The two major kinds of command shells are command line interfaces and graphic user interfaces.
The command line (C:\ prompt) of MS-DOS or Bourne Shell of UNIX are examples of the older style text-based command shells.
The command shell on the Macintosh is the Finder, the first commercially available graphic command shell. On Windows, the Command Shell is a poorly integrated combination of the File Manager and the Program Manager.
Pen based command shells used in hand held computers (such as the Newton and the Palm) are a variation on the desktop computer’s graphic user interface.
Some operating systems also support voice recognition, although this is usually limited to being a supplement to a graphic user interface rather than being a stand-alone interface.
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The file system and the shell program (especially graphic shell programs) are the primary ways that the typical computer user experiences a computer. Many people think of an operating system as just these two elements.
bash (Bourne-again Shell): BeOS e48
Operating systems that support DCL: OpenVMS
“OpenVMS provides a DCL as a scripting language or native “shell”. This provides using constant English commands access to the operating system and its utilities. For new users, they can type HELP and get information on how to get specific help on different components of the operating system. While the view from the DCL shell is different from UNIX compatible systems, there is much in common between the two operating systems.” —John Malmberge85
Operating systems that support MS-DOS command line: MS-DOS, PC-DOS-2000, Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT
Operating systems that support JCL: MVS
Operating systems that support the standard UNIX shells: AIX, BSDi Internet Super Server, Digital UNIX, FreeBSD, GNU Hurd, HP-UX, IRIX, LINUX, Mac OS X, Mac OS X Server, NetBSD, NeXT, NeXTSTEP, OpenBSD, OpenSTEP, OS/2 e122 , Pyramid, Rhapsody, SCO OpenServer, SCO UNIXWare, Solaris, Sun-OS, ULTRIX
“OpenVMS provides DCL as a scripting language or native “shell”. The OpenVMS DCL command set resembles conversational English, is very easy to learn and use, with no cryptic abbreviations to remember, and allows fast learning of the command set by novice users. This provides using constant English commands access to the operating system and its utilities. For new users, they can type HELP and get information on how to get specific help on different components of the operating system. The built in powerful scripting language DCL allows easy automation of routine tasks. While the view from the DCL shell is different from UNIX compatible systems, there is much in common between the two operating systems.” —John Malmberge85
“Unix comes with one or more command-line shells that support sophisticated scripting languages with easy access to its network utilities. This is often the most efficient way to automate complex administration tasks. Windows NT has no similar capability (batch files are not competitive with shell scripts). You can fully administer a Unix server from any station supporting Telnet. Windows NT doesn’t even provide enough command-line tools to make this possible even if you could Telnet into a Windows NT server (you cannot by default, but a Telnet daemon is available for NT).” —Nicholas Petreley, “The new Unix alters NT’s orbit”w74
Explorer: Windows 95 e80 , Windows 98
Finder: [NOTE: This was the first commercially available graphic command shell.] Macintosh, Macintosh OS X (limited version), Macintosh OS X Server (limited version), Rhapsody (limited version)
“Hit any user to continue.” —Wayne
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Last Updated: November 18, 2006
Created: June 4, 1998
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