HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
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 21:38:06 GMT

pt@geovision.gvc.com (Paul Tomblin) writes:

>Ah, but what about when they introduced the PS/2 to an unsuspecting world?
>The entire PC community _had_ well defined terminology, but Itty Bitty Minds
>had to come up with new terminology - or at least introduce dinosaur-speak.

>Why else would they insist on calling a motherboard a 'System Planar Board'
>Like I really care what it's geometry is?

The term was used in the manuals for the original PC; for that matter,
it's actually a hand-me-down from the terminology used in mainframe
hardware engineering from 'way back.

Ditto for "Fixed Disk" vs "hard disk".  The term "fixed disk" was well
established in the mainframe world to represent a disk which could not
be removed except by field circus, to distinguish it from a "removable 
disk" which the system operators would mount and dismount as called for
by the users.  It happened that in the PC world "fixed disk" could
be equated to "hard disk" and "removable disk" to "floppy disk".

Interestingly, I don't see any move to formally address the terminology
problem caused by removable hard disks on the one hand and Bernoulli disks
and their ilk which do the work of a fixed disk...

And don't lose sight of the way non-computer people (aka "the other 99%")
look at the entire industry with its fascination with jargon.

Joe Morris
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: jimf@centerline.com (Jim Frost)
Subject: Re: What does UNIX mean?
Organization: CenterLine Software, Inc.
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 13:34:01 GMT

gdoherty@unix1.tcd.ie (Eru) writes:
>In <Fa18NB2w164w@phsbbs.princeton.nj.us> carlcory@phsbbs.princeton.nj.us (Carl Corey) writes:

>>michaelb@cse.fau.edu (Michael Rogero Brown) writes:

>>> "Is Unix an acronym, and if so what does it mean?"
>>> 
>>> Well as anyone who works with Unix know, Unix is >not< an acronym,
>>> but a weak pun on Multics, the OS that Ken Thompson and all the
>>> others who worked on Unix used before before creating Unix.

>>Anyway, the pun is that Unix (eunichs) is a castrated version of Multics

>I had thought it was because while *mul*tics tried to do lots of things,
>*un*ix tries to do one thing well, (ie. time share).

...and there you have it, a castrated multics.

jim frost
jimf@centerline.com
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: bombman@diku.dk (Hans-Henrik St{rfeldt)
Subject: Re: Gig or Jig or Gij or Jij?
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 14:46:21 GMT
Organization: Department of Computer Science, U of Copenhagen

dp35@mc1adm.UWaterloo.ca (Greg Moore) writes:

>If people could mail me, I'll post the results.  Personally, I prefer
>"Jijibite".

Well...  Here in Denmark it is "gigabite" (no j's)

--HHS
-- 
 ___________________________________________________
|            Bombman the mad bomber                 |
|            Bombman@freja.diku.dk                  |
|___________________________________________________|
From: dik@cwi.nl (Dik T. Winter)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: What does dd stand for?
Date: 27 Jul 92 01:08:50 GMT
Organization: CWI, Amsterdam

In article <1992Jul26.230240.4225@uvm.edu> wollman@sadye (Garrett Wollman) writes:
 >                    Now, as it happened, the Exabyte was located in an
 > IBM RS/6000(*) and his local disk was on an SGI IRIS Indigo, and so
 > the command he used was:
...
 > Now there's no recourse left but to hit the Big Yellow Pushbutton, the
 > ultimate escape switch on this machine.
Did you try the three-fingered salute: CTRL-ALT-BACKSPACE (or what it is on
the RS/6000)?  (Once a PC always a PC.)
-- 
dik t. winter, cwi, kruislaan 413, 1098 sj  amsterdam, nederland
home: bovenover 215, 1025 jn  amsterdam, nederland
dik@cwi.nl
From: lupe@ukw.uucp (Lupe Christoph)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Computers killing people? (WAS Re: 9 track data storage???)
Date: 30 Jul 92 18:21:01 GMT
Organization: cic

hellmann@cs.scarolina.edu (Douglas R Hellmann) writes:

>comrade@uniwa.uwa.edu.au (Peter Cooper) writes:

>>I wonder if being killed by a falling VAX 11/750 counts?  It *could*
>>happen where I am.  The old vax lives on the top floor of a building
>>that has had rather severe termite problems, and the VAX may well be
>>past the safe loading limit.  Anyway, below the VAX is a student tavern,
>>often playing loud enough movement that the floor moves measurably.  I
>>can just see the headlines:

>>Falling VAX kills 20.

