|
The Peripheral Interchange Program (PIP), on the Digital Equipment Corporation's computers was a utility to transfer data files.
It was first implemented on the PDP-6 sometime in the 1960's. It was subsequently implemented on both the DEC-10 and PDP-11.
"Dit" Morse, who developed PIP, originally named it ATLATL which was an acronym for "Anything Lord to Anything Lord". This succinctly described its purpose as a device independent file copying tool.
After some use, it was finally realized that the hand-crafted syntax:
PIP destination:source
actually was inverted from common English usage. Thus the command:
COPY source destination
syntax was born, one of the dozens of utilities that resided on the PDP and DEC machines. As late as the mid 1970s, PIP was in common use, along-side its descendant.
After Gary Kildall started CP/M, he took the PIP and file concepts as well. The protean utilities which move data can also be seen in the UNIX command:
cp source destination
which also ran on the Teletype workstations of the early 1970s and which survive in MS-DOS.
| 
