HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: azog@spatula.rent.com (Billy D'Augustine)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: command abbreviation
Date: 16 Nov 92 22:43:14 GMT
Organization: A kitchen utensil somewhere in central New Jersey

In article <1992Nov13.190208.17876@cubic.com> hees@cubic.com (Phil Hees) writes:
>
>I always use the (dest [,dest], src [,src]) ordering for my own function
>calls, and really get locked into this mindset, to the point that I often
>find myself checking the man page to reassure myself that I am using the
>correct order for the cp (Unix) or copy (VMS, DOS) commands.
>

And yet another reason why I love VMS. Dunno of anyone pointed this out
yet, but if you give an incomplete command, DCL will prompt you for the
rest of the info. For instance:

$ copy
From: foo.bar
To: extreme_fooness.bar

Or:
$ copy foo.bar
To:

(of course, since I have the memory retention of a sieve, I may have the
prompts wrong, but you get the idea)

-- 
Billy D'Augustine azog@spatula.rent.com

No lord shall stand before myself.
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.sys.cbm
From: peter@NeoSoft.com (Peter da Silva)
Subject: Re: Commodore keyboard layout.
Organization: NeoSoft Communications Services -- (713) 684-5900
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1992 02:56:17 GMT

In article <ERU.92Nov20153352@tnso04.tele.nokia.fi> eru@tnso04.tele.nokia.fi (Erkki Ruohtula) writes:
> >

> MIT X11R5. Maybe there
> is after all hope of some day having a 8-bit clean *IX and Net...

Sure, why not?
-- 
Peter da Silva.  <peter@sugar.neosoft.com>.
 `-_-'   Oletko halannut suttasi tnn?
  'U`    
Tarjoilija, tm ateria el viel.
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.folklore.urban
From: billn@hpcvaac.cv.hp.com (bill nelson)
Subject: Re: How to kill chickens with your computer...
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Company, Corvallis, Oregon USA
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 20:31:31 GMT

cline@cs.scarolina.edu (Ernest Cline) writes:
: |:
: |There is no way that 7 hz would be the resonate frequency. Assume that sound
: |travels at 900 ft/second - in the air. That means that a 7Hz sound has a
: |wavelength of over 125 feet. Even for 1/125th wave resonance, this comes to
: |a value over 1 foot. I have never seen any chickens with heads that large.
: |
: |Such fractional wavelength resonances simply do not have any power in them.
: 
: On the other claw, considering the way that chicken barns are built, 7Hz
: might have been the resonant frequency of the hen house, leading to a huge
: power build up and thus shaking the chickens to death!

Nope. For the power to build up - you would need a feedback circuit to the
generating source - and that is not present.

Otherwise, the system is overdamped, meaning (in the way I am using the
term) that the losses through absorbtion/vibration etc are greater than
the possible signal input. 

Bill
From: azog@spatula.rent.com (Billy D'Augustine)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Computer Superstition
Date: 19 Nov 92 23:12:35 GMT
Organization: A kitchen utensil somewhere in central New Jersey

In article <1992Nov19.050604.1682@netsys.com> bugs@netsys.com (Mark Hittinger) writes:
>
>When I see my field service guy come in for preventive maintenance that
>means it is time to do a backup.
>

This reminds me of a not so funny story. One day, on our RA82s, we were
logging a very large number of errors (over 100 appeared in an hour), so
we started to back up that drive while waiting for field circus to arrive
and replace the drive. About halfway thru the backup, the service guy for
some reason, powered off the machine (it is in my opinion that when 
replacing drives, one need only dismount it, but this may not be the 
case in the above situation). Anyways, when my boss told him that we
were doing a backup, he stated 'oh, dont worry, when I bring it back 
up, itll pick up right where it left off'


-- 
Billy D'Augustine azog@spatula.rent.com

No lord shall stand before myself.
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.sys.cbm
From: peter@NeoSoft.com (Peter da Silva)
Subject: Re: Confessions of a Commodore Junkie (Was: Re: SMART DRUGS2)
Organization: NeoSoft Communications Services -- (713) 684-5900
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 09:36:32 GMT

In article <1992Nov22.225129.9855@cs.umb.edu> edwardp@ra.cs.umb.edu (Edward P. Piecewicz) writes:
> I'd say it's a good thing.  The more computers being sold in Europe, and
> the U.S., the better it will be for software developers to come out with
> new and exciting programs for Commodore users.

