HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: dagbrown@napier.waterloo.edu (Dave Brown)
Subject: Re: Classic computer games and modern versions
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 19:14:20 GMT

In article <baS-9Y=@engin.umich.edu> darrin@engin.umich.edu (Darrin P Cardani) writes:
>I've never played Lemmings, but the Mac game Fool's Errand is a classic
>puzzle game.

The Fool's Errand!  The _best_ Mac game ever written!  The only problem
is, I have an Amiga.  Does anybody know of an Amiga version of this
game?  

--Dave Brown, a hopeless Fool's Errand addict who _still_ hasn't 
  gotten those last couple of puzzles and doesn't have a Mac so
  he can't play it .....

--
Dave Brown
dagbrown@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca
Phone: (519) 725-6896
"I believe the word you're looking for is, 'AAAARRGH!!!!'" - The Penguin
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Non Unix-OS's
From: ecmtwhk@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz (Thomas Koenig)
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 06:25:08 GMT
Organization: University of Auckland, New Zealand.

magnus@THEP.LU.SE (Magnus Olsson) writes:

>So, I wonder, how many non-Unix OS's are still being used on *new*
>multi-user hardware? 

Fujitsu sells their VP series also under VSP, which is an MVS clone.

A few years ago, Siemens was actively pushing BS-2000; I'm not sure
wether they still do.

Of course, in the field of real-time systems, there are many non - Unix
systems, for example the OS for the HP-1000 series; I forget its name
at the moment.
-- 
Thomas Koenig, ecmtwhk@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz, ib09@rz.uni-karlsruhe.de
The joy of engineering is to find a straight line on a double logarithmic
diagram.
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner)
Subject: Re: Computer Relics (Was: 9 track data storage?)
Reply-To: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner)
Organization: Columbia University
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 08:32:21 GMT

In article <1992Jul23.052322.21011@unislc.uucp> thayne@unislc.uucp (Thayne Forbes) writes:
>
>Lets make it more challenging.  Who still has any of these on a system
>running today.  How about any two?  Anybody want to go for three?  I
>have 9-track and paper tape concurrently as late as 1982 (although I
>will concede that this use was infrequent).  I have never used core
>memory, but Sperry used to give away little PCBs containing about 1K
>of memory to 'Visiting Dignitaries (tm)'.

OK, no problem whatsoever:

PDP-8/e with PDP-8/a 20-slot chassis for hex cards.

32K implemented from 2 MM8AB 16K x 12 core planes

PC04 papertape reader/punch

CR8E card reader interface with Documation 400 CPM card reader; 029 keypunch

M4/Thorn/EMI Magtape drive

RK05 x 2 and RK8E

TC08 DECtape controller with 4 drives (TU56 dual x 2)

RX02/RX8E and/or DSD-210 RX01-superset 8" floppy

InterProcessorBuffer to LINC-8 providing LINCtape support on 2 drives

CIS console breakpoint debugger

8/e front panel

8/a front panel

FP8A ASCII terminal front panel and battery-backup clock

MDC8 SCSI adaptor with OMTI 5400 controller to 1.2 Meg HD floppy, QIC-02
tape streamer, 80 Megabyte Hard disk x 2, SyQuest 555 45 Megabyte removable
cartridge hard disk

DECmate III as console terminal

LA-180 parallel printer

LA-120 serial printer

Various additional terminals and printers (some DEC, some others)

VT8E DMA terminal-like device

LAB-8/e peripherals and RM-602 oscilloscope

Most of the equipment is in 3 H-960 full-height racks.  The LINC-8 stands
next to it in its outsized cabinet.

BTW, there are bigger, older -8 systems around, but you wanted one with
those particulars, etc., so I am showing you how they fit into the overall
scheme of things.

cjl
From: phil@adam.adelaide.edu.au (Phil Kernick)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: The Turn of The Century<tm>
Date: 22 Jul 92 00:06:32 GMT
Organization: University of Adelaide, South Australia

gdolgner@chelsea.prime.com (Gene Dolgner) writes:

I can't believe that I am actually defending COBOL, but still...

>I wouldn't program in COBOL for 2 MILLION DOLLARS!

I would.  I would code in most anything for $2M.  I'd probably even code in
my underwear in winter for that sort of cash.

>BTW, How many COBOL programmers does it take to screw in a light bulb?
>A: We don't know, but it'll take 4 programmers a week to code up the
>   procedure.

Trivial!  The problem is, and I have just finished a course on how to
program in the language, is that:

                          COBOL IS A TOY LANGUAGE

Straight out.  You can code anything simple in it with no real difficulty,
it is just very wordy.  However don't try anything complicated!

That I assume is why it is worth so much, lot's of clever hacks to get
functionality out of a toy language.



Just my $0.05 (they threw out 1c and 2c coins last month!)

Phil.

-- 
   _-_|\    Phil Kernick                E-Mail: phil@adam.adelaide.edu.au
  /     \   Departmental Engineer       Phone:  +61 8 228 5914
  \_.-*_/   Dept. of Psychology         Fax:    +61 8 224 0464
       v    University of Adelaide      Mail:   GPO Box 498 Adelaide SA 5001
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: hollombe@polymath.tti.com (The Polymath)
Subject: Re: dinosaur horsepower
Organization: The Cat Factory
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1992 00:56:11 GMT

In article <7566@public.BTR.COM> thad@public.BTR.COM (Thaddeus P. Floryan) writes:
}Ah, papertape.  You could SEE your bytes, and nary a problem if dropped
}'cause the tape was linear (contrast dropping a deck of unverified punched
}cards :-)                                               ^^^^^^^^^^

I think you mean "unsequenced", i.e.:  With no sequence numbers punched in
the last 8 columns. "Verification" was a method of checking the
correctness of punched cards based on the dubious assumption that two
different keypunch operators wouldn't duplicate each others' mistakes.

The Polymath (aka: Jerry Hollombe, M.A., CDP, aka: hollombe@polymath.tti.com)
Head Robot Wrangler at Citicorp                   Turn the rascals out!
3100 Ocean Park Blvd.   (310) 450-9111, x2483     No incumbents in '92!
Santa Monica, CA  90405
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: jcmorris@mwunix.mitre.org (Joe Morris)
Subject: Re: IBM vs. world terminology (was: What does dd stand for?)
Organization: The MITRE Corporation
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1992 21:22:01 GMT

grog@adagio.UUCP (Greg Lehey) writes:

>In article <jcmorris.712248190@mwunix> jcmorris@mwunix.mitre.org (Joe Morris) writes:
>>ecmtwhk@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz (Thomas Koenig) writes:

>>>disk		DASD

>                                       my recollection was that we
>called disks disks.

Yup.  "disk" is a subset of the class "DASD".

>>>formatting	DASDi

>>DASDI == "DASD Initialization".  This is *not* the same as formatting;

>correct, one of the things you had to tell the system when allocating
>files was what format they should have. *Then* the system would go out
>and format the parts of the disk you had allocated in the form you
>wanted. Great for OLTP.

This usually doesn't have any impact on a running program, OLTP or otherwise.
The rules were rather simple:

  - If the data set is VSAM, it's formatted when it's allocated.

  - If the data set is DA (random access) it's formatted when it is
    first opened.

  - If the data set is partitioned, the directory is formatted when it
    is first allocated.  (*Members* of a PDS are always sequential files.)

  - If the file is sequential, or is a member of a PDS, the formatting is
    done as the data is written to the disk.

So once you get your OLTP application running the issue of when formatting
occurs becomes a non-issue.  OTOH, if you are in the habit of starting and
stopping complex OLTP applications you may have startup delays if you haven't
designed the application for the platform on which you're running it.
But what else is new?

Remember also that the basic architecture of OS/360 (and now MVS) dates from
the days when disk was very expensive, but memory was ridiculously so.
Trade-off decisions which would be silly today were justified when
purchasing memory was a corporate-level decision because of its high
price.  And like it or not, there is a tremendous installed base of
programs which are predicated on the way OS/360 and its progeny are
designed.  

>>>core dump	abend

>                                                         And I could
>have sworn that there was an SVC to abend your program.

Easy: SVC 13 (decimal).  Easier: the ABEND macro, in SYS1.MACLIB.

Joe Morris
From: gdolgner@chelsea.prime.com (Gene Dolgner)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: The Turn of The Century<tm>
Date: 21 Jul 92 00:26:35 GMT
Reply-To: gdolgner@chelsea.Prime.COM (Gene Dolgner)
Organization: Computervision, Bedford, MA

In article <5663.2A685679@psycho.fidonet.org> jra@f160.n3603.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Jay Ashworth) writes:

>Wanna make a million bucks?
>Learn COBOL.
>Yes.
>COBOL.
>The last estimate I heard was that there was $46B(!) or so of COBOL code that was gonna break on 01/01/2000.  Something about `00' being an invalid year...?

I wouldn't program in COBOL for 2 MILLION DOLLARS!

BTW, How many COBOL programmers does it take to screw in a light bulb?

A: We don't know, but it'll take 4 programmers a week to code up the
   procedure.

:-)  :-)  :-)


Gene Dolgner, contractor at large (I may reappear at any time!)
gdolgner@chelsea.Prime.COM
"Life goes slower when you graze."  -  Northern Exposure
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: aldavi01@starbase.spd.louisville.edu (Arlie Davis)
Subject: Re: Pronouncing Unix names
Organization: University of Louisville
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 04:54:51 GMT

In <13821@mindlink.bc.ca> Charlie_Gibbs@mindlink.bc.ca (Charlie Gibbs) writes:

>      A while back there was a thread discussing how to pronounce
> ".cshrc".  I don't want to get back into that one (I use the Bourne
> shell myself :-).  But has anyone thought about other Unix names that
> are equally difficult to pronounce?

>      Like /usr, for instance.  I don't feel really comfortable
> pronouncing it "user" because there might actually be a directory
> somewhere by that name.  An instructor in a course I recently took
> pronounced it with a short "u" sound, as in "us".  Or as in Edgar
> Allan Poe's "Fall of the House of /usr".

>      Another vexing one is /etc.  "Et cetera" is too unwieldy.  But
> I've heard it pronounced "et-see".  Cute but effective.

"etc" is pronounced here (at least by the people I know) as "ets".  One
syllable.  "usr" is either "us-r" (as above) or like "oo-sr".  We do have
a /user filesystem (and a /user0 and a /user1 and ...), so pronouncing "usr"
as "user" is right out.

Better yet, how do you pronounced chmod, chacl (access control lists, in HPUX),
chown, chfn, chsh, chatr?  "chmod" is "ch-mod" (no vowel in the first half-a-
syllable), "chacl" is like "chackle", "chown" is like "shown" (but with a ch,
of course), "chfn" is "ch-schwa-fin", "chsh" is very interesting (usually
"ch-schwa-sh-schwa", and "chatr" is just like "chatter".

Also, "pwd" is pronounced "pw-schwa-d", with *almost* no vowel at all.
Some neanderthals pronounce it "print-working-directory".

-- 
lrwx------   1 aldavi01 emacsstu       9 Jun  6 12:43 .signature -> /dev/null
From: gdh@calmasd.Prime.COM (Gerald Hall)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: SUN == "San University Net|Node"?
Date: 30 Jul 92 22:42:40 GMT
Organization: Computervision, San Diego, CA

In article <paulf.712513843@w6yx> paulf@w6yx (Paul Flaherty) writes:
>SUN :== Stanford University Network project, out which came Sun, SGI, and
>Cisco.

Not to mention Codata, Wycat, the NCR "Tower" and a couple of others
I can't remember.  SUN produced the first(?) Multibus MC68000 CPU
board that could run UNIX (V7!) and about half a dozen companies
licensed it and went into production.  SMI (Sun) was the only one to
fully appreciate the importance of the graphics capabilities of
this board and was the only one to really make it big. (Pun?)

-- 
   /
  /	Jerry,	CalmaSD UNIX SysAdmin,	+1 619 587 3065
 /
From: don@zl2tnm.gen.nz (Don Stokes)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Unix Roots of DOS?
Date: 29 Jul 92 07:45:16 GMT
Organization: The Wolery

lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner) writes:
> What compression utility stores individual files in less than one byte?
> Most I have seen start each file on a new byte boundary at least, so the
> file still has to occupy one byte.

Well, you could always store the file in the filename.... 8-)

--
Don Stokes, ZL2TNM (DS555)                        don@zl2tnm.gen.nz (home)
Network Manager, Computing Services Centre            don@vuw.ac.nz (work)
Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand              +64-4-495-5052
From: jdavis@bordeaux.kpno.noao.edu (Jim Davis)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: What does dd stand for?
Date: 25 Jul 92 02:00:02 GMT
Organization: National Optical Astronomy Observatories, Tucson AZ

In article <1992Jul25.011759.7655@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu> dougw@zippy.as.arizona.edu (Doug Williams) writes:
>I am interested in the derivation of the name of the Unix command dd.  My
>local Unix guru said he always assumed it stood for "device to device," but
>could not substantiate this claim.  Any guesses??
>
>----
>dougw@as.arizona.edu

In a former life I worked on an IBM MVS system.  MVS ("Man vs System") has
JCL, the ultimate Command Language from Hell.  The "DD" statement shows up a
lot in JCL.  (Unfortunately I still remember that DD stands for Data
Definition.)  So much for the name; for the connection with UNIX's "dd"
command, Kernighan and Pike ("The UNIX Programming Environment") say, on
page 107:

	The dd command is rather different from all the other commands
	we have looked at.  It is intended primarily for processing tape
	data from other systems -- its very name is a reminder of OS/360
	job control language.

(OS/360 was a predecessor to MVS.)

Actually I'm surprised there hasn't been a "twisted JCL" thread yet.  Of
course there's some redundancy in that phrase, but one could come up with
some really strange things... like internal readers and running TSO as a
batch job.

-- 
Jim Davis               | "She's 31 years old and smells like chalk!"
jdavis@noao.edu         |   -- Ellen
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: rdippold@cancun.qualcomm.com (Ron Dippold)
Subject: Re: Today's Games Destined to be Classics
Organization: Qualcomm, Inc., San Diego, CA
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1992 09:22:28 GMT

cs@ib.cc.rl.ac.uk (C. Stratford) writes:
>>CLUELESS!!!!!  The CoCo is the Radio Shack Color Computer, one of the
>>neater beasts to come from the guts of Tandy...it ran OS/9 and did other
>>neat things.

>It was also one of the few computers (apart from the PC) to have a clone 
>made of it - the wonderful (but sadly long dead) Dragon 32. 

The Apple ][ has also been extensively cloned.  Perhaps the most so
except for the PC...  I can think of several Asian knock offs, then
the Basis, the Franklin, and whatever the hell Central Point's recent
//c clone was called.
-- 
Individualists unite!
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: tvv@tandem.com (Tom Van Vleck)
Subject: Re: What does UNIX mean?
Reply-To: VanVleck_Tom@tandem.com
Organization: Tandem Computers Inc, Cupertino CA
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 17:46:24 GMT

Clare West writes:
>In a PC magazine (One of those glossy IBM-PC-Clone things full of ads)
>there was an article about Unix, it claimed (I'm paraphrasing this
>from a faulty memory) that:
>
>  Unix was originally designed to be a single user version of Multics
>
>I guess that they at least knew that Unix was an operating system.
>

Actually I remember being told in 1970 or so that Thompson and Ritchie
were working on just that, a single user operating system, after Bell
Labs dropped out of the Multics development effort in April 1969.  
Many of the UNIX design choices make sense in this context: simple
access control, no resource limiting or accounting, panic and reboot
if trouble.

The UNIX designers were familiar with the line-printer banner hung in
the fifth floor hall at Project MAC, which read

  Multics is the one system to have if you're having more than one

Can't remember who came up with this clever rephrasing of a beer ad.
We were proud of our project, but the sign also had a bitter
undertone.  It was posted when we HAD more than one system: we were
using CTSS on the 7094 to develop Multics on the GE-645, and it took
years longer than planned, and we had to rent the 7094 for longer than
planned, at great cost.  It also referred to the fact that Multics
used "more than one" CPU symmetrically.  So Multics was Big Science,
and it contrasted with the modest and simple approach taken by the
UNIX designers.  This may have influenced the name.

-- Tom Van Vleck <vanvleck_tom@tandem.com>
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: lemay@epx.cis.umn.edu ()
Subject: Re: Cloned computers
Organization: University of Minnesota
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 19:18:42 GMT

In article <1992Jul30.175250.7607@cs.cornell.edu> chapman@cs.cornell.edu (Richard Chapman) writes:
>greg@Quotron.COM (Greg "Maddog" Knauss) writes:
>
>>The recent talk of various Tandy clones made me wonder how much hardware
>>has been knocked-off over the years.  These are the ones I know of:
>
>>Original			Clones
>>------------------------------- -------------------------------
>>IBM (PC/AT/etc.)		[Billions and billions...]
>>Apple II(+/e/c)			Franklin (1000/1200), Laser 128
>>Tandy Color Computer		Dragon 32
>>Tandy TRS-80			Video Genie
>>Macintosh			[Rumored.  Asian and American.]
>
>>Anything else?
>
>Amdahl cloned IBM mainframes in the '70s. I think Terak cloned the pdp-8.
                                                   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
WRONG. Terak 'cloned' the PDP-11 (actually, LSI-11).

Terak users of the world, UNITE!

-Lawrence LeMay
 lemay@epx.cis.umn.edu
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: darrin@engin.umich.edu (Darrin P Cardani)
Subject: Re: Classic computer games and modern versions
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 92 12:18:03 EDT
Organization: University of Michigan Engineering, Ann Arbor

Someone mentioned:
>Ultima Underworld is chock full of puzzles.  A game like Out
>Of This World may take some fast reflexes, but many of the levels require
>Lemmings-like thinking to get past (And having cinematic animation and
>4-channel digitized sound hardly hurts)< On an IBM no less!

I've never played Lemmings, but the Mac game Fool's Errand is a classic
puzzle game.
					Darrin Cardani
darrin@engin.umich.edu
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: darcy+@ERIE.EDRC.CMU.EDU (Darcy Bullock)
Subject: 6809
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 92 19:57:13 GMT
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon
Originator: darcy@ERIE.EDRC.CMU.EDU

Could somebody give me an estimate of the number of MIPS a 6809 is capable
of.  I only need a verry rough estimate, say one of the following:

a) 0.0001 MIP
b) 0.001  MIP
c) 0.01   MIP
d) 0.1    MIP
e) 1.0    MIP
From: hoffman@cs.pitt.edu (Bob Hoffman)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Did the 80186 exist?
Date: 30 Jul 92 14:01:04 GMT
Organization: Univ. of Pittsburgh Computer Science

In article <1992Jul28.000006.27461@csi.uottawa.ca>, cbbrowne@csi.uottawa.ca (Christopher Browne) writes:
|> >In article <1992Jun26.183126.17648@shell.shell.com> pace@fmcrunch
|> (Stephen O. Pace) writes:
|> >    My question is, was there a 186?  Was this a minor revision of the 8086?
|> >    Did it die a quick death when the 286 came out?  How different was the
|> >    instruction set?
|> 
|> Certainly it did!  I think that it must have died quick when the 286
|> came out - I don't think there was much time between them.

Radio Shack's Tandy 2000 computers (remember them?) were 80186-based
non-IBM-compatible MS-DOS machines.  They had a proprietary bus, too.

-- 
Bob Hoffman, N3CVL       pitt!hoffman
Pitt Computer Science    hoffman@cs.pitt.edu    FAX: +1 412 624 8854
From: 9125113g@lux.latrobe.edu.au (Mitch Davis)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Unix Roots of DOS?
Date: 25 Jul 92 14:48:03 GMT
Organization: La Trobe University

As quoted from <2155@unet.UUCP> by jrs@zippy.unet.com (John Switzer Frame 3.0):
| >
| >I don't know about the underlying code or operations, but purely on a 
| >command-structure level, I had always understood that DOS was derived more
| >from CP/M than from *nix.
| 
| This is true - the first 24 DOS interrupts were based on CP/M calls, 
| and the DOS Program Segment Prefix (PSP) has a CALL at offset 5 
| which was for CP/M compatibility. Unfortunately, this call doesn't
| have the right address - you have to round up to the nearest paragraph,
| and you get a JMP to the DOS interrupt entry point.

The shortest possible program for the IBM is one byte long, and can be
created thus:

[E:\] debug
-nshort.com
-rcx
CX 0000
:1
-a100
4379:0100 ret
4379:0101
-w
Writing 0001 bytes
-q

[E:\]

CP/M programs could exit by doing a RET, and the IBM has maintained this
tradition.  On startup, all .COM programs have a 0000 already pushed
onto the stack for this very purpose.  The RET causes a branch to CS:0,
which always has an INT 20.

I occasionally use this when a .COM program MUST be as small as
possible.

Try it!  Can you get any shorter, or an equal alternative?

Mitch.
From: dlu@wobble.uucp (Doug Urner)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Worst tape drives. Was Re: 9 track data storage
Date: 23 Jul 92 19:46:19 GMT
Organization: dlu UNIX Consultants

ian@unipalm.co.uk (Ian Phillipps) writes:

>peter@taronga.com (Peter da Silva) writes:

>>You don't want to know what a TK50 is. Probably the worst cartridge
>>design for tape transport ever.

>I agree, but worst ever - there's hot competition! I remember the
>old-style DEC tapes. 3" diameter open-reel jobs; no capstan motors.

DECtapes!  I've still got one around here somewhere, found memories of
the PDP-10 return every time I stumble across it.

But a DECtape can't hold a candle to the TU58.  I think they retired
the award after the DEC released the 750 with the console TU58
(otherwise the award would belong to Colorado Memory Systems for their
Jumbo drives -- after all you only used the console TU58 ocassionally,
CMS expects you to do *backups* on the Jumbo).
-- 
Doug Urner, dlu@wobble   "They tear down our comrades like leaves from a tree,
1613 Moore Street         leaves from a tree, leaves from a tree, but the
Bellingham, WA  98226     tree still stands, its roots locked to the land."
206/676-5759                              -- Song of the Exile,  Barry Guilder
From: feingold@cheetah.llnl.gov (Rich Feingold)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Looking for Steven K. Roberts' internet address
Date: 24 Jul 92 16:13:36 GMT
Distribution: alt.folklore.computers
Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

I saw a video tape of a Phil Donahue interview of a very interesting
gentleman named Steven K. Roberts, who, among other endeavors, travels
around the country on an amazingly equipped bicycle.  The latter has
about $1.2M worth of electronics ranging from a MAC to a satelite
locator.  Mr. Roberts said that he corresponds on the internet (even
while he's riding!)  Does anyone know his internet address?

Richard Feingold
E-mail: feingoldra@llnl.gov
Telephone: 510/422-1783
FAX: 510-/422-8920
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers