HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Writing a super-fast PDP-8 emulator.
From: don@zl2tnm.gen.nz (Don Stokes)
Date: 12 Sep 92 05:30:48 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: The Wolery

smckinty@sunicnc.France.Sun.COM (Steve McKinty - Sun ICNC) writes:
> As to C/Assembler etc., it will depend on your architecture. A VAX has a
> CASE instruction builtin to its machine code, so something like a

You can't use a single CASEW for a pdp11 emulation.  The reason?  The 
CASEx instructions are of the format:

		CASEW selector, base, limit
			word-offset
			word-offset
			[etc]

An example, from PRIMGR.MAR (a VMS priority management program):

| ;
| ; Branch to appropriate processing routine for priority 3, 4 or 5.
| ; If process is not one of these, then drop thru.
| ;
|                 casel jpi_prib, #3, #2
| 5$:             .word check_pri_3 - 5$
|                 .word check_pri_4 - 5$
|                 .word check_pri_5 - 5$
| ;
| ; We drop through to here if the priority is abnormal, ie < 3 or > 5.
| ; [...]

If you are doing a pdp11 emulation, you will need 65536 word offsets, and 
the middle ones won't be able to reach outside the jump table!

You could pull a few tricks such as as stripping the hi bit first (on most
instructions, it distinguishes between byte and word operations; it also
negates conditional branches and the 07xxxx and 17xxxx instructions are the
FP and "hard" arithmetic instructions that don't really matter much if they
take a bit longer (since they're (mostly) slow anyway).  You'd still have a
64kw table, so you'd still need to do cut things back a bit.  

> will be coded as a CASEW instruction, which is essentially a jump table.
> (Who needs these RISC chips...! :-) )

For such a big tables, a simple:

		jmp branch-table[R7]

is going to be _much_ easier.  It'll execute faster too. 
(Who needs these CISC chips...!  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
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.windows.misc,comp.windows.x,comp.human-factors
From: parry@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au (Tom J Parry)
Subject: Re: GUIs Considered Harmful
Originator: parry@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au
Organization: Monash University, Melb., Australia.
Date: Sun, 6 Sep 1992 13:30:51 GMT

Bryan A. Ignatow (b1i3297@zeus.tamu.edu) wrote:
> 
> In article <ABERCROMBIE.92Sep3124717@apphpp10.mdcbbs.com>, abercrombie@mdcbbs.com (Phil Abercrombie) writes:
> >
> >These days mice seem to be constructed such that if you lift them from
> >the desk the ball will stop turning. 
> >
> 
> What Ball?  My good ol' trusty ball-mouse was replaced with the new and improved
> model:  two cylinders.  One cylinder is pitched for the horizontal, the other
> one for the vertical.

The mice on the SG Irises here don't have moving parts at all. They use
little red LEDs and a reflective metal mouse pad with little squares on
it! What's more some of the pads have different dot pitches so the mouse
movement speeds are different.

-- 
Tom J Parry.
Your reality is a figment of my imagination.
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: kkirksey@world.std.com (Ken B Kirksey)
Subject: Sneakers
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 1992 20:56:59 GMT

Just saw Sneakers last night and I think I caught an anachronism, but I 
could be wrong. (Wouldn't be the first time).  At the beginning of the 
movie, two characters are hacking on what looks like a VT-100.  Can
anyone confirm if I'm right on this point?  Anyway, this scene is taking
place in 1969, and I thought the VT-100 wasn't introduced until the early
seventies.  Or am I completely off base.
 
                            Ken
                            

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.unix.misc
From: francis@dogwood.atl.ga.us (John Stracke)
Subject: Re: The need for an assembler (was: Favorite CPU)
Organization: National Science Center Foundation
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 15:35:48 GMT
	<id.303T.Z2C@ferranti.com> <1992Sep15.103032.16749@news.columbia.edu>

In article <1992Sep15.103032.16749@news.columbia.edu> lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner) writes:

>In article <id.303T.Z2C@ferranti.com> peter@ferranti.com (peter da silva) writes:
>>In article <1992Sep8.094005.15877@news.columbia.edu> lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner) writes:
>>> Who cares if code written for one O/S does/does not run on another one.
>>
>>I do.
>
>It isn't important if you individually do or not; the rhetorical question
>was to the vast audience, not your clique.

The problem is that the "vast audience" you're talking about is vast
only in terms of number of systems and users.  You can specialize in
the needs of that particular audience, since it means a huge market;
but there are a very sizeable number of systems running other stuff,
and people who develop portably can support multiple oddball systems
far more easily and effectively than if they stuck to DOSisms.
Remember, CPU time isn't nearly as expensive as developer time.

