HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner)
Subject: Re: The need for an assembler (was: Favorite CPU)
Reply-To: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner)
Organization: Columbia University
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 08:01:23 GMT

In article <9224002.2167@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU> fjh@mundil.cs.mu.OZ.AU (Fergus James HENDERSON) writes:
>
>It's been said before, but I'll say it again: ANYTHING that an assembly
>language programmer can do, a compiler can do to, and probably does
>already. If it doesn't yet, it may well do so tommorrow, and you only
>have to improve the compiler ONCE and it will keep optimizing your
>programs as long as you keep writing them.

Yes, it was said before, and it's still just as wrong now as then.  Only
someone who has never used the items discussed throughout this thread that
never get translated would defend such a statement.

cjl
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: edcrwfrd@unlv.edu (Edward Crawford)
Subject: Re: Better dead than IBM
Organization: UNLV
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 92 21:42:25 GMT

We all know ibm really stands for I've Been Mugged  :)


Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: otto@vaxb.acs.unt.edu (M. Otto, "Virtual Prisoner of the VAX")
Subject: Re: You know when you're hacking too long when...
Organization: University of North Texas
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 01:54:06 GMT

In article <BETSYS.92Aug25141518@ra.cs.umb.edu>, betsys@cs.umb.edu (Elizabeth Schwartz) writes:
> In article <l9jbnjINN4au@skat.usc.edu> tsmith@skat.usc.edu (Nep Smith) writes:
> 
>>otto@vaxb.acs.unt.edu wrote: 
>>>Not too long back, Burger King was advertising their Whopper; you can have it
>>>one of 1024 ways.  Now that's 2^10; what I couldn't figure out is what all 10
>>>items are.
>>>Single/Double, mayo, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onion, tomato, mustard,
>>>ketchup...
>>>
>>>What's the 10th item?  Is it something only a hacker would want?
>>The bun? 
> 
> Maybe the meat? I've seen vegetarian friends order them without meat.
> 
> Kinda sad though...a ketchup-and-onion whopper, hold the meat, hold
> the bun?

If it's a choice between 0/1/2 beef patties, then that is only 768 (2^8 * 3) 
permutations.

--
         __ ____ __      otto@vaxb.acs.unt.edu                                 
 /|/|   / / / / / /  A virtual prisoner of the VAX     // I'm sorry; my karma 
/   |. /_/ / / /_/  at The University of North Texas \X/  ran over your dogma  
                             Denton, USA
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: Joel Sumner <js17@cornell.edu>
Subject: Re: Flash illiteracy (automatic cameras)
X-Xxdate: Mon, 31 Aug 92 11: 02:47 GMT
Nntp-Posting-User: js17@cornell.edu
Organization: Trapped at Cornell University
X-Useragent: Nuntius v1.1.1d7
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1992 14:58:21 GMT

>Lines: 13
In article <1992Aug28.182120.3228@klaava.Helsinki.FI> Risto Widenius,
widenius@klaava.Helsinki.FI writes:
>mcovingt@athena.cs.uga.edu (Michael A. Covington) writes:
>
>>I have been asked whether one needs flash to photograph a solar eclipse.
>
>I win. I saw this happen during a total eclipse a few years ago. A
>nearby hill, crowded by thousands of people, was magically illuminated
>by flashes during the dark minutes. I took some long-exposure shots (no
>flash) of the hill rather than the eclipse, but haven't seen these, they
>are filed somewhere at my sister's.
>
>rw

I would imagine that a lot of those people are using cameras with a built
in flash.  Many cameras these days have a 'flash fill' which will shoot
the flash whenever the camera thinks the scene is too dark.

This certainly doesn't excuse the people who ASK "do I need a flash?".. :)
Joel Sumner
js17@cornell.edu
q4kx@cornella (Bitnet)
-----------------------------------------------------------
.sig under construction (like the rest of Cornell)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.unix.misc
From: jimf@centerline.com (Jim Frost)
Subject: Re: The need for an assembler (was: Favorite CPU)
Organization: CenterLine Software, Inc.
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 18:42:00 GMT

lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner) writes:
>Before C existed, no one "ported" anything; we merely had language specs and
>various levels of compatibility, hopefully of the kind of either it worked or
>the feature was lacking and you got error messages.

You're right.  And before C existed getting a commercial OS
up-and-running on new hardware took *years*.  Now it can be done
months or even weeks.

This is a major advantage in the hardware marketplace.

