Command line redirection Moving characters about CIO [n1] Mnemonic: Copy Input to Output The CIO function is a general purpose 1616 function for moving characters about between devices and files, between devices and devices and between files and files. This command simply reads characters from standard input and writes them to standard output, optionally terminating on the character whose ASCII code is ‘n1’. Termination also occurs when the key sequence is entered, or when an end-of-file character (as specified by option 6 ) is read from a character device. If the terminating byte is specified it must appear on the command line before any I/O redirections.
The power of this command comes from 1616/OS I/O redirection capabilities. The input and/or output of the CIO command is redirected to different devices to move character streams about. For performing file transfers from other machines you may specify the optional termination character ‘n1’. If, for example, you were downloading a file from a CP/M machine to the 1616 you may select the CP/M end-of-file character (1a hex) as the terminating character. CIO copies all characters up to, but not including the termination character. Use option 6 to set the end of file character. When CIO gets its input from a file (using the ‘ transfer when the file is exhausted.
This is the program that underlies the cat and type commands. Some examples: Alt Ctrl C CIO With this command we have left the output device at its default, the video display. The input for the CIO command comes from the file ‘filename’ and the command will terminate when all characters have been read from this file. This command prints the file on the screen! CIO 1a >myfile Read characters from serial channel A and write them onto the new file ‘myfile’. Terminate when a control-Z (ASCII code $1a) is received. CIO >>myfile Read characters from serial channel B and append then to ‘myfile’. The user will have to type to terminate this transfer.
Alt C 1616/OS Commands User Tutorial Manual Page 81