PEELING ONIONS WITHOUT CRYING
by Gail Hall, PC.BUG, June 1987

(Uncovering some secrets of D.COM)

How is using computers like peeling onions?  When you peel onions
they make you cry, and so does using computers -- sometimes. 
Also, onions have lots of layers.  As you get one layer off,
another layer is there to be worked at.  In the same way, while
using computers, you can start at the surface, but as you get
that layer off, you find more interesting stuff under that one,
and then another and another.

A simple example of this happened to me just recently.  My system
came with a program called D>COM on the CP/M program disk.  I
have used this program many times.  However, when I first read
the instructions, I did not understand a lot of what I was
reading, so I remembered only what I did understand.  I was
glancing through my "Read Me First" book and noticed the
instructions for using D.COM.  Lo and behold, the instructions
described some parameters which this author called switches.

If you type $UVS at the end of the command line, the directory
will display the user area, attributes, and system files.  $u
alone shows files in all user areas.  $v shows all these files
plus it displays the user number (UN).  $s shows the system files
which are normally not displayed.  These parameters, or switches,
can be used together or individually.  you can find the user
number for an individual file by typing:

D filename $uvs

or

D b:filename $uvs

So another layer is off, and I'm not crying.
