I think that it is mostly historical (just about every Unix system since about 1970 has had 'more').
There are some other reasons that are now at least mostly not applicable. For example, 'more' will work on a printing terminal but I believe that 'less' will not. There might be other VDTs that can not use 'less'. Another 'problem' that surely would be rare anymore is that 'less' will use a great deal more memory than 'more' for large files. Take a look at 'zless' too. This nifty pager displays gzipped files too. -- best, -bill [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] from a 1996 Micro$loth ad campaign: "The less you know about computers the more you want Micro$oft!" See! They do get some things right! -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]