HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Branching in HLL vs. Assembler (was Re: The need for an assembler)
From: ecmtwhk@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz (Thomas Koenig)
Date: Sun, 30 Aug 1992 03:33:29 GMT
Organization: University of Auckland, New Zealand.

lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner) writes:

>A smart programmer would have his cards sequenced, i.e., have sequence digits
>punched in 73-80 so that should the cards ever get dropped (yes, that did
>happen, especially on big programs that were many feet of cards long), they
>could be sorted back to intended order using unit-record sorting machines
>that were commonly available.

This convention holds over to this day, in the ISPF editor for MVS: The
standard mode for FB80 - files (Files with a fixed record length of 80,
for people who have never had experience with that file system) is to
have line sequence numbers in columns 73-80. Usually, you don't see them
on a 80-column 327x terminal, because the command field for the line
commands takes up the first 8 columns. You would not want to write
anything in there anyway if you are writing FORTRAN or JCL, because
these columns are ignored by the compiler or interpreter.

The editor keeps track on wether to generate these file numbers by checking
the extension of the dataset you are editing.

Now for the gotcha: If you happen to edit a file with a new extension,
say a TeX - file, the editor will happily fill up the line with normally
invisible numbers, which will not be ignored by LaTeX. LaTeX will find
text before the \begin{document} and complain about it. One of the 32760
ways of MVS to confuse novice users...
-- 
Thomas Koenig, ecmtwhk@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz, ib09@rz.uni-karlsruhe.de
The joy of engineering is to find a straight line on a double logarithmic
diagram.
From: pereckas@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (pereckas michael s)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: ISO date format
Date: 25 Aug 92 23:34:39 GMT
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana

sverkerw@Minsk.docs.uu.se (Sverker Wiberg) writes:

>kjell@elixir.e.kth.se (Kjell Rilbe) writes:
>>Hey, I didn't know this date format was used anywhere outside Sweden! 

I'm American, and I always use it.  Of course, I use SI units in
everyday life, too.  It sorts nicely, it makes perfect sense, and I
can always say it is an international standard if anyone asks why I
use it.  When I create files with a date in the name, I always use the
related format yymmdd, which is compact and shows up in order when
sorted.


-- 
Michael Pereckas     pereckas@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu
Have you used the term ``nasal demons'' today?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: artn@bert.eecs.uic.edu (Ellyn Sandor)
Subject: Re: Apple /// (and MANY other computers)
Keywords: antique
Organization: University of Illinois at Chicago
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 20:20:27 GMT

9125113g@lux.latrobe.edu.au (Mitch Davis) writes:
>In article <1992Aug28.174810.16511@bert.eecs.uic.edu> artn@bert.eecs.uic.edu (Ellyn Sandor) writes:
>>
>>	Intel 4/40, circa 1975, serial number 001
>>
>>	With manuals, a blank board, papertape software (no way to load
>>it without an ASR-33 teleltype), built in EPROM burner, key switch. 4 bit
>>processor (either a 4004 or a 4040, I am not clear which), led's, rocker
>You must be really desperate to consider selling it.
>It would have either a 4004 or an 8008, since the order went
>4004-->8008-->8080 etc.
>Mitch.
>..but then again, I could be wrong.

	Well, desperate is a relative term.  I have no sentimental
attachment to it (in 1975 I was 7 years old...), though I think it
should fetch a pretty good price someday.  Do I want to keep it
around until someday?  When someday comes, will the pretty good
price mean anything to me?  Will it really be worth anything?
Will I ever get a terminal for it and make it do anything?
Is someday today?
	Now, if it was my precious Toshiba 1000 with custom
paint job that got me through undergrad school, or my TI-99 which
got me through high school, that would be desperate.

		sbm
-- 
--
Stephan Meyers | artn@uicbert.eecs.uic.edu
(Art)^n Laboratories, inventors of the Stealth Negative PHSCologram
(312) 567-3762
From: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Branching in HLL vs. Assembler (was Re: The need for an assembler)
Date: 31 Aug 92 16:07:56 GMT
Reply-To: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner)
Organization: Columbia University

In article <1992Aug28.221421.18061@ttinews.tti.com> hollombe@polymath.tti.com (The Polymath) writes:
>
>The problem isn't so much with the GOTO as with the lack of a COMEFROM.
>
>Suppose you're neck deep in the bowels of a multi-megabyte system and you
>come across a label in the source code.  There could be any number of
>GOTOs in the code that branch to that label.  Even if the original
>programmer was kind enough to provide a comment listing them all (I've
>only seen that once and I wrote it), figuring out which particular one
>you're concerned about can be a nightmare. (In a language like BASIC the
>problem is even worse since _every line_ can be the target of an arbitrary
>number of GOTOs).

a)	That's ludicrous since no code does a GOTO the middle of a module
therefore the largest thing to worry about is the size of the module you
are working on where the label exists.

b)	*Real* compilers/assemblers have cross-reference listings so you can
check it out if you care.

c)	If you don't have b) then why aren't you worrying about subroutine
CALLs which can do as much damage or more, and never would be documented as
to where they are calling to/from.  The scope of this could truly be a
global problem in a large program.  That's why internal subroutines were
invented, so others couldn't access them.  Similarly, no one expects or
uses a global GOTO.

Since you admit you virtually never use GOTO's, you seem not to be able to
express the intended method for their usage.  The problems you suggest simply
never happen unless an incompetent programmer creates unnecessary spaghetti.
Don't knock a feature which is useful in the hands of a skilled person merely
because you don't use it or others who shouldn't do try and wind up using it
in a less-than-useful manner.

cjl
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.unix.misc
From: dpbsmith@world.std.com (Daniel P. B. Smith)
Subject: MS-DOS version skew: "It's not done 'till Lotus won't run"
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 14:45:08 GMT

According to the book "Hard Drive" (about Bill Gates and Microsoft), an
unidentified Microsoft employee claimed that around the time of release
of MS-DOS 2.00, the word was "It's not done 'till Lotus won't run," and
that subtle incompatibilities were DELIBERATELY introduced into 2.00 to
cause 1-2-3 to break (because they were ticked off at 1-2-3's success
against Multiplan).

I don't say it's true. I say a book said someone unidentified said it
was true.


-- 
Daniel P. B. Smith
dpbsmith@world.std.com
From: sgcclmj@citec.oz.au (Liz Jones)
Subject: Re: You know when you're hacking too long when...
Organization: CITEC
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 06:52:14 GMT

ckd@eff.org (Christopher Davis) writes:
: Rich> == Rich Greenberg <richg@hatch.socal.com> 
: 
:  Rich> . . . instead of phoning someone local (same company, same city) you
:  Rich> send email even when you know they have voicemail/answering machine.
: 
: This is bad?  No.  Chasing down his character in a MUD to talk to him,
: when he's at the next terminal, *and the MUD is in Finland and you're in
: Boston*, now *that* is bad.
:
   even worse:
      in hand-written stuff, showing mud-emotions...
   like *grin*
   *smile*
    etc...



*wave*
liz
 
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: claird@NeoSoft.com (Cameron Laird)
Subject: Re: You know when you're hacking too long when...
Organization: NeoSoft Communications Services -- (713) 684-5900
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 13:35:28 GMT
Keywords: hacking

In article <1992Aug25.014852.4641@geovision.gvc.com> pt@geovision.gvc.com writes:
>richg@hatch.socal.com (Rich Greenberg) writes:
>
>>. . . instead of phoning someone local (same company, same city) you
>>send email even when you know they have voicemail/answering machine.
>
>Are you kidding?  I've sent email to a guy across the partition, even
>listening for biff to beep, and then listening for his reaction.
>
>Email is good.  Email is fun.  Getting up and walking is evil.
			.
			.
			.
Also, autoEmail makes a lot more sense
than calling yourself on the telephone.

'Least, it does to me.
-- 

Cameron Laird
claird@Neosoft.com (claird%Neosoft.com@uunet.uu.net)	+1 713 267 7966
claird@litwin.com (claird%litwin.com@uunet.uu.net)  	+1 713 996 8546
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: boebert@sctc.com (Earl Boebert)
Subject: Proof of 'Halting Problem'
Organization: SCTC
Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1992 22:36:21 GMT

Apologies if this is redundant, as I got in this discussion in the
middle...

Recent postings have made reference several times to a proof that it
is impossible to write a program which will tell whether another
program terminates. The proof in question involves hypothesising such
a program and then showing that its application to itself leads to a
contradiction.

This proof was presented by Strachey in a letter to the (British)
_Computer Journal_ in January of 1965.  Strachey's letter is somewhat
ambiguous but implies strongly that the proof originated with Turing
in 1953, and that the it was being offered publicly for the first
time.  A rather lively exchange of letters from various correspondents
ensued throughout 1965. That thread was finished off by a letter from
Maurer of MIT. In this he offered a proof (which he claimed was
orginal, and dated to mid-1965) that such a program is possible in
cases where memory is finite. He also presented an argument that his
proof was consistent with the Strachey/Turing [?]  result.  You can
look it all up, if you're interested and your library is good enough
:-)

Earl
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
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: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 06:30:00 GMT

In article <1992Aug21.020632.25116@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz> ecmtwhk@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz (Thomas Koenig) writes:
>lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner) writes:
>
>>As explained in the Real Programmers story, the little toy that helps you
>>write flow charts was left behind by the previous occupant of the desk; perhaps
>>this is part of why he was previous, not present.
>
>Finally! You're a Real Programmer, and the rest of us are just Quiche
>Eaters. That explains everything, doesn't it? :-)

We brought that up months ago.  Real programmers know assembler, and use it
or perhaps Fortran.  C is only used in contrived cases, especially when the
management/programmer ratio exceeds 2.  Computer science today teachs people
how to occupy space and time and collect a salary, and become part of a
committee which as a whole does a job inferior to a smaller number of Real
Programmers.  Real Managers are those who don't believe Real Programmers
exist :-).  All to often they have "proof" of this in the form of their present
staff whose chief skill is job preservation :-).

cjl (consultant, not employee)

btw, if you want to waste bandwidth, don't inflict it on other newsgroups.
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: IQTI400@INDYCMS.IUPUI.EDU (macphil)
Subject: Re: Computer world champ
Organization: IUPUI
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 01:51:47 GMT

In article <9224611.27321@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU>
pdt@mundil.cs.mu.OZ.AU (Peter David THOMPSON) writes:
 
>One of the nuggets of (mis?)information stored in my mind is that checkers
>has been "analysed" and that between two perfect players, the game's outcome
>(win/lose/draw) is totally predictable. To make the checkers championships
>less of an endurance test, and more of a game of skill, the first three moves
>are random.
 
I don't believe it's misinformation.  As I recall reading, the opening
moves are drawn from an available pool, say off of a slip of paper.
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: magnus@thep.lu.se (Magnus Olsson)
Subject: Re: Branching in HLL vs. Assembler (was Re: The need for an assembler)
Organization: Theoretical Physics, Lund University, Sweden
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 22:52:58 GMT

In article <180bscINN2jd@rodan.UU.NET> avg@rodan.UU.NET (Vadim Antonov) writes:
>In article <1992Sep1.083701.2898@pollux.lu.se> magnus@thep.lu.se (Magnus Olsson) writes:
>>Speaking of spaghetti code, one common reason for writing spaghetti
>>code was (is?) the lack of a line-renumbering utility in primitive
>>BASICs...
>>
>> [example deleted]
>>
>>Horrible? Yes, of course, but the alternative (manually renumbering
>>maybe hundreds of lines) would be even worse.
>
>And writing a 10-lines long program to do it automatically is 
>obviously above mental abilities of both users and authors of
>such BASIC interpreters.
>
>Not funny.

No, not funny at all, but I think you're overly harsh on both users and 
authors. The users can be excused by the fact that they may not have the
technical information they need to write a renumbering routine (the program
text may not necessarily be stored in straight ASCII - in many such BASICS,
the program is stored in tokenized form in RAM, and going via secondary
memory is prohibitively slow if the only such memory is a casette recorder).

The interpreter authors can of course not claim ignorance of the internals,
but I believe in many cases getting the BASIC into ROM together with the
BIOS was such a tight fit that they simply couldn't get a renumbering routine
in there.

Magnus Olsson                   | \e+      /_
Dept. of Theoretical Physics    |  \  Z   / q
University of Lund, Sweden      |   >----<           
Internet: magnus@thep.lu.se     |  /      \===== g
Bitnet: THEPMO@SELDC52          | /e-      \q
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.windows.misc,comp.windows.x,comp.human-factors
From: frank@rover.uchicago.edu (Frank - Hardware Hacker - Borger)
Subject: Re: GUIs Considered Harmful
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Reply-To: frank@rover.uchicago.edu
Organization: Joint Center for Radiation Therapy
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 23:47:00 GMT

In article <ABERCROMBIE.92Sep3124717@apphpp10.mdcbbs.com>, abercrombie@mdcbbs.com writes...
> ...
>> >Whose desk is clean enough, 100% (or close) of the time in order to use a
>> >Rat?
>> 
>> Not mine, ever. I always have to shift piles of stuff around just to move
>> the rodent to a button and click!!
> 
>I remember that the mouse shipped with the Whitechapel Workstation had

	The best mouse is a dead mouse. However, when you kill a mouse, it
	turns over with its belly up, and becomes a trackball. Much better.
	But, that's because a mouse is misused.

