OS/2 Museum personal blog
Why Does Windows Really Use Backslash as Path Separator?
More or less anyone using modern PCs has to wonder: Why does Windows use backslash as a path separator when the rest of the world uses forward slash? The clear intermediate answer is “because DOS and OS/2 used backslash”. Both Windows 9x and NT were directly or indirectly derived from DOS and OS/2, and certainly…
- Points
- 271
- HN comments
- 417
- Submissions
- 3
- Cited by
- 7 commenters
History & Retro ComputingSystems & Performance2019
On Hacker News
| Submitted | Title on HN | Points | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| May 24, 2019 | Why Does Windows Really Use Backslash as Path Separator? by Narishma | 271 | 204 |
| Feb 28, 2022 | Why Does Windows Use Backslash as Path Separator? (2019) by susam | 120 | 65 |
| Apr 24, 2024 | Why does Windows use backslash as path separator? (2019) by lproven | 72 | 148 |
Cited in comments
Linked from 11 Hacker News comments by 7 different people, from Sep 2020 to Aug 2026.
Most recent:
- jlmcgraw · Aug 20, 2026
- lproven · Apr 7, 2025
- gattilorenz · Jun 12, 2024
- lproven · Apr 24, 2024
- canucker2016 · Jul 22, 2023
- lproven · Aug 26, 2022