In the software application marketplace, retargetability with minimal
effort means a much larger market and a longer lifetime.  The MS-DOS
world is huge, yes, but wouldn't it be nice to have the Mac world too?
And what about those new Alpha boxes?

Are you suggesting that it's smarter to spend years rewriting your
product for each new platform (keep in mind that we're seeing >1 new
platform a year nowadays) rather than having something which is 90% or
more retargetable?  If so, that's pretty bad business sense.

>Now, the code may
>seem to be compiler error free yet not work,

Your code may seem to be assembler error free yet not work too.
That's not a compiler problem.

>or needs to be allowed to
>get confusing warning messages from some compilers to actually function,
>because there's no reasonable way to eliminate the warnings all together
>without essentially having N copies of the program with one woken up for
>each system type in much of the code.

So, are you suggesting that when you write in assembler you *don't*
have to have N copies of the program with one woken up for each system
type in much of the code?  I submit that you have to have N copies of
the *entire* program.

Pretty weak arguments.

jim frost
jimf@centerline.com
From: haynes@cats.ucsc.edu (Jim Haynes)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Longtime PDP-11 users, tune in now
Date: 28 Aug 92 20:05:27 GMT
Organization: University of California; Santa Cruz
NNTP-Posting-Host: hobbes.ucsc.edu


However if you do
    cc foo.c bar.c baz.c

you can stop the compiler at any point as you mentioned and there will be
one of these, maybe bar.i and bar.s; but when you're all done there will
be just one a.out file

-- 
haynes@cats.ucsc.edu
haynes@cats.bitnet

"Any clod can have the facts, but having opinions is an Art."
        Charles McCabe, San Francisco Chronicle
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Branching in HLL vs. Assembler (was Re: The need for an assembler)
From: chisnall@cosc.canterbury.ac.nz (The Technicolour Throw-up)
Date: 2 Sep 92 22:10:47 +1200
Distribution: world
Organization: Computer Science,University of Canterbury,New Zealand

From article <1992Aug27.135129.24542@usenet.ins.cwru.edu>, by rfd@po.CWRU.Edu (Richard F. Drushel):
> In a previous article, lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner) says:
> 
>>BTW, if HLL theory is that it abstracts what computers actually do,
>>then why the deficiency in so many languages regarding goto?  Do people
>>believe that computers lack program control branch instructions?
> 
> 	That is something I have always wondered...being a self-taught
> programmer, on the outside of computer engineering looking in, I have
> heard the dogmatic "All GOTOs are bad" philosophy, with nary the
> acknowledgement that the CPU does nothing *BUT* GOTOs.

Some computers do lack program control branch instructions.  Although most
languages, and the hardware they run on, are based on the von Neuman model
this is not the only computation model around.  Functional languages are
based on combinatory logic.  Most functional languages are implemeted on von
Neuman machines but there have been attempts at designing hardware
implementations of combinatory logic.  See, e.g., "The CURRY Chip", by John
Ramsdell in the proceedings of the 1986 ACM conference on lisp and functional
programming.  Nowhere as efficient as von Neumann machines but it does show
that GOTOs aren't necessary.

--
Just my two rubber ningis worth.
Name: Michael Chisnall  (chisnall@cosc.canterbury.ac.nz)
I'm not a .signature virus and nor do I play one on tv.
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.periphs
From: zcookbruc@cc.curtin.edu.au
Subject: Century Data Systems SMD drive
Organization: Curtin University of Technology
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1992 12:57:17 GMT

I've recently bought a Century Data Systems drive for my home
system, and need to know the switch settings. The drive is Ex
Prime, the information they gave me was for an AMS315, but the
drive makings actually say M315E-1.

When configuring the drive as per the dip switch settings given
to me by Prime, the drive behaves strangly. (Modifying sector
size de-selects the drive, changing drive unit number has no
effect....)

Does prime modify the SMD interface board in any way. Prime Australia
say not, but the drive is not responding how their documentation says
it should.

The markings on the drive are:

Century Data Systems		1270 N. Kraemer, Anaheim,
Model	M351E-1			CA 92806
Serial	6803			(A Xerox company)
Part No 60002-001	Rev AA


Other label:

HDA	CDS27597-007	S/N 16-2012
SERVO	CDS28545-A	REV P
I/O	CDS27015-001	REV T
R/W	CDS25773-001	REV X
PSU	CDS25837-002	REV B

PRIME	MHD7645-001/002

I was wondering if Prime or CDS had changed on of the EPROMs in
a later revision, and that used different setup parameters.

