System field options

[Fairlight]

On Mon, Feb 15, 2021 at 10:45:16AM -0800, Bill Campbell via Filepro-list thus spoke:
> For many years *nix system restricted the username to 8
> characters.  It's a Good Idea(TM) to restrict usernames to lower
> case although mixed case is generally accepted.

Significant characters was a data size limitation for ages.

Case is entirely another thing.  It used to mean something significant,
back in the BSD 4.3 or so days.  If you logged in with uppercase, it
would put it in some wacky mode where every character was (and this is a
VERY old memory, as I've not seen this since uni) both in uppercase
-and- prefaced with a backslash.  As I remember it, if your prompt was
"prompt: " and you logged in with uppercase, you would see:
"\P\R\O\M\P\T\:\ ", etc., etc., for your entire session.  Right account,
totally wrong diplay mode.

I literally do not recall what that mode was for.  I know it was
intentionally implemented, but if I ever found out what it was good for,
I have long since forgotten everything but its existence.  Doesn't seem
to work on Linux in this era, based on a quick check.

Usernames in *nix belong in lowercase, though, full stop.

m->
-- 
Audio panton, cogito singularis.