" *. " -- What does it mean?

[myno]

Hi.

stardot...

*.

I've fiddled around a tiny little bit on Matt Godbolt's https://bbc.xania.org/ because of my interest in everything Elite-related, but I joined the party only relatively recently. I might have fooled around on a BBC Micro in primary school in the early 80s, but I was blissfully ignorant of what the machine was actually called, and I don't recall the details of it all anymore; it might even have been another machine, I don't know. They were all just "computers" to me; I did not perceive any differences between the wonderfully-enigmatic mysteries of one machine in comparison to another. I thought they were all the same, and they could all do the same things in the same ways to the same extent.

So, I don't know anything, really, as far as the hardware is concerned. I remember a bit of BASIC I learned from my dad on a DOS, 8088 XT PC-compatible clone machine: CLS, LIST, PRINT, INPUT, and some basic BASIC programming (IF, THEN; FOR, NEXT; GOTO).

So... *. ... I don't really know what it's all about, except that, on bbc.xania.org, it seems to give a directory/folder listing of files. ...And I noticed that the stardot.org.uk homepage displays a *.-key on a keyboard... That's what got me curious to ask ...

Was there actually ever really such a key on any Acorn machine?
If not, would it have helped any to have such a key?
Why was *. chosen as the ... thing ... for these forums?
Is it just my imagination, or does the stardot forum emblem indicate that *. actually looks like the orbitals/nucleus/Proton of an Atom with an Electon whizzing around it?... (The Beeb was originally called the "Proton"...???)

I'd be very much interested to learn the history and lore of this (sub-)cultural symbol/icon, please, if anyone would be so kind as to explain it to me -- and anything else that they think might be of interest in this regard -- please. ...or point me in the direction of some documentation I might read on this... Thanks. (I have read a bit of wikipedia before, on the history Acorn machines in general.)

Kind regards
myno

[danielj]

It's the abbreviation of the command *CAT which is used to show the catalogue of the contents of the current storage device. Invariably a floppy disc as its a pain to do it with tapes!

(for anyone feeling pedantic: yes, I know it could also be econet, sd card, Winchester, whatever...)

[daveejhitchins]

It's the abbreviation of the command "CAT which is used to show the catalogue of the contents of the current storage device. Invariably a floppy disc as its a pain to do it with tapes!

(for anyone feeling pedantic: yes, I know it could also be econet, sd card, Winchester, whatever...)

Daniel really meant "It's the abbreviation of the command *CAT" He's on the wrong keyboard - Dave H.

[SteveBagley]

Probably also worth mentioning that both the BBC OS/MOS and RiscOS, allow commands (at least those implemented in ROM/Module, I don’t think it works for spawning files on disk) to be abbreviated in general, so as well as *CAT reducing to just *., *HELP can become *H., *DELETE can become *DEL. and so on…

Steve

[tricky]

I'm BBC basic and the os, key words can be abbreviated by putting the first part of the word and then a full stop. Os commands start with an asterisk and claimed the shortest abbreviation for itself.
Basic print can be abbreviated by P. Etc

[1024MAK]

*. is just Acorn being dog lovers as it means you don't have to mention cats....

This site and forum takes its name from *. hence star dot > StarDot. And yes, I know the symbol is really called an asterisk.

The images of an asterisk and the impression of the idea of an Atom are indeed pointers that this site supports all Acorn computers including the Acorn System range, the Acorn Atom, the Electron, the Acorn BBC Micro (model A and model B), BBC B+, BBC Master 128, BBC Master Compact and the other less well known models. But also the various Acorn Archimedes computers.

Mark

[tricky]

You missed the Electron, I know you included lesser know but in the atom, proton world, the electron should be called out

[1024MAK]

I noticed after I posted, hence quickly went back and edited my post... Apologies to all Elk fans, was not intentional.

Mark

[james]

I think *CAT has a special place in the (M)OS commands. Any abbreviation will run the first match in the OS command table which is mostly alphabetic.

However, you can see on MOS 3.x that *CAT has been placed at the start of the list so it is the first command that will be matched by the shortest abbreviation: *.

Likewise, *LOAD and *RUN are ahead of the other Ls and Rs so they work with *L. and *R.

*CAT / *. is the most exulted command!

[danielj]

Daniel really meant "It's the abbreviation of the command *CAT" He's on the wrong keyboard - Dave H.

Hahah - I did - I was on my phone keyboard and not wearing glasses

[Cybershark]

Is it just my imagination, or does the stardot forum emblem indicate that *. actually looks like the orbitals/nucleus/Proton of an Atom with an Electon whizzing around it?... (The Beeb was originally called the "Proton"...???)

Hahaha, that's a very creative interpretation which manages to be right on the nose

[tricky]

Take a look at the virtual ABUG splash screen/logo although it is much newer.

[MartinB]

Is it just my imagination, or does the stardot forum emblem indicate that *. actually looks like the orbitals/nucleus/Proton of an Atom with an Electon whizzing around it?... (The Beeb was originally called the "Proton"...???)

Very perceptive of you..…

[myno]

Thanks, everyone.

... Most educational, indeed. ...and some funny posts in there; I was laughing out load.

[1024MAK]

Thanks, everyone.

... Most educational, indeed. ...and some funny posts in there; I was laughing out load.

Oh! By the way, welcome to the mad house

Mark

[Mince]

Interestingly (maybe), recently I looked at Atari BASIC and that uses the same system of using a dot to enter shortcuts for BASIC keywords.

Amusingly (likely), Atari didn't think to order the more used commands first, though, so P. is an abbreviation for POINT (which is a bit like PTR# but takes sector and byte numbers!) and you have to use PR. for PRINT.

https://www.atarimania.com/documents/At ... _Guide.pdf

[Coeus]

I think *CAT has a special place in the (M)OS commands. Any abbreviation will run the first match in the OS command table which is mostly alphabetic.

The reason for this is that on the Model B, *CAT, *LOAD and *SAVE are built into the MOS ROM, where they work for TAPE too and, for filing systems other than tape they are translated into the relevant FSC or OSFILE call. The likes of *ACCESS are provided by DFS and likewise for various other DFS and ADFS specific commands. The paged ROM call to offer a command offers an unrecognised command so the MOS always checked its own command table first before DFS/ADFS/NFS etc. got to see a command.

Then, for the Master, it made sense to consolidate those commands that work across filing systems, including the file utils commands that were previously in the DFS so these are now all in the MOS command table. But, people will have got used to *CAT, *LOAD and *SAVE being able to be abbreviated very succinctly and may have even built that into programs, so the command table has these at the start for backwards compatibility,