--
/===========================================================================\
|John (Francis) Stracke         |My opinions are my own.                    |
|Natl. Science Center Foundation|===========================================|
|Augusta, GA                    | Brought to you by the letter Q.           |
|francis@galois.nscf.org        |                                           |
\===========================================================================/
(Formerly francis@dogwood.atl.ga.us,francis@zaphod.uchicago.edu)
-- 
/===========================================================================\
|John (Francis) Stracke         |My opinions are my own.                    |
|Natl. Science Center Foundation|===========================================|
|Augusta, GA                    | Brought to you by the letter Q.           |
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: twpierce@unix.amherst.edu (Tim Pierce)
Subject: Re: The third variable.
Organization: Amherst College, Amherst MA
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 05:27:57 GMT

In article <BuFosq.2tp@news.cso.uiuc.edu> mjg51721@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Michael James Gebis) writes:

>Does anyone have any other creative variable names?

I habitually use "treefrog," because I always thought "foobar" was
overdone.  Unfortunately, it gets me into trouble using "tree" and
"frog" for other temporary names, because I often want to name my
*real* variables "tree!"

-- 
____ Tim Pierce                / "I don't know how much support NAMBLA
\  / twpierce@unix.amherst.edu /  has in the gay community."
 \/ (BITnet: TWPIERCE@AMHERST) /   -- Clayton Cramer, August 1992
Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 02:36:12 -0400 
From: "Joseph M. Newcomer" <jn11+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: Thoughts

Anyone who has been to Pittsburgh will understand the following.
For those of you who have not been to Pittsburgh, it is a city nestled
in a triangle where the Allegheny and the Monongahela rivers meet to
form the Ohio.  These rivers have cut valleys into the landscape, so to
get to the city you must cross at least one major bridge, and three of
the four major commuting routes require negotiating a two-lane tunnel.
Two of these tunnels lead directly onto bridges.  Three of the four
major routes require crossing a bridge (this is not redundant, left as
an exercise for the reader).  Due to lack of funding for many decades,
the bridges are often closed as being unsafe.  The roads are laid out
as equipotential lines on the topography.  Because many of the streets
are old and cannot support modern traffic, they are often one-way.  This
leads to the basic rules of getting around in Pittsburgh:
    (a) you can't get there from here
    (b) if you could, the bridge will be closed
    (c) if it isn't, the road will be under construction somewhere
    (d) it is uphill both getting there and coming back
    (e) parallel streets will eventually cross each other
    (f) streets which should intersect, don't (two alternative explanations)
        (f.1) by the time you get to where they would meet, they aren't
              there any longer (one having turned away)
        (f.2) when they meet, they will be separated vertically by at
              least 50 feet
    (g) through streets aren't
        (g.1) they are one-way meeting in the middle
        (g.2) they are one-way diverging from the middle
        (g.3) at least one segment of the street is one-way, and it
              is not the way you are going
        (g.4) there is a significant vertical discontinuity which doesn't
              show up on the street map but would show up on a topo map.
        (g.5) there is a significant horizontal discontinuity, so if you
              can't find the address you are looking for, project the
              street out (allowing for cases (e) and (f)) across any
              gap in the map.
    (h) streets intersect each other more than once
              (Yes, Beechwood Boulevard connects to Forbes Avenue in
               three places)
    (i) knowing where North is doesn't help.
        (no serious street goes fewer than two directions no matter which 
         way you are travelling on it. You can go North on Beechwood.  Also
         South, East and West.  And that is travelling only one way.  Turn
         around and head back and repeat the process.  I Am Not Making This
         Up.)
        
I've been in the city for 25 years (this month!) and I *still* have
trouble!
                                joe

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: ellis@nova.gmi.edu (Stew Ellis)
Subject: Re: uNIX on tired iron FAQ
Organization: GMI Engineering&Management Institute, Flint, MI
Date: Sat, 5 Sep 1992 13:59:37 GMT

LOGIN@cbnewse.cb.att.com writes:

>In article <Bu1365.B0C@nntp-sc.Intel.COM>, dlau@mipos2.intel.com (Dan Lau) writes:
>> In article <id.WKWS.O4A@ferranti.com> peter@ferranti.com (peter da silva) writes:
>> >I guess this is as good a time as any... I'm going to try and put together
>> >a uNIX on tired iron FAQ.
[stuff]
>> Just want you to know that the AT&T 6300-PLUS (a 286 machine) runs the
[stuff]
>> 
>> The old Xenix-286 was also able to run with 1M (or less?) of memory, but
>> I guess it is still supported by SCO (?).
>> 	Dan Lau