How will C=64's do that? Oh well, it'll help finance future Amigas.
-- 
Peter da Silva.  <peter@sugar.neosoft.com>.
 `-_-'   Oletko halannut suttasi tnn?
  'U`    
Tarjoilija, tm ateria el viel.
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.folklore.urban
From: billn@hpcvaac.cv.hp.com (bill nelson)
Subject: Re: HP Monitor models
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Company, Corvallis, Oregon USA
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 20:12:32 GMT

taft@adobe.com (Ed Taft) writes:
: 
: I'm told there are some places on earth where the variation is greater
: than 90 degrees. That is, a magnetic compass indicates north as being
: in a southerly direction. This is true not only at the North Pole but
: in some other places (southeast Asia?) where the earth's magnetic field
: has weird bends in it.

Don't need wierd bends. It is true for quite a large area of Canada in
the vicinity of Hudson's Bay (where the magnetic north pole is located).

There variations of 90 degrees or greater are standard. It is possible
to have a 180 degree variation, if you are on a line directly north of
the magnetic north pole.

Bill
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: hdavies@rx.xerox.com (Hugh J.E. Davies)
Subject: Re: What about a pdp-8? (was: value of a p
Reply-To: hdavies@rx.xerox.com
Organization: Rank Xerox Ltd.
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 10:04:26 GMT

In article 9780@cs.cornell.edu, chapman@cs.cornell.edu (Richard Chapman) writes:
>chapman@cs.cornell.edu (Richard Chapman) writes:
>
>>Price
>>is pretty much what you can get someone to pay (I paid $5 for the one
>>I have) since they don't have any use for real work (unlike the pdp-11
>                                           ^^^^^^^^^ Ever realize
>microseconds after hitting enter that you shouldn't have said
>something? While you cannot, to the best of my knowledge, buy a new
>PDP-8 from DEC at this point, I'm sure there are lots in use for
>"real work". Sorry!
>
>Yours,
>Richard Chapman 


On which note, can you still buy an '11 from DEC???

---


Regards,

Hugh.
------------------------------------------------------------------
I don't speak for Xerox, nor they for me.

Rank Xerox European Systems Centre, Welwyn Garden City, Herts., UK.
Mail to; Huge.wgc1@rx.xerox.com, whatever it says in the header.

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: hansm@cs.kun.nl (Hans Mulder)
Subject: Re: Don't you hate it when...
Organization: University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 13:25:19 GMT

In <BxrExx.J7F@NeoSoft.com> peter@NeoSoft.com (Peter da Silva) writes:
>Most System-V-ish systems use "more" to page man entries. "More" doesn't know
>how to translate sequences of spaces and backspaces to control sequences.

Errhm, don't System-V-ish versions of man use "nroff | ul | more" to work
around this problem?

>If
>you have "less" installed, try setting "PAGER" in your environment to "less".

Agreed.

--
Hans Mulder			hansm@cs.kun.nl
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.folklore.urban
From: adamsd@crash.cts.com (Adams Douglas)
Subject: Re: How to kill chickens with your computer...
Organization: CTS Network Services (crash, ctsnet), El Cajon, CA
Date: 21 Nov 92 00:06:46 GMT

In <zlsiida.435@fs1.mcc.ac.uk> zlsiida@fs1.mcc.ac.uk (dave budd) writes:
>I seem to recall something from about 20 to 25 years ago about a Frenchman 
>who built a gigantic whistle that was supposed to produce a frequency (plus 
>overtones) at around 7Hz, and when it was switched on the operator died and 
>the whistle disintegrated.  It was probably in one of those silly Lyall 
>Watson books though.

There was a cover article on the same topic in 1967 or '68 in _Science_and_
Mechanics_ (or was it _Mechanix_Illustrated_?). Now, granted these were not
magazines of the same caliber as _Popular_Science_ even. But I recall a
cover picture of an array (7 x 7?) of large metal whistles with rubber tubes
from each of them trailing out of frame. Inside was a fairly lurid article
dealing with the "death ray" properties of infrasonics. They mentioned 
experimenters pointing the pictured 7 Hz. device at a tree full of monkeys
(this may have been a French colony) and watching the monkeys fall out of 
the trees.

Anybody find the article in their garage
let me know.

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.folklore.urban
From: billn@hpcvaac.cv.hp.com (bill nelson)
Subject: Re: How to kill chickens with your computer...
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Company, Corvallis, Oregon USA
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1992 09:44:48 GMT

PAPAI@kcgl1.eng.ohio-state.edu (Jonathan Papai) writes:
: 
: >This was discussed, to some length, a  year or so back. It is all
: >based on experiments done by the French, around the time of the
: >First World War, involving using low frequencies as a weapon on
: >the battlefield. They found they could generate the lethal waves,
: >the problem being that they are non-directional - so the person
: >operating the equipment was also killed, along with the intended
: >victims.
: 
: 	Ahem.   Actually, it was the Nazis of WW11.  Follows
: stuff from authoritative sources(tm) :

... good authoratative stuff deleted ...

Maybe the tests that the French did prompted the Germans to do their
experiments. The testing I was talking about was conducted in the early
part of the century - it used a system like a giant siren to generate
the signal.

Bill
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.folklore.urban
From: billn@hpcvaac.cv.hp.com (bill nelson)
Subject: Re: How to kill chickens with your computer...
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Company, Corvallis, Oregon USA
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 20:26:14 GMT

alizard@Blue.Kludge.COM (A.Lizard) writes:
: > No, the original article is garbage. The story is complete UL - there may
: > even be a FAQ entry.
: > 
: > There is no way that 7 hz would be the resonate frequency. Assume that sound
: > travels at 900 ft/second - in the air. That means that a 7Hz sound has a
: > wavelength of over 125 feet. Even for 1/125th wave resonance, this comes to
: > a value over 1 foot. I have never seen any chickens with heads that large.
: > 
: > Such fractional wavelength resonances simply do not have any power in them.
: > 
: > Bill
: 
: 
: While the value doesn't look right to me, either, what does the resonance
: frequency of a cavity that is NOT filled with air but with whatever a
: chicken uses for a brain that is suspended in fluid have to do with
: the same cavity filled with air only? The increased mass in the chamber
: is going to reduce the resonant frequency by QUITE a bit.

Nope, it is the other way around. The resonate frequency is increased.
Sound travels faster through solids and liquids than it does through
the air.

: By the way, the last number I saw for the speed of sound at mean sea
: level is 1150 feet/sec.

At STP - true.

: I would like someone to dig up the original article. Alternately,
: who's got a chicken, a low frequency audio oscillator, an appropriate
: output and input transducer (to experimentally determine resonance)

This was discussed, to some length, a  year or so back. It is all
based on experiments done by the French, around the time of the
First World War, involving using low frequencies as a weapon on
the battlefield. They found they could generate the lethal waves,
the problem being that they are non-directional - so the person
operating the equipment was also killed, along with the intended
victims.

Bill
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.folklore.urban
From: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner)
Subject: Re: Sync Three Times...
Reply-To: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner)
Organization: Columbia University
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 05:18:48 GMT

In article <Bxypzx.L4p@NeoSoft.com> peter@NeoSoft.com (Peter da Silva) writes:
>I feel a song cue coming on...
>
>	"Sync Three Times on the console if you waa-aaa-aant me...."

Twice using pipes, if the answer is no.

cj "I neither have nor like Candida" l
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: dbrooks@osf.org (David Brooks)
Subject: Re: HP Monitor models
Organization: Open Software Foundation
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 20:55:27 GMT

moroney@ramblr.enet.dec.com writes:
|> In article <1992Nov18.201232.23942@hpcvaac.cv.hp.com>, billn@hpcvaac.cv.hp.com (bill nelson) writes...
|> >taft@adobe.com (Ed Taft) writes:
|> >: 
|> >: I'm told there are some places on earth where the variation is greater
|> >: than 90 degrees.
|> 
|> >There variations of 90 degrees or greater are standard. It is possible
|> >to have a 180 degree variation, if you are on a line directly north of
|> >the magnetic north pole.
|> 
|> Also for spots south of the south magnetic pole, so there would be spots in
|> Antarctica where the compass would be 180 degrees off, and much of the rest
|> would be >90 degrees.

Forgive me if I show a weak grasp of solid geometry, but is this type of
variation really relevant to the question of the monitor model?  Whether
the field points NE or SWbyS can't matter; if it did the installation
instructions would tell me that I can only have the monitor pointing East,
like a church, which would put a severe contraint on my office layout.