	Mice, (and sonic pens, etc,) should be used for what they were designed
	for, that of tracking human movement on a 1 for 1 base, such as free-
	hand scetching.

	Trackballs, etc are good for menuing, where getting there is important,
	but getting there in a very straignt line may not be.

	There are keyboards available with built-in trackballs, I would have
	gotten one of those, 'cept I also need VT100 emulation keyboard for
	talking to the DEC/VAX world.
	
	
   Frank R. Borger - Physicist    __       Internet:  Frank@rover.uchicago.edu
Michael Reese - Univ. of Chicago |___      Phone : 312-791-8075 fax : 567-7455
  Center for Radiation Therapy   | |_) _   
    2929 South Ellis Avenue        | \|_)  You may already be a looser... Form
    Chicago, Illinois 60616           |_)  letter received by R. Dangerfield
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.edu,comp.human-factors,comp.misc,comp.programming
From: craig@bunsen.rosemount.com (Craig Taylor)
Subject: Re: Indentation
Organization: Rosemount, Inc.
Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1992 13:21:18 GMT

In article <1992Aug24.065947.9595@smds.com> rh@ishmael.UUCP (Richard Harter) writes:
>In article <X1B604K@math.fu-berlin.de> dww@inf.fu-berlin.de writes:
>>[I'm joining this thread late, too]
>>We had a good fight on indentations over at comp.compilers a
>>while back. There are fanatics on both sides :-)
>

It would be possible to use a lexical scanner for this
type of language by keeping track of the "state" i.e. the
indentation level in lex.  Every time lex encounters a 
meaningful (non-comment) start of line where the indentation 
level has moved left, the appropriate "number" of 
end-of-indent tokens are fed back.  I know this isn't pretty.

My employer supports an interpreted language used in process
control applications for non-programmer type users that
uses indent level as controlling end-of-block.  It is easy to
use but editing, especially cutting and pasting between levels,
becomes all important.  An editing error which might result
in a missing "}" instead results in a valid program with a 
different meaning.  As a result, users shy away from indenting
more than about 3 levels and keep the length of indents short.

Also, I once used a RATFOR like preprocessor that acted as
a pretty printer and lined up all indents with vertical 
lines of dots, making the code easy to line up.


-- 
Craig F. Taylor
craig@rosemount.com
Work (612) 895-2254
Home (612) 454-4994

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: IQTI400@INDYCMS.IUPUI.EDU (macphil)
Subject: Re: Spaghetti (was Re: Branching in HLL vs. Assembler (was Re: The need for an assembler))
Organization: IUPUI
Date: Thu, 03 Sep 92 15:03:03 EST

In article <1992Sep3.100624.4444@pollux.lu.se>
magnus@thep.lu.se (Magnus Olsson) writes:
 
>Of course; the fact that a language _allows_ you to write spaghetti
>certainly doesn't imply that you _should_ do so. But if you give
>people guns, somebody is sooner or later bound to shoot himself in the
>foot. The "bondage and discipline" school of programming (Wirth et al)
>advocate that a language shouldn't _allow_ people to shoot themselves
>in the foot. I don't think I can agree wholeheartedly with that.
 
Of course not:
 
1) there'd be no easy way to separate the goofs from the programmers,
   short of tatooing the foreheads of the goofs once they would be
   discovered.  as it is, one can observe the code (especially if you
   inherit the code) of a goof who @ some point may even claim (knowing
   they cannot write quality code) "That's not all mine...I inherited
   it as well" until you find something you know they wrote on their
   own and you know for sure.
 
2) If Wirth trully believed languages shouldn't allow goofs to create
   software images of themselves then a) he would more or less believing
   programming has become enough of a science to prevent this b) wouldn't
   have included the specs for LABEL declarations; c) "clever" tricks
   one can learn & use to get around a strongly-typed language.
 
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: gls@windmill.ATT.COM (Col. G. L. Sicherman)
Subject: Re: The need for an assembler
Organization: Jack of Clubs Precision Instruments Co.
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 00:38:47 GMT

Do we really *need* an assembler?  My job occasionally requires me to edit
executable binaries for an H-P 9000 (an R.I.S.C.) -- usually the logic, not
the data.  The code's original language is C++.  The computer comes with
an assembler, but it does not help me, because the new code must fit where
the old code stood.

So I figure out how to squeeze eleven R.I.S.C. instructions into room for
eight, hand-assemble them, and write them into the binary with ADB.  The
customer is happy -- and my managers tear their hair out.  At their urging
I edit the C++ code, recompile it, and send a digtape to the customer.
I could have done that first, but when the customer needs a quick fix and
there's an ocean or two in the way, it's hack binary or sneeze into the
bit bucket.

By the way, what's the strangest assembly language you've ever used?
I'm not talking about instruction sets or registers, now; I mean the
language itself.  (I don't consider BAL strange, though that could be
because I'm fundamentally obsolete myself.)

-:-
	A transition from a programmer's design to his code is too often
	like an entrance into a large city after a distant prospect.
	Remotely, we see nothing but spires of temples and turrets of
	palaces, and imagine it the residence of splendour, grandeur,
	and magnificence; but, when we have passed the gates, we find it
	perplexed with narrow passages, disgraced with despicable
	cottages, embarrassed with obstructions, and clouded with smoke.

						--Samuel Johnson, updated
-- 
G. L. Sicherman
gls@windmill.att.COM
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner)
Subject: Re: Musical Peripherals
Reply-To: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner)
Organization: Columbia University
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 08:30:19 GMT

In article <1992Aug27.092843.164410@dstos3.dsto.gov.au> bennett@dstos3.dsto.gov.au writes:
>I'm not sure what started this thread, so forgive me if its a repetition...
>
>In the DECUS Library there was a program for playing music on the register 
>display lights on a PDP8.  You loaded a paper tape (you know, like a ribbon 
>shot to pieces :-) which contained the player program, then there were several 
>tunes (Teddy Bears Picnic comes to mind) which were also loaded on paper tape. 
>You had to put a radio near the display lights and tune it for best effect.  
>It sounded quite good on a classic PDP8, but rather buzzy on a PDP8E.

The program is in the DECUS library.  It is one of several musical projects
that were undertaken on 12-bit machines over the years.  This particular one
plays multi-part music by changing the high-order bit of the MQ register
at the appropriate rate.  DEC once had a machine with an audio amp (I think
an 8/m) in one of their offices running such a program.  By placing
an AM radio near the appropriate modules, nice RFI patterns can be tuned in
that will give the effect without a wired hookup.

The paper-tape reference is merely the fact that it was written standalone.
Back in those days DECUS might accept paper-tape binaries of programs with
no particular O/S orientation.  This program can be loaded on any of the
standard PDP-8 systems, or just read in on paper-tape and the BIN loader if
all you have is a CPU and a paper-tape reader (such as is attached to a
model 33 teletype that could've been the console device way back then).

The PDP-8 and PDP-11 share a dubious trait:

They both have to support configurations where the console device could be
anything from a model 33 teletype on up through a VT-4xx or whatever today
with all stops along the way being supported (LA36, VT05, VT50, VT52, VT100,
etc.).

I have a PDP-8/e system whose console is a DECmate III emulating a VT-220.

cjl
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: pt@geovision.gvc.com (Paul Tomblin)
Subject: Re: You know when you're hacking too long when...
Keywords: hacking
Reply-To: pt@geovision.gvc.com
Organization: Not officially GeoVision Systems Inc., Ottawa, Ontario
Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1992 17:34:52 GMT

warnold@gossip.urich.edu (William W. Arnold) writes:

>In article <josef.714644988@uranium> Josef Moellers <mollers.pad@sni.de> writes:
>>Self-reporting of nerd behavior:  when I use
>>a microwave oven, I make a point of setting
>>it to such a time as 1:80 (one minute and
>>eighty seconds).  You get the idea.

>Lucky you.  I got used to setting mine to 99 seconds, then it broke and 
>the new one is too smart to accept that.  it won't even accept 60.

Gee, I just did an informal survey and found that most people here were
setting the time to something they could do with one key, like 1:11 or 
33s.

My microwave at home, OTOH, is one of those where you hit the 10s key n
times, and the 1s key m times to get 10n+m seconds.  No shortcuts there...

-- 
Paul Tomblin, pt@geovision.gvc.com or {uunet,revcan}!geovision!pt
(This is not an official opinion of GeoVision Systems Inc.)
"I don't have time to think it through: I've got to get this code written!"

Xref: sparky alt.folklore.computers:13243 comp.unix.misc:3405