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Date:      Fri, 29 Aug 1997 22:18:36 -0700 (MST)
From:      Charles Mott <cmott@snake.srv.net>
To:        questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: ppp and internal modem
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSF.3.96.970829221628.14681A-100000@darkstar.home>
In-Reply-To: <19970830133038.30783@lemis.com>

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On Sat, 30 Aug 1997, Greg Lehey wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 28, 1997 at 11:52:14PM -0600, Wes Peters wrote:
> > bob olbrich writes:
> >> Here's some new thoughts. During the FreeBSD installation procedure
> >> you have to select "ppp interface on serial port 1 (com2)". This
> >> sounds strange.  We are trying for com1 are we not.
> >
> > No.  Like all reasonable systems, UNIX begins labelling serial ports and
> > other resources with the first counting number, 0.  If you have two
> > serial ports, they are numbered 0 and 1.  DOS, developed by illiterates
> > for illiterates, calls these COM1 and COM2. 
> 
> To be fair, there's a great tradition of counting from 1.  Humans did
> it for centuries, and languages like FORTRAN still do.  Of course,
> this caused untold trouble when fitting device numbers into bit
> fields, so it makes more sense to start counting at 0.
> 
> Greg

I was just doing some scripting in awk, and the array indices
seemed to start with 1 and not 0, and this language was invented by the
same person who started C.





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