What is different between the hemispheres is the *vertical* component of the
field.
-- 
David Brooks					dbrooks@osf.org
Open Software Foundation			uunet!osf.org!dbrooks
Allberall und ewig blauen licht die Fernen!  Ewig... ewig... earwig... O!
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: dlwilson@fenix.encore.com (David L Wilson)
Subject: Re: proliferation of alt.adjective.noun.verb.verb.verb groups
Organization: Encore Computer Corporation
Distribution: usa
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 21:13:56 GMT

hees@cubic.com (Phil Hees) writes:
>alange@rahul.net (Andrew Lange) writes:
>>
>>Does anyone know of the history of this prediliction for naming groups
>>alt.opt-adjective.noun.verb.verb.verb ?  Which is the first one you saw?
>
>This Major Cultural Trend (TM) is not strictly limited to the alt.*
>hierarchy, as
>
>  sci.physics.edward.teller.boom.boom.boom
>
>clearly shows.  (This newgroup has been in existence for at least 9
>months, according to an old .newsrc file I had lying around.)

I believe it stems from the old

   alt.swedish.chef.bork.bork.bork

group, which was a rarity in the days before we got 20 new group a day.
It was followed by (among others)

  alt.french.captain.borg.borg.borg

Dave
From: kevind@pogo.wv.tek.com (Kevin Draz)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: QUESTION: What was the 1st computer game?
Date: 18 Nov 92 08:37:08 GMT
Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Wilsonville,  OR.

In article <28115@castle.ed.ac.uk> ercm20@festival.ed.ac.uk (Sam Wilson) writes:
>The Tektronix 405x series desktop micros (6800 based?) had a nice
>spacewar type game (I've never seen the real spacewar so the similarity
>is based on my interpretation of other people's description - several
>levels of indirection there).  You didn't need to turn off the
>persistence to make a usable game since the initial drawing was so much
>brighter than the stored image.  The ships were just redrawn
>continuously, making a bright image, and the stored afterimages left a
>trail behind each ship.  The screen got a little cluttered after while,
>but it wasn't distracting or anything. 
>

Ah, fond memories!  The 4051 was the only machine I ever saw this game run
on.  The '51 was based on a 6800 at about 1Mhz, 8K onboard RAM with an
optional 32K expander, and a DVST storage tube (11" diag.).  Mass storage
was cartridge tape, and the "OS" was PLOT-50, a Dartmouth-like BASIC with
loads of sophisticated (for the day) graphics commands.

This "spacewar" game was quite popular.  Two players, keyboard controls.
The catch was that the BASIC system was not fast enough to run the game: it
was written in 6800 native code which took over the whole box when invoked.
There was an undocumented language-escape call used to load 6.8K procedures.

Sadly, the later generations of this loveable little machine were
bit-sliced, essentially microcoded to run the PLOT-50 language.  While they
were orders of magnitude faster than the '51, they couldn't support the m.l.
procedures.

Doubtless my memories are biased, but I don't think I've ever had as much
enjoyment out of any other computer than the old 4050's.  They were very
powerful for their day (PET's, TRS-80's, Apple II's etc. were several
years newer design, yet less oomph), had a very robust language, and
graphics which exceeded MAC's or PC's, until VGA's and the Mac II made an
appearance.  They were scientific/engineering platforms, in no way
"personal" computers, yet the games they spawned seemed totally superior to
the commercially released stuff for mainstream hardware. There were some
very good Zork-like adventures as well as graphic games.

My family gave away our last home-built 4051 to a high-school in our area
just two years ago, still running perfectly, without ever having a hardware
failure.

KD
-- 
----
kevind@pogo.wv.tek.com  | For most software publishers, quality is job 1.01.
Tektronix Color Printers|                            -- MacWeek Magazine
From: c3q@vax5.cit.cornell.edu
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Question: books on industry history?
Date: 23 Nov 92 15:17:14 EST
Distribution: world
Organization: Cornell University

I'm currently a senior majoring in CS and history.  Somehow, I conned my
history prof into letting me do my research paper on the [recent] history of
computer companies- research shouldn't be bad, as I've already read >1/2 the
books! :)

I'm now looking for the other 1/2 of the books.  I've got Hackers, Oddyssey
(sp?), Valley on Fire, Soul of a New Machine, Father & son & co.