All the switch settings in the drive (as came from Prime) were
open except switch 3/7.

I could also do with difinitive drive geometry information
	Cylenders
	Heads
	Bytes/track
	Sector header size
	(Is the sector header size included in the switch settings)

Thnx in advance

...BRU
From: ttak@troi.cc.rochester.edu (Tim Takahashi)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Renumbering BASIC programs (was Re: Branching in HLL vs. Assembler)
Date: 2 Sep 92 20:50:09 GMT
Organization: University of Rochester (Rochester, NY)

In article <1992Sep1.235628.21117@bert.eecs.uic.edu> artn@bert.eecs.uic.edu (Ellyn Sandor) writes:
>	RENUM of basic programs:
>
>	The first BASIC I used had a interesting way to do a CASE statement.
>Not a good way, but a way.  Let's say A is an integer from 1 and 6,
>and we want to do a SWITCH() from A.
>	...
>	1000 N=1000+A*1000
>	1010 GOTO N
>	2000 REM Case 1
>	2005 GOTO 8000
>	3000 REM Case 2
>	etc...
>	Just try RENUMing that one!
>
>	OK, bad example.  The second BASIC I used did not store the program in
>ASCII, but rather in an undocumented tokenized form.  I think they provided
>a RENUM command (but I don't remember).
>
>	Bonus:  guess the BASIC's.

OK. 

(1) "Tiny" Basic on a 6800 or RCA 1802 (SWTP or Cosmac Elf respectively)
       integer only, fit in 2-3k of RAM?
    
(2) Microsoft Basic (or a derivative thereof) - Altair 8k Basic, Radio Shack
      Level II Basic, Applesoft Basic, etc. all used the tokenized form.
      The "RENUM" command was a part of various Radio Shack "Disk" Basic
      enhancements... or was it CMD "R"?

Do I win?

tim
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Hacker sleeping materials  (was Re: You know when you're hacking too long when...)
From: don@zl2tnm.gen.nz (Don Stokes)
Date: 29 Aug 92 08:28:49 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: The Wolery

lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner) writes:
> Not recommended: attempting to sleep *inside* of H960 cabinets.

You could always lay them on their side (or back).  Plenty of room.

I used to win "my computer is bigger than your computer" arguments by 
pointing out tha I could climb inside my pdp11/34A's cabinet and close 
the door behind me, even with the CPU installed.

As for sleep, a certain former employer of mine gave all its programming
staff "middle management" chairs rather than the office chairs that I've
had to put up with everywhere else.  Some of these were more "middle" than 
others, and on climbing up the pecking order a bit (not hard in an 
organisation where you were considered a veteran after six months, and I
left after two years, the longest serving in my team) had one of the best 
chairs available.  There was always a pillow available, so during all 
nighters I could catch a few 'z's curled up in my chair as the compiler 
did its work....

--
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: jlaiho@ichaos.nullnet.fi (Juha Laiho)
Subject: Re: Better dead than IBM
Organization: NullNet r.y.
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 08:46:46 GMT

In article <fstuart.920827112330@lab16.eng.auburn.edu> fstuart@eng.auburn.edu (Frank Stuart) writes:
>What does IBM *really* stand for?  Let me know if you know the answer and
>I'll post a summary in a week or two.
>
>To get the ball rolling, here are some suggestions from the Jargon File:
>
<You already read them.. why waste the bandwidth..?>

Intelligent Branch of Mafia?


..Wolf
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.unix.misc
From: klaus@diku.dk (Klaus Ole Kristiansen)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: 24-hour clocks (was: Microwave ovens ...)
Date: 28 Aug 92 11:13:41 GMT
Organization: Department of Computer Science, U of Copenhagen

msb@sq.sq.com (Mark Brader) writes:

>I read some years ago that British Rail's timetable software would not
>allow a train departure to be specified as exactly midnight.  This was
>not further explained, but I decided it was probably a deliberate feature,
>to avoid any question of the departure *date* of the train.

HT (the local bus company) gets around this by changing the date at a
time where no train or bus is going. This means that not only can a bus
leave at 24, it can also leave at 25 or 26. A friend of mine once had
a ticket issued 27:15. That's right, 27 o'clock!

Klaus O K
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.lang.c
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: The need for an assembler
From: alanb@sdl.mdcbbs.com (Alan Braggins)
Date: 03 Sep 92 14:20:33 GMT
Organization: Shape Data (Division of EDS), Cambridge UK
In-reply-to: ctm@ardi.com's message of Thu, 3 Sep 92 06:19:25 GMT

>>>>> On Thu, 3 Sep 92 06:19:25 GMT, ctm@ardi.com (Clifford T. Matthews) said:

>>>This is not an attack on the work of Richard Stallman and other fine
>>>programmers, who use both assembler and hll where they see fit.

> Huh?  I don't know what you're talking about w.r.t. Richard Stallman using
> assembler where he sees fit.  He's clearly qualified to do so, and he probably
> has somewhere (he's probably sung "Happy Birthday" too, but I can't think of
> a particular instance), but there's no assembler that I know of in gcc, I
> don't recall seeing any in emacs either (he may provide some assembly versions
> of alloca for emacs, but he definitely provides a C implementation).

There are some assembler versions of alloca, and some asm directives in crt0.c
However the range of machines emacs runs on, (compared with cjl's pride that
his code works on everything from an 8086 to an 80486), would clearly be
impractical if the whole thing was written in assembler.
--
Alan Braggins, Shape Data (A Division of EDS Ltd), Cambridge, UK +44-223-316673
   "Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced."
 "My employer does not necessarily share my views - but I'm working on it."
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: jgd@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (John G Dobnick)
Subject: Re: Better dead than IBM
Originator: jgd@csd4.csd.uwm.edu
Reply-To: jgd@csd4.csd.uwm.edu
Organization: University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 17:05:31 GMT

From article <1992Aug28.131215.6689@sei.cmu.edu>, by ae@sei.cmu.edu (Arthur Evans):
> fstuart@eng.auburn.edu (Frank Stuart) asks what IBM stands for.
> 
>     Itsy Bitsy Machine
> 
> of course.

That's fine for a single instantiation of one of their artifacts.
If you are referring to the corporation however, it's 

     Itty Bitty Machines

-- 
John G Dobnick                          ATTnet: (414) 229-5727
Computing Services Division             INTERNET: jgd@uwm.edu
University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee     UUCP: uunet!uwm!jgd

"Knowing how things work is the basis for appreciation,
and is thus a source of civilized delight."  -- William Safire
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: aduell@nyx.cs.du.edu (Tony Duell)
Subject: Intel micro's (was Re: Apple ///)
X-Disclaimer: Nyx is a public access Unix system run by the University
	of Denver for the Denver community.  The University has neither
	control over nor responsibility for the opinions of users.
Organization: Nyx, Public Access Unix at U. of Denver Math/CS dept.
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 92 19:25:07 GMT


Talking of early Intel machines, I have an Intel MCS8I (8080) machine,
with manuals / schematics/ ROM source. It's a blue box, with a real front
panel (16 address/data etry switches, and more toload memory, read memory,
load I/O ports, read I/O ports, single step, etc). The front panel also
has loads of LED's (I remember address (16), data (8), some other data
(8), CPU mode (I/O, mem, read, write, stack, etc). Also, there is a ZIF
socket for blowing 1702 eproms. Inside, there is the CPU card, fron-panel
control, 2 RAM cards, ROM card, I/O card, EPROM blowwer card. I seem to
remmeber that you can map a rom and ram card to the sam address, and use
swithces to enable only particular eproms, thus allowing you to use the
ram as a ROM emulator. There is a monitor in ROM, starting at 3800 hex.
When you switch the machine on, you have to toggle C3/00/38 into the first
3 RAM locations, and then reset the CPU, and enable it. The monitor then
prints out the startup message. There are 4 standard I/O devices, console,
Paper tape punch, paper tape reader, List, and each has 4 options. The
state is stored as 1 byte in location 3  ( each 2-bit field corresponds to
a prticular device). Looks a bit like CP/M doesn't it ?
-tony 'PDP11 Hacker' Duell
ard@siva.bris.ac.uk


From: ddb@tdkt.kksys.com (David Dyer-Bennet)
Sender: FredGate@tdkt.kksys.com
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Indentation
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1992 13:03:17 -0600

 DW> I feel that forcing an indentation structure on people is not
 DW> good, and I think that redundancy (indentation and begin/end
 DW> braces) is a good thing to have in a programming language the
 DW> xxx that *people* (who are only human, after all) are going to
 DW> use.

I haven't worked with Occam or anything that IS indentation
sensitive, though in my early career I worked with fortran and
assembler that were column-sensitive on the cards.

I know how fussy I am about indentation, which makes me leary of
being forced to use somebody elses style of it!

I'd like to try a C/C++ compiler with an option to issue a warning
message if a subservient statement were farther left than the
statement it's subservient to.  Note I said warning, and of course
all warning should be individually disableable (is that a word? well,
it is now :-).  This would catch the occasional misindentation, or
the (very rare, I'm glad to say) cases where I got confused and
stayed confused for an extended period.

 * Origin: Terraboard, Mpls MN: Home of the MYSTERY echo (1:282/341.0)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: paulg@resmel.bhp.com.au (Paul Gallagher)
Subject: Re: Spaghetti in Pascal (was Re: Branching in HLL vs. Assembler (was Re: The need for an assembler))
Organization: BHP Research - Melbourne Laboratories, AUSTRALIA
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 12:09:31 GMT

magnus@thep.lu.se (Magnus Olsson) writes:

>In article <1992Sep3.043632.29125@news.columbia.edu> lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner) writes:

>>Yes, spaghetti code can happen in any language, probably even PASCAL if you
>>work at it :-).
>
>[...]
>
>PROGRAM NIM (INPUT,OUTPUT);
>{(c) Tom A. Crona 1984}
>
> {etc}
>
>800:WRITELN ('THERE IS NO SUCH PILE, STUPID!!!');
>    GOTO 150;
>810:WRITELN ('TRYING TO CHEAT, EH?');
>    GOTO 150;
>820:END.
>     

Yeh, as a Pascal lover, the labels and gotos are pretty horrid, but
what I find more offensive is the code being ALL-CAPS !
Mind you, I suppose you need to YELL AT THE COMPILER to convince it
to swallow all the spaghetti :-)

regards,
paul gallagher

     /\/\       Paul Gallagher, PC Support Officer,
    / / /\      Computer Systems Group,
   / / /  \     BHP Research - Melbourne Laboratories
  / / / /\ \    245 Wellington Rd Mulgrave Vic 3170 AUSTRALIA
  \ \/ / / /    Phone : +61-3-560-7066,  Fax : +61-3-561-6709
   \  / / /     ACSnet  :  paulg@resmel.bhp.com.au
    \/\/\/
From: phil@adam.adelaide.edu.au (Phil Kernick)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Coke machine at CMU
Date: 1 Sep 92 05:59:32 GMT
Organization: University of Adelaide, South Australia

jarnot@kin.lap.upenn.edu (Kevin J. Jarnot) writes:

>I have recently heard of a Coke machine at CMU that is connected to the 
>Internet.  Anyone have the whole story???

I snarfed it before, and here it is:

% man jf

JF(6/22/90)         UNIX Programmer's Manual          JF(6/22/90)

NAME
     jf - Inquire about availability of junk foods in CMU CS
     vending machines.

SYNOPSIS
     jf [coke | mnm | mm ] [-reset]

DESCRIPTION
     jf inquires about the availability of Coke/Diet-Coke and
     M&Ms in the CMU CS vending area to save addicts an abortive
     trip from their distant offices.

     With no argument or with single argument coke jf gives the
     status of the buttons of 16oz bottles in the CMU CS Coke
     machine.  With argument mnm or mm it will give an estimate
     of the number of servings of M&Ms left in the vending
     machine.

     Providing an argument to identify the machine and the argu-
     ment -reset allows the vending machine fillers to inform the
     server when the machines have been refilled.  This is
     currently applicable only to the M&M machine because the
     Coke interface is essentially self-monitoring.  Proper
     credentials are requested before a reset may be performed.

BUGS
     As of 22-June-90, only the M&M interface is working.  The
     Coke interface is still being prepared.

SEE ALSO
     xmnm(1)

HISTORY
     22-Jun-90  eddie caplan (egc) at carnegie mellon
          Updated man entry to reflect the new Coke machine con-
          figuration.  Added BUGS section while the Coke inter-
          face is down.

     29-Oct-85  Ivor Durham (id) at Carnegie-Mellon University
          Created man entry. Client and server software by David
          Nichols with contributions from Ivor Durham.  Coke
          machine interface by John Zsarnay and M&M machine
          interface by Mark Zaremsky.

-- 
   _-_|\    Phil Kernick                        "Sleep all day,
  /     \   University of Adelaide               Party all night,
  \_.-*_/   E-Mail: phil@adam.adelaide.edu.au    It's fun to be a
       v    Phone:  +61 8 228 5914               Vampire!"
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers