HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: dagbrown@napier.uwaterloo.ca (Dave Brown)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: You know you've been hacking too long when...
Date: 12 Oct 92 18:28:45 GMT
Organization: University of Waterloo

In article <Bvy74B.I9p@news.cso.uiuc.edu> robm@void.ncsa.uiuc.edu (Rob McCool) writes:
>twpierce@unix.amherst.edu (Tim Pierce) writes:
>: What has VMS got to do with this?
>
>I think that Ren is VMS for rename.... but I could be wrong. Been a few
>  months.

Actually, VMS for rename is RENAME--but VMS has a really nice feature--
it lets you type in part of a command and fills in the rest--or complains
about "ambiguous commands"...


-- 
Dave Brown
dagbrown@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca
Phone: (519) 438-0530
"What God want, God gets.  God help us all."  --Roger Waters
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: michaely@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Michael Yokoyama)
Subject: Re: Floor numbering
Organization: University of Hawaii
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 20:07:43 GMT

In article <16876CB6F.IQTI400@INDYCMS.IUPUI.EDU> IQTI400@INDYCMS.IUPUI.EDU (macphil) writes:
>In article <1992Oct03.025244.14566@cubic.com>
>hees@cubic.com (Phil Hees) writes:
> 
>>In article <1992Sep30.124352.1@bronco.fnal.gov> colombo@bronco.fnal.gov
>>(Rick Colombo - Fermilab) writes:
>>>
>>>As I remember it, many buildings in New York don't have a 13th floor.
>>>That is, the elevator panel just doesn't have the number 13 on it.
>>>(Of course I'm talking about buildings with at least 13 floors. ;-)
>>
>>In Chinese-speaking countries, many buildings don't have a fourth floor,
>>since the pronunciation of the word 'four' is very similar to the
>>pronunciation of the word 'death'.  ("Sze" is the closest I can come to
>>an English transcription.)
> 
>Funny...my Chinese professor never mentioned this but my Japanese
>professor was very careful to instruct on the use of <yon> vs <shi>
>for saying <four> since <shi> is a verbal synonum for death.

Makes me think of two anecdotes.  When I visited Kiyosato Youth Hostel in
Kiyosato (Japanese Alps) a long time ago, I was assigned to a room with
four Japanese guys in a three-bunkbed room, and when I got to my bunk bed,
I found out I got the upper bunk.  Now the lower bunk was unoccupied, and
I groaned, "Say, why did he give me the upper bunk.... yukk (the ladder
was a little rickety)".  To which, one of the Japanese nationals said,
maybe because of its number (It was bed number 4).

As for 'yon' versus 'shi', there is a practical reason too.  Before
the Japanese got optical fiber for their phone lines, the phone was pretty
noisy, just like here.  And so it was hard to hear clearly especially
if the caller was saying a string of numbers like '417417417....'

That is because '417417417...' is pronounced 'shi-ichi-shichi,
shi-ichi-shichi, shi-ichi-shichi' in the 'Chinese-reading' way.  It's a
lot clearer when you pronounce that 'yon-ichi-nana, yon-ichi-nana,
yon-ichi-nana', mixing the Japanese and Chinese readings....


--
MICHAEL YOKOYAMA        | Internet:  michaely@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.EDU
Aiea, Hawaii  USA       | UUCP:      uunet!ucsd!nosc!pilikia!michael
NYSC delegate, HI '72   | Globe:     21 deg. 19' N; 157 deg. 52' W
From: gray@ml.csiro.au (Randall Gray)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Stupid error messages  (was "Any key" et al)
Date: 13 Oct 92 02:27:02 GMT
Reply-To: gray@ml.csiro.au
Organization: CSIRO Marine Laboratories


---

This morning we were trying to get a PC working on the network and
were busily pulling cards to see if the problem was an address/interrupt 
conflict.  We evenually pulled the floppy controller and rebooted
expecting it to boot from the hard disk.  Nope!  We got the message

602 Disk Controller Failure
Insert Diagnostic disk in Drive A:
Press F1 to continue

Or something pretty close ... what the HELL would we have done if the
keyboard was unplugged too?

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Randall -- gray@ml.csiro.au

Randall Gray 			CSIRO Marine Laboratories, 
				Castray Esplanade
CSIRO Division of Fisheries	GPO Box 1538
Pelagic Fisheries		Hobart, Tasmania  7001
				AUSTRALIA

We live in a non-causal universe, everything else follows from that
From: gray@ml.csiro.au (Randall Gray)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: jargon equivallent of "gear head"?
Date: 16 Oct 92 02:11:30 GMT
Reply-To: gray@ml.csiro.au
Organization: CSIRO Marine Laboratories


---

I usually apply the terms "gear freak" or "chip head" -- I usually
reserve "chip head" for people that actually *know* what the chips
do though.

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Randall -- gray@ml.csiro.au

Randall Gray 			CSIRO Marine Laboratories, 
				Castray Esplanade
CSIRO Division of Fisheries	GPO Box 1538
Pelagic Fisheries		Hobart, Tasmania  7001
				AUSTRALIA

We live in a non-causal universe, everything else follows from that
From: dtalmage@guvax.acc.georgetown.edu
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: jargon equivallent of "gear head"?
Date: 13 Oct 92 16:00:47 -0400
Distribution: world
Organization: Georgetown University

Do we have an equivalent to the photo community's "gear head", a 
person who buys cameras just to have them in his bag?  A gear head, as 
I understand it, doesn't use the equipment he owns.

I found "heatseeker" in the Jargon file, but that doesn't fit here.
Is it OK to extend "heatseeker" to include people who have to have the 
latest hardware instead of or as well as the latest software?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
David Talmage (dtalmage@guvax.georgetown.edu)
"Once more.  This is deixis.  This is your brain on deixis.  Any questions?"
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: kenm@compctr.ccs.csus.edu (Ken Montgomery)
Subject: Re: Connection Machine posters 
Organization: California State University, Sacramento
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 20:49:21 GMT

In article <1992Oct7.072055.7503@nas.nasa.gov> eugene@wilbur.nas.nasa.gov (Eugene N. Miya) writes:

>Real programmers don't need posters.
>They MAKE their own. Others ask for THEIR posters.
>Silly request. ;^)

>--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@orville.nas.nasa.gov
>  Associate Editor, Software and Publication Reviews
>  Scientific Programming
>  {uunet,mailrus,other gateways}!ames!eugene
>Seeking Books to buy:  Bongard, Pattern Recognition
>                       Imhof, Cartographic Relief Presentation
>                       Books on or by Benjamin Whorf
>                       Wulf et al, The Design of an Optimizing Compiler

Why not ask one of the people who HAVE the poster to scan it and post 
the photo? Heck, it would be better then nothing!
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: dsiebert@icaen.uiowa.edu (Doug Siebert)
Subject: Re: dirty tricks
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 02:04:16 GMT
Organization: ISCA

In article <josef.718440940@uranium> Josef Moellers <mollers.pad@sni.de> writes:
>In <1992Oct6.135525.1@cc.curtin.edu.au> sbakerjr@cc.curtin.edu.au writes:
>
>>When someone leaves their VAX terminal without logging off (fatal mistake)
>>I find it hilarious to add the line to the front of thier login.com file...
>
>>$ LOGOFF
>
>Under UNIX try putting the following at the start of someone's .profile:
>
>echo "No home"
>sleep 5
>exit
>
>I tried it! It took the person about half a day to find out.
>He called the sysadmin several times to tell him that his home directory
>was gone, whereupon the syadmin explained that it was still there with
>the right privileges.
>
>It did teach him the lesson, though! And no _real_ harm done!


I did something a bit more nasty, but still with no real harm done.  I wrote a
small C program which switched the names of all files in the user's home
directory (except for .login, .cshrc, and other files needed for startup)  So
your directory would look the same to /bin/ls, but files aren't what you 
expect them to be, directories are files and all sorts of havoc ensues.  Now
the nasty thing about this is it does it EACH TIME the user logs in, undoing
the 'damage' it did the last time.  So one login it is messed up, the next it
is normal.  Best case, the scenario goes:


Person logs in, realizes files are all messed up, logs out, goes to someone
else for help

Person logs in while other person watches, sees nothing is wrong, gets laughed
at by the someone else.  Logs out, goes back to where he was working.

Repeat cycle until person goes to a sysadmin who will simply change to their
directory and have a look, though a sysadmin who does su - can add to the fun!


Not long after I wrote this, someone I know left his workstation logged in.  So
of course I seize the opportunity to use this program, and insert it into his
.login, and leave the program in /tmp.  I didn't attempt to hide my tracks at
all, since I figured it was a joke.

He logged in a day or two later, and thought his account had been broken into.
He went to a sysadmin, and the sysadmin saw the program inserted in his .login,
saw the file it called was owned by me, and restricted MY account for having
hacked into his.  Luckily another sysadmin who knows me was around when I did
this in the first place, so nothing came of it, but it was enough hassle to
keep me from doing this again :-)

-- 
/-----------------------------------------------------------------------------\
| Doug Siebert                             | "I don't have to take this abuse |
| Internet:  dsiebert@isca.uiowa.edu       |  from you - I've got hundreds of |
| NeXTMail:  dsiebert@chop.isca.uiowa.edu  |  people waiting in line to abuse |
|     ICBM:  41d 39m 55s N, 91d 30m 43s W  |  me!"  Bill Murray, Ghostbusters |
\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------/
Xref: sparky alt.folklore.computers:15119 comp.unix.admin:5624
From: peter@NeoSoft.com (Peter da Silva)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.unix.admin
Subject: Re: WANTED: Unix administration horror stories !
Date: 14 Oct 92 11:42:37 GMT
Article-I.D.: NeoSoft.1992Oct14.114237.24542
Organization: NeoSoft Communications Services -- (713) 684-5900

In article <Bw1G0s.49D@gumby.ocs.com> obi@gumby.ocs.com writes:
> Now when I partition a disk I sit there with a calculator and make sure
> all the numbers add up correctly (offsets, number of cylinders, number of
> blocks, and so on).

When I partition the disk I sit there with "sc" and build a spreadsheet for
the purpose. That way I know all my numbers work, and the saved spreadsheet
is documentation on *why* things are that way.
-- 
Peter da Silva.  <peter@sugar.neosoft.com>.
 `-_-'   "Megulegetted ma mar a farkasodat ?"
  'U`  
Dette kan umulig vaere mitt rom, eftersom jeg ikke puster ammoniakk.
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: jcmorris@mwunix.mitre.org (Joe Morris)
Subject: Re: What was the intended advantage of using 36bits CPU?
Organization: The MITRE Corporation
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 02:01:51 GMT

guy@Auspex.COM (Guy Harris) writes:

>>The first (8-bit) byte-oriented machine was the IBM 360,

>Didn't the IBM 7030 - a machine with, as I remember, 32-bit words, and
>bit addressibility - antedate the 360?  

Yes; its era was around 1960.  The /360 was introduced in 1964.

>                                        (BTW, was the 7030 a tube or
>transistor machine?  I thought it was a transistor machine, but somebody
>else here thinks it was a tube machine.)

Transistor.  By the time the Stretch system was designed tubes had been
replaced by transistors...and none of this wimpy integrated circuit stuff,
please; these were discrete components.

>I don't think the 7030 was a huge seller, though; I think it was a
>specialized supercomputer.  

I don't have the sales figures for the 7030 STRETCH at hand, but they 
weren't anything impressive.  Some IBM historians say that the machine
was a transition testbed (it did include many featrues which made their
first IBM appearance in the S/360 line); some IBM flamers say it was a
"fighting machine" whose sole purpose was to derail customers' plans to
purchase competing manufacturers' equipment.

Joe Morris / MITRE
From: ping@ping.actrix.gen.nz (Peter Ingham)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Convergent Megaframe?? Anyone??
Date: 12 Oct 92 23:02:03 GMT
Organization: Private UUCP Site
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]

Guy Harris (guy@Auspex.COM) wrote:
> >Still being sold (by Unisys) as the  XE520, and XE530 series.
> >
> >The Primary OS for them is CTOS which is still being developed and enhanced.
> 
> Really?  CTOS was ported to the 68K?

Nope.

> 
> If not, then CTOS is *not* the primary OS for a Megaframe, because, as I

False,  a MEGA-Frame has a minimum of 3 CPU cards, 2 of which are 80186 or 80386
based running CTOS.  If there were any AP's (680x0 Application Processors) 
in the system (the system supported from 0 - 4?) then those CPU's ran CTIX.  
Most typical MegaFrames have more CTOS CPU's than CTIX ones.  I would also _guess_ 
that systems without any AP's outnumber those with.

> remember from a job interview there many years ago, the Megaframe was a
> 68010-based multiprocessor machine, 

Nope, The MegaFrame is a Multiprocessor system based on CTOS with 80186, 80386 
and/or 680x0 CPU's.  Applications can be run on any CPU in the system.

> with CTOS-based processors serving
> as I/O processors (e.g., running the file system).  (I forget whether
> there were multiple '010's running UNIX, or just one.)  
There were versions of the AP with 68010 and 68020 (AP2). As above from 0 to 4 
AP's can be configured.

> The Miniframe was
> a uniprocessor version of the Megaframe; there was, I think, also a

A 680x0 only system.
 
> Microframe workstation being developed, but it emerged under a
> different name, i.e. "AT&T UNIX PC".
> 
> Later *Frames had, I think, '020's and maybe later 68K machines.
No seperate designation for '020 based Megaframes.

I'm not aware of anything beyond the '020 on the 68000 side. 


The MegaFrame is designated an XE520 oe XE530 (if it has at lesast one 80386 CPU)
in Unisys Parlance,  unless it contains at least 1 AP in which case it is an 
XE550.


> 
> That line was being done by, as I remember, the Data Systems Division,
> or some such, of CT, as a separate product line from their *86-based
> machines, which ran CTOS (although the *86-based processors were used
> inside the *Frames).

--

Cheers

    Peter S. Ingham              ping@ping.actrix.gen.nz
    Lower Hutt,  New Zealand     3:771/220.5
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner)
Subject: Re: What was the intended advantage of using 36bits CPU?
Reply-To: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner)
Organization: Columbia University
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 19:43:52 GMT

In article <26915@castle.ed.ac.uk> Sam.Wilson@ed.ac.uk writes:
>lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner) writes:
>> But what happens when it turns out you need 17 bits?  Again, the -10 is
>> up to that, since it can pack two chars of 18 or less bits per word in
>> byte addressing mode wasting 2 bits if 17 bits/char.  All of these machines
>> that are 32 bits are going to have to round up to 32 bit/char, or are you
>> still insisting on finding a need for 2^32 unique combinations?
>
>A 8-bit-byte oriented machine could just use 24 bits.  It could also fit
>19-bit characters into 24 bits, wasting 5 bits.  It or a 32-bit-word
>oriented machine could fit 19-bit characters into 32 bits and waste 13
>bits.  A -10 would have to waste 17, surely.  :-)
>
>Why is it that any discussion with cjl starts off sensible enough and
>ends up extremely silly?

For a very simple reason: you aren't looking at my perspective of the
discussion, and your position is silly, not mine :-).  My point about the
evils of bytes of fixed size is the driving force behind the thread, is
that silly?  You don't have to agree with me, but it's pretty ridiculous
to not understand what's being discussed.

Simplest version: There is no pre-conceived reason for 8-bit bytes or
multiples of 8-bits to be coupled as if a byte for a longer bitwidth
situation such as an extended character code set.  I believe that certain
existing situations pander to existing machines not to their intended
utility, a situation in turn created by IBM's attempt to foist EBCDIC and
other obsolete codes on the industry.  The use of 7-bit ASCII in 8-bit bytes
indicates an appeasing compromise only, and I feel many have lost sight of
this.  Moreover, as computers get more powerful, character sets should be
designed with more flexibility, thus the slavishness to 8-bittedness is
getting in the way.  Designs like the PDP-10's byte instruction set with
variable width bytes up to 36 bits/byte is an early implementation of a
good solution to the problem.  Computers with instructions designed with
an 8-bit byte tradeoff in mind aren't my idea of how best to solve this
problem past, present or future.

Any other silly remarks?  (On the topic?)

cjl
From: da188@city.ac.uk (The Eno)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: You know you've been hacking too long when...
Date: 16 Oct 92 15:12:44 GMT
Organization: The City University

dagbrown@napier.uwaterloo.ca (Dave Brown) writes:

>In article <Bvy74B.I9p@news.cso.uiuc.edu> robm@void.ncsa.uiuc.edu (Rob McCool) writes:
>>twpierce@unix.amherst.edu (Tim Pierce) writes:
>>: What has VMS got to do with this?
>>
>>I think that Ren is VMS for rename.... but I could be wrong. Been a few
>>  months.

>Actually, VMS for rename is RENAME--but VMS has a really nice feature--
>it lets you type in part of a command and fills in the rest--or complains
>about "ambiguous commands"...


Some unix shells do that too...

Aj.
-- 
-------------------------------[ The Eno ]------------------------------------.
 JANET : da188@uk.ac.city  da188@uk.ac.city.cs
 I'net : da188@city.ac.uk  da188@cs.city.ac.uk
 BITNET: da188%city.ac.uk@cunyvm.cuny.edu   da188%cs.city.ac.uk@cunyvm.cuny.edu
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner)
Subject: Re: Gears. (was Re: The need for an assem)
Reply-To: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner)
Organization: Columbia University
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 19:34:12 GMT

In article <phillips.719133604@infs4> phillips@swanee.ee.uwa.oz.au (Christopher Phillips) writes:
>But the more 'intelligent' automatics (admittedly very rare at the moment)
>guess whether you are after power or efficiency by the way you are driving.
>So if you slam the accelerator, you get all the 'low-end torque' you could
>possibly want!
I doubt it, since the speed range I need maximum torque in might top out at
3.5 mph.  I want to get in front of the guy next to me in as few feet as 
possible, since there likely isn't gonna be more than a few hundred feet to
the "race".

cjl
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: mdw@theory.TC.Cornell.EDU (Matt Welsh)
Subject: Re: Bumper sticker
Organization: Cornell Theory Center
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 14:58:34 GMT

In article <16157@mindlink.bc.ca> Jeremy_Reimer@mindlink.bc.ca (Jeremy Reimer) writes:
>> Kevin Quinn writes:
>> >BTW, UNIX is an operating system, DOS is a file handling utility ...
>> >
>> Partly true.  I've seen it described more often along the lines of
>> a real-time non-reentrant interrupt handler...
>
>That's funny, I always thought it was a program loader.  :)
>

Hmmmm. I've been bemisled. I thought it was an annoying sequence of useless
blocks taking up part of my hard drive. I always wondered what they were for!!

mdw

-- 
Matt Welsh    mdw@tc.cornell.edu        +1 607 253 2737
Systems Programmer, Cornell Theory Center
  "Yow! Up ahead! It's a DONUT HUT!!"
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: iisakkil@lk-hp-20.hut.fi (Mika Iisakkila)
Subject: Re: Connection Machine posters 
Organization: Helsinki University of Technology, Finland
	<1992Oct6.222103.8981@newshost.unh.edu>
	<1992Oct7.072055.7503@nas.nasa.gov>
	<1992Oct7.115201.16758@geovision.gvc.com>
Date: 08 Oct 92 13:39:48 GMT

pt@geovision.gvc.com (Paul Tomblin) writes:
>Speaking of which - can somebody post a gif or jpeg of the CM-5 poster?

Or any pictures of old iron or otherwise interesting hardware? They're
pretty hard to come by, if you weren't born in a machine room.

    -- "Once saw a rack cabin that used to contain an 11/780"
--
Segmented Memory Helps Structure Software
From: mbreen@sdacs.ucsd.edu (Michael Breen)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: The third variable.
Date: 16 Oct 92 00:19:52 GMT
Organization: University of California, San Diego
NNTP-Posting-Host: sdacs.ucsd.edu

I thought this was obvious, but maybe it's just wrong:

I was told foo bar came from fubar which is armed-forces talk for
fuc*ed up beyond all repair.

Now wonder we use it as a standard variable for naming our code.

Michael Breen
InfoPath programmer
UCSD
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: kimcm@login.dkuug.dk (Kim Chr. Madsen)
Subject: Re: you know you've been hacking too long...
Keywords: hacking long absurd msdos TM
Organization: DKnet
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 15:24:44 GMT

sandee@Think.COM (Daan Sandee) writes:

>Ah, those days of old, when Men were Men ... when I was shown how to insert
>an 8-inch floppy, I was surprised to learn that in order to avert disaster,
>it went in wrapper and all.
>Those kids of today, they think 3.5" is a proper size ; they don't know what
>they've missed. Even worse, they may be using a diskless node.

Ah but I bet you still think 8-inch floppies are for personal use -- the venerable
old Rc7000 I used to work with had two 8" floppy disks for filestore. 64Kb memory
to be distributed among the six connected users/terminals (with the exception that
the adm33-console needed at least 10,000bytes to work).

Any old Rc7000-systems out there, who's still alive....????

						Kim Chr. Madsen
From: guy@Auspex.COM (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Convergent Megaframe?? Anyone??
Date: 11 Oct 92 23:30:49 GMT
Organization: Auspex Systems, Santa Clara

>Still being sold (by Unisys) as the  XE520, and XE530 series.
>
>The Primary OS for them is CTOS which is still being developed and enhanced.

Really?  CTOS was ported to the 68K?

If not, then CTOS is *not* the primary OS for a Megaframe, because, as I
remember from a job interview there many years ago, the Megaframe was a
68010-based multiprocessor machine, with CTOS-based processors serving
as I/O processors (e.g., running the file system).  (I forget whether
there were multiple '010's running UNIX, or just one.)  The Miniframe was
a uniprocessor version of the Megaframe; there was, I think, also a
Microframe workstation being developed, but it emerged under a
different name, i.e. "AT&T UNIX PC".

Later *Frames had, I think, '020's and maybe later 68K machines.

That line was being done by, as I remember, the Data Systems Division,
or some such, of CT, as a separate product line from their *86-based
machines, which ran CTOS (although the *86-based processors were used
inside the *Frames).
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: robm@void.ncsa.uiuc.edu (Rob McCool)
Subject: Re: You know you've been hacking too long when...
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1992 08:19:21 GMT

twpierce@unix.amherst.edu (Tim Pierce) writes:
: What has VMS got to do with this?


I think that Ren is VMS for rename.... but I could be wrong. Been a few
  months.

-- 
Rob McCool, NCSA STG System Administrator
robm@ncsa.uiuc.edu r-mccool@uiuc.edu robm@imsa.edu
It was working ten minutes ago, I swear...
Xref: sparky alt.folklore.computers:15000 rec.humor:30905