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Comment by jmclnx | Hacker News Reader

Interesting read and I found out things I did not know.

My first UNIX was Wang IN/ix, which was 14 characters. That was in the very late 80s. Not long afterwards for home use I got Coherent OS, that also had a max of 14.

Later was Slackware, seemed the sky was the limit.

But to be honest, I wish there was still a smaller file name limit, I usually keep my file names size small. But I know I am in a tiny minority when it comes to the size of the file name :)

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Pretty sure the original Minix filesystem name length was also limited to 14 bytes.

Edit: Yes:

https://github.com/gdevic/minix1/blob/3475e7ed91a3ff3f8862b2...

https://github.com/gdevic/minix1/blob/master/fs/type.h

I don't miss dealing with 8.3 filename conventions at all (or the 255-byte size limit DOS had for file paths, so a list of subdirectories can't typically be more than 30 or so deep).

Windows 11 still has this limit baked in for some reason.

EDIT: Upon further reading, it appears MS did finally get rid of this restriction, but some 32-bit apps still don't play nice.

I still feel there is some limit because I'm constantly finding that I can't nest long folder names very deep.

This would be something that depends on the filesystem. Windows 11 supports various different types.

Some would even have configurable parameters.

Huh, I never knew there was a Wang Unix before. Presumably this was on the VS8000 systems? I found this brochure mentioning it:

https://www.1000bit.it/ad/bro/wang/vs8000.pdf

"Wang also offers a UNIX System V.2-compatible operating system, IN/ix for the VS8000 series" and a footnote mentions that it's due in 1990

My Dad did some work with Wang 2200 systems, but by 1990 it had become clear that the IBM PC compatible was inevitable and he'd switched to Niakwa Basic instead of Wang systems for his customers (mostly running a bespoke small business payroll system).

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