream
SETMEM x set memory size of task to x times 4kByte
INFO prints the information given by GETINFO kernel
call bug: currently only ten tasks are printed
due to earlier revision restrictions.
KILL x kill task x
MKDIR dirname make a new directory
RMDIR dirname remove a directory
ROM filename reads memory mapping information (like the OS/A65
ROM boot entry) and starts the file from ROM.