>What about the Tandy 6000 and Microsoft/Tandy XENIX. It would run on 768K
[stuff]
>Steve Dawson
>Opinions expressed here are mine. One of the few things that I have left.
>swd@ihlpy.att.com

Of course I do not need to remind Peter of the Intel 310/286, running a
SYSIII-based version of Xenix.  10's of thousands of these were sold to the
army and maybe thousands made it to colleges.  The ones we had ran at 6MHz,
and ran reference implementation of OSI networking.  I am surprised the army
guy or the Intel guy did not mention these.  Mine ran dhrystone faster than
a Microvax IIGPX (1700 vs. 1500).  Of course the 310 did not have a 19" color
monitor.  Did Peter not list these because he is still using some? ;)

--
--                                                        ___________________
  R.Stewart(Stew) Ellis, Assoc.Prof., (Off)313-762-9765  /   _____  ______ 
  Humanities & Social Science,  GMI Eng.& Mgmt. Inst.   /        / /  /  / /
  Flint, MI 48504      ellis@nova.gmi.edu              /________/ /  /  / /
From: mcastro@iris-dcp.es
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: The funniest bug
Date: 14 Sep 92 21:26:32 +0200
Organization: REDIRIS, Red Nacional de I+D


I don't know if there's a recopilation of funny bugs somewhere, if not
what is|are the funniest bug|bugs in your code?
I dont  remember mine, but a friend of mine tell me one I consider funny
-maybe because I didn't have to fix it!:

He was using some OO Smalltalk-like language, and he used an array of
blocks of code. The thing was then 'played' with a 'do', executing the blocks.
Well, when he started it -it was a -excuse me- Multimedia app- some ghost
code played with the videodisk, displaying frames in the windows -it was
funny!. He showed me the code an there wasn't nothin that could do something
like that: he coded the first ghost I've seen!.
 
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.windows.misc,comp.windows.x,comp.human-factors
From: peter@taronga.com (Peter da Silva)
Subject: Re: GUIs Considered Harmful
Organization: Taronga Park BBS
Date: Sun, 6 Sep 1992 13:09:10 GMT

In article <3SEP199217474904@rover.uchicago.edu> frank@rover.uchicago.edu writes:
>	Trackballs, etc are good for menuing, where getting there is important,
>	but getting there in a very straignt line may not be.

I disagree. I've used trackballs and I've used mice. With mice, I just move
my hand to the destination. I don't even have to look at the screen much of
the time, because I have the basic skills (writing) needed to closely control
my hand and arm position. Trackballs I have to watch, and I overshoot, and
correct, and overcorrect.

And it's not a matter of the baby duck situation, because I'm old enough that
I was using trackballs long before mice showed up on machines made for the
general public. Trackballs are simply harder to use and require more training.

As for freehand sketching, the mouse is NOT good enough, really. You don't
have detailed enough control. Try a pen digitizer.
-- 
                                                                `-_-'
                         Have you hugged your wolf today?        'U`

Peter da Silva, Taronga Park BBS, Houston, TX  +1 713 568 0480/1032
From: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: The need for an assembler (was: Favorite CPU)
Date: 8 Sep 92 09:09:31 GMT
Reply-To: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner)
Organization: Columbia University

In article <T7ZIZMC@taronga.com> peter@taronga.com (Peter da Silva) writes:
>In article <1992Sep1.051740.16218@sequent.com> dafuller@sequent.com (David Fuller) writes:
>>Weinberg.  I mean really.  Get a grip, folks.  Master as many tools as
>>you need and use them wisely.  
>
>Bravo.

I totally agree with this;  so why are there so many respondants attempting
to say such crap as:

a)	hll is all you *ever* need.

b)	assembler knowledge doesn't improve your skills as a programmer at
all.

Of course I might take exception to the word "need" because some would imply
it expediently means "can sneak by the boss who is a dim-bulb and get away
with it even though I know I could make it run better if I did x% of the
code in assembler".

cjl
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: jimf@centerline.com (Jim Frost)
Subject: Re: Renumbering BASIC programs (was Re: Branching in HLL vs. Assembler)
Organization: CenterLine Software, Inc.
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 20:02:54 GMT

morris@grian.cps.altadena.ca.us (Mike Morris) writes:
>I was able to move several tokenized programs over 
>from my IMSAI to my XT using a serial connection and two comm programs.
>Funny - they ran slower on the 6mhz XT than on the 4mhz Z80.