>>I live in hope.

>I wonder if they would try to make VAXes illegal then, since people get
>killed by them.  Makes as much sense as making guns illegal.

Yeah, there are so many people killing there wives/husbands by dropping
a VAX on them, or people running amuck firing Unibus boards from their
VAXen.

You know, there is a difference. A VAX is normally only lethal to
a very special kind of programmer, while a gun is lethal for anybody.
-- 
| ...!unido!ukw!lupe  (German EUNet, "bang")     |  Disclaimer:            |
| lupe@ukw.UUCP       (German EUNet, domain)     |  As I am self-employed, |
| suninfo!alanya!lupe (Sun Germany)              |  this *is* the opinion  |
| Res non sunt complicanda praeter necessitatem. |  of my employer.        |
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: cc2x@vax5.cit.cornell.edu (Jeff Luszcz)
Subject: Silly Idea (was: re:risosaur noises)
Followup-To: alt.folklore.computers
Organization: Cornell University
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 19:13:57 GMT

  Okay here's a silly idea. After hearing people talk about the sounds
that came out of the computers speaker while a program was running,
ie LINC, LINC-8, and PDP-12 computers, playing a song of some type I got
an idea that may be a little silly.
  Why not make an emulator that would emulate the noises made by those
computers while it ran a program.
  You could load your orginal program (if it was still in machine readible
form (for a machine that could still read it)) and hear 'flight of the
bumblebees again...)
   What do you think, what would you need to do this? Sample some noises I
would guess with a little idea of the mechanics of the creation of the
particular noises.
    ????
    -Jeff

---
   Jeffrey Luszcz                   Internet Address
   210 Linden Ave Apt#3                cc2x@vax5.cit.cornell.edu
   Ithaca,NY                        Bitnet Address
     14850                             cc2x@crnlvax5
                                    Tel:(607)273-6888
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: pt@geovision.gvc.com (Paul Tomblin)
Subject: Re: Computers killing people? (WAS Re: 9 track data storage???)
Reply-To: pt@geovision.gvc.com
Organization: Not officially GeoVision Systems Inc., Ottawa, Ontario
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 20:07:15 GMT

dsiebert@icaen.uiowa.edu (Doug Siebert) writes:

>as the first person ever to be killed by a computer?  Then I got to wondering
>if ANYONE had ever been killed by computer.  I suppose it depends on how you

Well, I don't have the references, although any regular reader of comp.risks
could tell you about the radiation treatment machine (for treating cancer
patients) that killed several people due to a software bug.

It turned out that the programmers hadn't considered the case were the
operator might push one button before another operation was finished, as so
the shield that limits the amount of radiation could be completely out of
the path, allowing a fatal dose of radiation to hit the patient.

-- 
Paul Tomblin, pt@geovision.gvc.com or {uunet,revcan}!geovision!pt
(This is not an official opinion of GeoVision Systems Inc.)
"Usenet is like Tetris for people who still remember how to read"
 -- Joshua Heller (heller2@husc.harvard.edu) on rec.humor.funny
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: dylan@ibmpcug.co.uk (Matthew Farwell)
Subject: Re: What does UNIX mean?
Organization: The IBM PC User Group, UK.
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 09:21:52 GMT

In article <14548@umd5.umd.edu>, matthews@oberon.umd.edu (Mike Matthews) 
writes:
> You think THAT's bad?  There's some psychology (?) book out there somewhere
> in use by some colleges that claims that Unix is a word processor.

I believe that one of the original uses for Unix was actually text
processing.  This can easily be called word processing by someone who
doesn't know the difference.

Dylan (playing chinese whispers)
-- 
It is no coincidence that in no known language does the phrase 'As
pretty as an Airport' appear -- Douglas Adams
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: wex@cs.ulowell.edu (Paul M. Wexelblat)
Subject: DECtape swapping == FALSE -------NOT (sort of)
Originator: wex@cs.ulowell.edu
Reply-To: wex@cs.ulowell.edu
Organization: Univ. of Lowell CS Dept.
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 17:49:33 GMT


As I referred to in an earlier post, there WAS DECtape swapping
(sort of)

To clarify, DEC was into "device independence"; this was applied to
the drums (They used a Burroughs fixed head (I think) drum as the early
swapping device) and DECtapes amongst other devices.  Thus, it was
POSSIBLE to specify a DECtape drive as the (or one of the) swapping
medium (media).  This would/did work in a few specific cases, but was not
reliably usable except in the case where you were running single
user and the drum was down, you couldn't stand the time

DECtape swapping did work, this is not a legend.

like the: "I have it on good authority that a friend of my next-door
neighbors garbage man, knew a guy (who has moved away) whose brother-in-laws
mechanics mothers haidressers plumber once heard that...

BTW splicing DECtape with scotch tape was always ok (REG TM?), but using
staples was sometimes unreliable  -- staples covered with Scotch Tape
tended to reduce the head  scratching, but increased the bounce of the tape
off the head.  (and why did Linc tapes run backwards (or was it
DECtapes that ran backwards?))

-- 
If God had intended us to vote, He would have given us candidates.

	...Wex
From: thad@public.BTR.COM (Thaddeus P. Floryan)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: What does UNIX mean?
Date: 29 Jul 92 10:16:01 GMT
Organization: BTR Public Access UNIX, Mountain View CA

In article <1992Jul23.140833.28983@geovision.gvc.com> pt@geovision.gvc.com writes:
>[...]
>My personal favourite was when Jerry got a Unix-PC (AT&T 3b2?), and
>complained that every now and then the disk would spin when he wasn't doing
>anything!  Duh - what's multi-tasking?  Duh - what's a daemon?
>[...]

For the record, the UNIXPC was also known as the 3B1 and as the PC7300; it
sports a 10MHz MC68010 and is still quite popular today, esp. since the
going prices are "affordable."

Its newsgroups are comp.sys.3b1 and comp.sources.3b1 (changed back in 1991
from the unix-pc.* hierarchy).

The 3B2 (older models) are based on the WE32000-series chips; the newer
ones are based on the MIPS R3000 series family.  Its primary newsgroup is
comp.sys.att, though the u3b.* hierarchy "may" still be semi-active.

Thad Floryan [ thad@btr.com (OR) {decwrl, mips, fernwood}!btr!thad ]
From: kilgore@wuntvor.norman.ok.us (Stan Hall)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Today's Games Destined to be Classics
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 92 15:35:05 CDT
Distribution: world
Organization: The Eternal Apprentice BBS, Norman, OK

jelson@poincare.cs.jhu.edu (Jeremy Elson) writes:

> In article <1992Jul28.184311.5093@eskimo.celestial.com> shaggy@eskimo.celesti
> >Yeah Koronis Rift was ok, I just didn't like the theme as much as
> >Rescue's...  And what's this about my CoCo III's not being old?  it's
> >about as old as CoCo III's get, it was the second CoCo III bought in my
> >hometown (one of the clerks beat me to it...I got mine the first day it
> >was released)  I liked the CoCo, it was a nice machine, I still own
> >mine.
> 
> Coco?  What kind of game is that?  The Coco *I* know is an instructional
> program for the Commodore 64 that I used when I was about 11 (after we
  [description deleted]


  The CoCo that is being spoke of is the wonderful Tandy/RS Color
  Computer.  Let's see, the blown 6809 processor from my first 
  computer, a CoCo I (F revision?) is sitting on my shelf.  What
  fond memories I have of the beast...


  Kilgore



--
kilgore@wuntvor.norman.ok.us (Stan Hall)
The Eternal Apprentice BBS, Norman, OK -- +1 405 325 9607
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: pt@geovision.gvc.com (Paul Tomblin)
Subject: Re: Mad drums
Reply-To: pt@geovision.gvc.com
Organization: Not officially GeoVision Systems Inc., Ottawa, Ontario
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 23:50:29 GMT

tvv@tandem.com (Tom Van Vleck) writes:

>I think this may be an urban legend.

An urban legend in a folklore group?  Surely you jest!

>I first heard it from a Bryant salesman in 1959 thus: An experimental
>drum, half a ton of machined aluminum in a vacuum box at 14K rpm.
>Somebody opened the door & the drum hopped its bearings and began
>wandering like a top through the lab, smashing everything.

I heard a story about a drum memory on a warship that went crashing thourgh
the side when they tried a 'man overboard' turn.

(My brother the sailor told me that one - along with the one about putting a
hole in the hull when chipping paint in the bilges.)

-- 
Paul Tomblin, pt@geovision.gvc.com (Not an official spokesman, blah, blah...)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Engineers aren't as smart as they like to be told they are." - told to me
 by Heather Killam the co-op.  (It sounded funnier after a lot of beer!)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: 9 track data storage???????????????READ/NEW/FOLLOWUP
From: don@zl2tnm.gen.nz (Don Stokes)
Date: 23 Jul 92 07:51:58 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: The Wolery

terry@spcvxb.spc.edu (Terry Kennedy, Operations Mgr.) writes:
>   Well, the TU77/78/79 are all built by TA/Pertec. I happen to think that 
> they are marvelous drives, the end result of years of evolution, which
> nothing can surpass. 

I do too.  The TA79 did most of the backups, replacing two TA81s.  The TA81s
would have _both_ been down about as often as the single TA79, which was
amazing considering the relative complexity of the drives.  (The TA79 being
an auto-loading vacuum column job, the TA81s are flat bed, lower speed,
manual load.)  It's also an indictment of the TA81s' reliability.

The operators greeted this new monster with a certain amount of fear, having
previously dealt with a TU77; also a Pertec drive, but that one had been
a real problem child.

>   Anyway, all the problems you describe with the backwrap on the takeup reel
> are from improper adjustment of the reel rotation rate. On a load/unload, the

I saw that happen three or four times in the three years I dealt with the
beast, probably mainly due to dud tapes or Murphy's Law.  The latter theory
seems to me to be more likely, since it was usually something important that
got eaten, like the VMS V5.2 upgrade tape (and therein lies another story).

I think the backwrap occurred at least once when the system had given up
on a tape and the operators had tried to manually initiate a rewind, but I
only got to scrape the entrails out of the thing and wasn't around when
it actually happened.

Those drives, with their vaccuum tubes and wirewrap backplanes really seemed
like living breathing things.  The 3.5" form factor DAT drive on the 3100 
just isn't the same....

--
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: spitzak@gree.Eng.Sun.COM (Bill Spitzak)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Terminal intrinsics
Date: 25 Jul 1992 06:31:00 GMT
Organization: Sun Microsystems
Distribution: world
Reply-To: spitzak@gree.Eng.Sun.COM
NNTP-Posting-Host: gree

> (VT100 "identify terminal" responses)

As far as I know, lots of DEC software sent either ^[c, or ^[Z (which is necessary
for VT52 terminals) and did a timeout for the terminal to send something back.
Unfortunately a lot of it then did a literal test for what a VT100 returned,
which meant that if DEC made a "new" terminal (such as a VT101) and it
returned something different, all their software would fail to recognize that
it was VT100 compatable.  So they added a switch so it could return either an
"old" or "new" sequence.  After a few iterations they had not learned anything,
but they appear to finally have said "a VT100 terminal will return a sequence
that can vary but has this pattern".  Anyway, according to the source code for
a terminal emulator here, a VT330 can be set to return any of these sequences,
to make many different pieces of software happy!

        "\233?62;1;2;6;7;8;9c", /* VT220 */
        "\033[?1;2c",           /* VT100 */
        "\033[?1;0c",           /* VT101 (VT100 without printer) */
        "\033[?6c",             /* VT102 */
        "\233?63;1;2;3;4;6;7;8;9;13;15;16;17;18;19;c"};    /* VT330 */
	"\033Z" /* VT52 */

In addition the \233 can be sent either as \233 or as \033[.

Maybe we are lucky DEC is going out of business.
From: smckinty@sunicnc.France.Sun.COM (Steve McKinty - Sun ICNC)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Data General
Date: 30 Jul 1992 07:46:30 GMT
Organization: SunConnect
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: hardy.france.sun.com

In article <1992Jul29.224946.22461@ttinews.tti.com>, hollombe@polymath.tti.com (The Polymath) writes:
> 
> 5 Meg. per pack. (And you forgot the "excessive g-forces detector" -- a
> small, glass vial glued to the pack that would break and release a red
> liquid if the pack was dropped).
> 
Ah yes, the "Shockwatch". I remember a guy who'd spent most of two days
building a system onto a RL02 pack fitted with one of them. When he went
for a coffee one of his mates coloured it in with a felt pen.  He was
a rather highly-strung guy, didn't take it at all well. Especially since they
waited until he was resigned to restarting, and then told him what they'd
done...
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: sarr@sinshan.citi.umich.edu (Sarr J. Blumson)
Subject: Re: swapping on tape (was: swapping to DECtape == FALSE)
Organization: University of Michigan, CITI
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 15:29:34 GMT

In article <157g5vINNbfg@seven-up.East.Sun.COM> gsteckel@east.sun.com (Geoff Steckel - Sun BOS Hardware CONTRACTOR) writes:
>In article <13309@ns-mx.uiowa.edu> jones@pyrite.cs.uiowa.edu (Douglas W. Jones,201H MLH,3193350740,3193382879) writes:
>>
>>That's curious, I was there from 1969 to 1973, as an undergrad, and that's
>>when I heard the story about swapping to DECtape!  There was quite a bit of
>>folklore about DECtape even back then!
>
>And I'm pretty sure it's folklore - it's the sort of thing it _ought_
>to be able to do.
>
That may be folklore, but this isn't.  I saw it and my friends Dick
Lacey and Wes Rishel wrote the code:

The original Dartmouth time sharing system (the simple one that BASIC
was originally developed on) rean 40 to 40 users at Teletypes (tm) and
one batch (ie run from the card reader) stream.  The batch stream
spooled printer output to tape because this was a full swap system
(only one use in RAM at a time) but the spooled output could be
printed while other jobs were running.

Well,,, Since the batch jobs were a single stream, and since our tape
drives would read backwards and do the right thing, it occurred to us
that we could swap to batch stream on the spooling tape.  As a single
record (one giant write to get it out, one giant read to get it back
in).  This was 12k 20 bit words, which at 3 7 bit frames/word and 556
frames/inch (the HIGH density on those drives) was about 6 feet of
tape.  Fun to watch.  The only problem was long running jobs that
didn't do any output would swap too often on the same stretch of tape
and wear off the oxide.  Oh well...

(Sarr Blumson)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.sys.att
From: jgd@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (John G Dobnick)
Subject: Re: Dusty Machines
Originator: jgd@csd4.csd.uwm.edu
Reply-To: jgd@csd4.csd.uwm.edu
Organization: University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee
Date: Sat, 25 Jul 1992 02:43:57 GMT

From article <2YJHS5G@taronga.com>, by peter@taronga.com (Peter da Silva):
> In article <1992Jul19.235020.21752@uwm.edu> jgd@csd4.csd.uwm.edu writes:
>>From article <2VIHVO3@taronga.com>, by peter@taronga.com (Peter da Silva):
>>> (me, I put them under a pyramid aligned 3.5 degrees off true north for 37.5
>>>  hours with a negative ion generator and a quartz crystal dipped in DIDI-7)
> 
>>Which way -- East or West?  :-)
> 
> That you ask that question shows you're hopelessly locked in the false
> Western dualism... 

Egad!  I've been found out!

It's just my cultural background showing.  I've been attempting to
curtail that (by removing culture), but with little success.  Maybe
I should study the false _Eastern_ dualism?  :-)

"A mindset is a terrible thing to waste", or something like that.
-- 
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
From: s.telford@ed.ac.uk (Scott Telford)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Cloned computers
Date: 31 Jul 92 16:00:29 GMT
Organization: Dept of Computer Science, University of Edinburgh, UK.

In article <greg.712512455@duke>, 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:
[...]
> Tandy Color Computer		Dragon 32

I don't think the Dragon 32 was so much of a clone, just that both
machines were built to similar (Motorola) specifications (same video
chip, same Basic, same memory map..). That was the story I heard,
anyway.

> Anything else?

Sinclair ZX81           MicroAce
Sinclair ZX Spectrum    Several (I remember reports of Brazilian,
Soviet and Indian clones, can't remember the names, also MGT SAM Coupe)
Apple II                Wasn't there a portable clone called the Excalibur?

Lots of hardware has been cloned by the Soviets over the years...
-- 
Scott Telford, Dept of Computer Science,      electric mail: s.telford@ed.ac.uk
University of Edinburgh, Mayfield Rd, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK.
------- Rollin' over like a big, big cloud/Walkin' out in the Big Sky! --------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: hcleong@iti.gov.sg (Leong Heng Cheong)
Subject: Re: You know you've been hacking too long...
Keywords: workstation, hacking, risks
Organization: Information Technology Institute, National Computer Board, Singapore.
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 07:30:26 GMT

In article <ghoast.712366660@hal> ghoast@hal.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Devin Jones) writes:
>kst@telesoft.com (Keith Thompson @pulsar) writes:
>
>>The one on my right wrist (with the scientific and hex calculators) is
>>in 24-hour mode, and the one on my left wrist (with the phone
>>directory) is in 12-hour mode.
>
>
>That's all fine and wonderful, but get this:  not only do I have a watch that 
>is in 24 hr mode, but it's -analog-.  Beat that.
>

That's all fine and wonderful, but get this: not only do I have a watch
that is analog, it also has both 24 hr and 12 hr mode together.  Beat
that.

:-)

Heng Cheong
  hcleong@iti.gov.sg

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers