CANDE

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This article refers the mainframe text editor. For the IEEE technical society, see Computer-Aided Design Technical Committee.
For Candé, the French commune of Maine-et-Loire, see Candé.

CANDE (Command AND Edit) is a command line shell and text editor on the MCP (Master Control Program) operating system which runs on the Unisys Clearpath series of mainframes. Originally implemented on Burroughs large systems, it was first deployed in the mid-1960s. It has a range of features for changing the OS environment, programming and the like.

Its full name is CANDE MCS. MCS, or Message Control Subsystem is the general form of a systems program in the Burroughs architecture (other than MCP the control program). As an MCS CANDE is more than just an editor as it provides overall control for a network of users.

The editing capabilities of CANDE are anachronistic as they predate full screen and graphical editors.

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[edit] Features

CANDE provides a command line interpreter and line editor. Other notable features and functions include:

  • Create, edit, and maintain (copy, remove, print) data and program files
  • Compile and execute programs
  • Access and display information about the data communication network including lines and remote devices
  • Dynamically alter the communication network
  • Access and display job and task information

In addition to these features CANDE has an on-line help facility.

[edit] Implementation

For extra speed, CANDE implemented user context switching by swapping a block at the top of the stack. This novel method broke several assumptions built into the design of Burroughs large systems, in particular the handling of virtual memory descriptors, and meant that CANDE itself had to be written in DCALGOL with system-level privileges.

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