That doesn't surprise me at all; the Z80 was a faster chip than the
8086 given the same clock rate.  So was the 6502 and just about
everything else reasonably current at the time.

jim frost
jimf@centerline.com
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.unix.misc
From: peter@NeoSoft.com (Peter da Silva)
Subject: Re: The need for an assembler (was: Favorite CPU)
Organization: NeoSoft Communications Services -- (713) 684-5900
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 12:46:26 GMT

In article <1992Sep15.074843.25871@news.columbia.edu> lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner) writes:
> That's fine; also maybe their performance expectations as to effective machine
> speed are virtually non-existent.

Last I checked, most UNIX workstations and minicomputers are significantly
faster than IBM-PC clones. There's a technical point for you.
-- 
Peter da Silva.  <peter@sugar.neosoft.com>.
 `-_-'   "Have you hugged your wolf today?"
  'U`  
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: john@newave.mn.org (John A. Weeks III)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Better dead than IBM
Date: 7 Sep 92 16:58:42 GMT
Organization: Newave Communications, Ltd, Lake Wobegon, MN

In <BtpKz8.369@hatch.socal.com> richg@hatch.socal.com (Rich Greenberg) writes:
> Any IBM employee will tell you it stands for:  "I've Been Moved".

I've Been to a Meeting.

-john-

-- 
==============================================================================
John A. Weeks III		(612) 942-6969		    john@newave.mn.org
Newave Communications, Ltd.			    ..!uunet!tcnet!newave!john
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: spray@convex.com (Rob Spray)
Subject: Re: Need IBM=It's Broke, Man expansions for COBOL.
Organization: CONVEX Computer Corporation, Richardson, Tx., USA
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 15:26:14 GMT
X-Disclaimer: This message was written by a user at CONVEX Computer
              Corp. The opinions expressed are those of the user and
              not necessarily those of CONVEX.

In <1992Sep14.150413.19904@ccu.umanitoba.ca> grnbrg@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Brian Greenberg) writes:


>Anybody have any good, nasty expansions for COBOL?

not an acronym, but a COBOL joke:

Q. What did one COBOL programmer say to the other?
A. PICTURE this if you can...

--Rob  spray@convex.com

Xref: sparky alt.folklore.computers:13977 comp.unix.misc:3665
From: IQTI400@INDYCMS.IUPUI.EDU (macphil)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.unix.misc
Subject: Re: The need for an assembler (was: Favorite CPU)
Date: 15 Sep 92 00:15:27 GMT
Organization: IUPUI

In article <1992Sep14.022100.9517@ksmith.uucp>
keith@ksmith.uucp (Keith Smith) writes:
 
>In article <1685ED2C6.IQTI400@INDYCMS.IUPUI.EDU> IQTI400@INDYCMS.IUPUI.EDU (macphil) writes:
>>As a college friend of mine said many years ago:  "The power is in the
>>algebra."  We're only going to make hardware run so fast, then it'll
>>be up to the quality of the software and the ability to exploit
>>the hardware.
>
>Fortunately for us who run this bloated software the hardware folks
>didn't listen to your friend and seem to keep making the hardware go
>faster, and faster, and f a s t e r . . .
 
Fortunately my friend was also one who read entire messages and understood
their meaning :)
N.B.  I didn't say when hardware speed will peek.  Just out of curiosity,
smartypants, what're you going to do for speed when it does peak?
Tachyon-based hardware?
From: terry@spcvxb.spc.edu (Terry Kennedy, Operations Mgr.)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: automatic CP/M to MS-DOS migration?
Date: 9 Sep 92 06:29:51 GMT
Organization: St. Peter's College, US

In article <u734120.715951998@bruny>, u734120@bruny.cc.utas.edu.au (John Lamp) writes:
> The reason for this is that Microsoft presumably translated its 8-bit software
> to 8086 code using a translator program such as Intel's CONV-86 or Digital
> Research's XTL-86.  Such programs cannot make intelligent assumptions
> about what the programmer is doing and will always produce conservative code.
> In addition many of the 8080 instructions have no single equivalent on the
> 8088 but must be emulated with a sequence of instructions."

  Well, I can speak to the exact details of the Microsoft BASIC conversion.
Both the 8080 and 8086 versions were cross-compiled on a DECsystem, using a
hacked-up version of the DECsystem assembler and Microsoft-writtem macros.
The conversion of the code for the 8086 was done by using a different macro
set and a few (very few, considering the size of the sources) conditional
assembly areas.

  I think that part of the problem was the speed of the PC hardware. I worked
on a backport of GW-BASIC from the PC to a Z-80 system. The Z-80, running the
code at 3.58Mhz had a smaller executable and was substantially faster than the
PC version. We also fixed some of the more embarassing math bugs as well 8-).
We also included the whole GW-BASIC graphic and sound support stuff.

  On another note, DRI's XLT-86 is better than the excerpt above would leave
you to believe. It does a bit of flow analysis to determine if the flag bits
are needed or if they can be ignored (leading to more compact code on the 8086,
since the emulation can be left out). There was also a VAX version which was
faster and did more look-ahead. I think that DRI didn't sell that version, but
sold access to it as a conversion service.

	Terry Kennedy		Operations Manager, Academic Computing
	terry@spcvxa.bitnet	St. Peter's College, Jersey City, NJ USA
	terry@spcvxa.spc.edu	+1 201 915 9381

P.S. - oddly enough, a few years ago I bought some used DEC disk drives and a
HSC. It turns out they were from the DRI VAX system that XLT-86 was developed
on (although the disks had been scrubbed clean long ago).
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.unix.misc
From: ketil@edb.tih.no (Ketil Albertsen,TIH)
Subject: Re: The need for an assembler (was: Favorite CPU)
Organization: T I H / T I S I P 
Posting-Front-End: Winix Conference v 92.05.15  1.20 (running under MS-Windows)
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1992 09:39:22 GMT



Say, why don't we all switch to Turing machines, to get this discussion
over with? Turing machine code is the most portable there is, and I'll
bet Mr. Lasner has truckloads of paper tape in his back room, so
computing resources should be abundant...


Ketil Albertsen
From: ivie@cc.usu.edu (CP/M lives!)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Ye Olde Secrete Screene Cheete Sheete (long; 1300+ lines)
Date: 7 Sep 92 12:29:56 MDT
Organization: Utah State University

In article <1992Sep6.160750.10034@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu>, aduell@nyx.cs.du.edu (Tony Duell) writes:
> 
>    The well-known 100*160 in 16 colors mode I don't know how to get this -
> can someone please enlighten me

I figured it out once, but it's been a while. Basically, you set the thing up
for text mode with only two scan lines per character. Then you use the 
half-filled characters for your pixels. Each character position represents
two pixels. The foreground and background color fields of the character gives
the colors of the pixels.

Very pretty. Did a lot of messing about with it a long time ago.

Roger Ivie
ivie@cc.usu.edu
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: hallam@zeus02.desy.de (Phill Hallam-Baker)
Subject: Re: Renumbering BASIC programs (was Re: Branching in HLL vs. Assembler)
Reply-To: Hallam@zeus02.desy.de
Organization: Deutsches Elektronen Synchrotron, Experiment ZEUS bei HERA
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 23:48:44 GMT

In article <jeremy.715850515@chao>, jeremy@sw.oz.au (Jeremy Fitzhardinge)
writes:

|>In <1992Sep5.002719.28463@bert.eecs.uic.edu> artn@bert.eecs.uic.edu (Ellyn
|>Sandor) writes:
|>
|>>>>>	Bonus:  guess the BASIC's.
|>>
|>>1) The CASE trick was from the Sinclair ZX-80 (one person got it right)
|>
|>Sinclair BASIC requires a LET keyword for assignments, so the
|>"one touch keyword" thingy would word.  (Note that on a Spectrum you'd
|>need 5 keystrokes for ATAN - ah well).

Yes but you miss the point of the "one touch keystrokes" it was purely because
the intepreter on the ZX80 was too small to be able to include a proper parser,
or even a tokenizer. So the "one touch" idea was born! Most people who used it
probably never realized that the idea was to make things easy for the
programmer!

--

Phill Hallam-Baker
From: aki@cruzio.santa-cruz.ca.us
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: You know when you're hacking too long when...
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 92 09:43:42 PDT
Reply-To: aki@cruzio.santa-cruz.ca.us



You are hacking too long if suddenly a character based non-real time
Space Invaders is your favorite form of entertainment.

Aki.
-- 
/  Phone: 408-662 9664   Fax: 662 9676  |  "Aki" pronounced: Ah-Key. I know  \ 
\  125 Searidge Ct #D, Aptos, CA 95003  |  what I'm doing most of the time.  /
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers