History
Around 1962, the Compatible Time-Sharing System introduced the concept of a file (i.e., non-paper file).
Around this same time appeared the dot (period or full-stop) as a filename extension separator, and the limit to three letter extensions might have come from RAD50 16-bit limits.
Traditionally, filenames allowed only alphanumeric characters, but as time progressed, the number of characters allowed increased. This led to incompatibility problems when moving files from one file system to another.
Around 1995, VFAT, a variant of the FAT filesystem with an extended directory format, was introduced in Windows 95 and Windows NT 3.5. It allowed mixed-case Unicode long filenames (LFNs), in addition to classic "8.3" names.
In 1985, RFC 959 officially defined a pathname to be the character string which must be entered into a file system by a user in order to identify a file.
OS X 10.3 marked Apple's adoption of Unicode 3.2 character decomposition, superseding the Unicode 2.1 decomposition used previously. This change caused problems for developers writing software for OS X.
Read more about this topic: Filename
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“America is the only nation in history which miraculously has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilization.”
—Georges Clemenceau (1841–1929)
“Don’t give your opinions about Art and the Purpose of Life. They are of little interest and, anyway, you can’t express them. Don’t analyse yourself. Give the relevant facts and let your readers make their own judgments. Stick to your story. It is not the most important subject in history but it is one about which you are uniquely qualified to speak.”
—Evelyn Waugh (1903–1966)
“We have need of history in its entirety, not to fall back into it, but to see if we can escape from it.”
—José Ortega Y Gasset (1883–1955)