Any important titles that spring to mind that I am missing.

So far it appears as if there is no "serious" (i.e. payed for by a grant, and
not the market :) work on the topic.  Any lurking computer buff/sociologists
out there who'd like to disprove me and cite sources?

Thanks in advance,

     - Travis J.I. Corcoran
       tcorcora@sunlab.cit.cornell.edu

------------------------------------------------------------------
Like a government, the operating system performs no useful function by
itself.  It simply provides an environment within which other programs can
do useful work.

     _Operating System Concepts_, 3rd edition
     Silberschatz, Peterson, Galvin



Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.sys.cbm,soc.culture.nordic,soc.culture.german,soc.culture.french
From: tt@tarzan.jyu.fi (Tapani Tarvainen)
Subject: Re: 8-bit news (was Re: Commodore keyboard layout.)
Originator: tt@tarzan.math.jyu.fi
Organization: University of Jyvaskyla
	<1992Nov21.144553.22647@osf.org>
	<1992Nov21.191545.14530@chpc.utexas.edu>
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1992 20:33:32 GMT

In article <1992Nov21.191545.14530@chpc.utexas.edu> michael@chpc.utexas.edu (Michael Lemke) writes:

> It is a real pleasure to read texts that have real umlauts 

I don't know how much this has been discussed in the other groups
this has been cross-posted to, but we experimented with it in
soc.culture.nordic some time ago (was it last spring?) and
discovered that news goes 8-bit-clean to more or less every
country, however at least in the USA there are a few major (?)
nodes that strip the 8th bit (one correspondent told he got
them sometimes right and sometimes not, depending on which
route the article happened to take).  Mail is much less
reliable in this regard, although at least all international
links tried were 8-bit-clean.

Nonetheless, according to some RFC any article containing non-ASCII
characters is non-conforming.  The way I read it there is no explicit
requirement statement about what should be done to such articles,
however, so I'd say an implementation is at liberty to junk them,
strip the high bit, or forward them unaltered (guess which I'd prefer :-)).

Anyway, here's a sample of umlauts &c: .
--
Tapani Tarvainen  (tt@math.jyu.fi, tarvainen@finjyu.bitnet)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: prp@ssd.intel.com (Paul Pierce)
Subject: Re: World's Toughest Computers
Organization: Intel
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 02:04:44 GMT

There was the infamous bombing of the Army Math Research Center at U. Wisconsin
in the late 60's. (I'm sure someone there can correct this account, but what the
hey, its folklore.) Karl Armstrong, Ken Fine, et. al. stole Tad Pinkerton's van
(Tad was the director of the computing center), filled it with
fertilizer soaked in gasoline, parked it next to Sterling Hall (the Physics
department and AMRC), and set it to go off around 4AM.

The blast was heard throughout the city. (Seven miles away, it woke up my
mother). A physics grad student, Robert Fassnacht(?) was killed. Major damage to
the building.

A CDC-924 dropped through one whole floor, and when they connected it up again it
still worked. I heard this model was originally designed for submarines, but
the physics department got some surplus. One was still in use there in the mid
70s.

-- 
Paul Pierce			prp@ssd.intel.com
Intel
From: dik@cwi.nl (Dik T. Winter)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: You know when you've been hacking too long when...
Date: 22 Nov 92 17:28:48 GMT
Organization: CWI, Amsterdam

In article <1992Nov20.100537.25510@aber.ac.uk> auj@aber.ac.uk (Alun Jones) writes:
 > You know when you've been hacking too long when the message 
 > New mail in /usr/spool/mail/auj
 > becomes an NMI
 > 
If that occurs in half hour intervals and faster on occasion it really
becomes an NMI (enemy?).
-- 
dik t. winter, cwi, kruislaan 413, 1098 sj  amsterdam, nederland
home: bovenover 215, 1025 jn  amsterdam, nederland; e-mail: dik@cwi.nl
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: pvs9@ibr.cs.tu-bs.de (Praktikum Verteilte Systeme)
Subject: Re: Re:Re:help friendly alien...
Originator: pvs9@eris.ibr.cs.tu-bs.de
Reply-To: pvs9@ibr.cs.tu-bs.de (Praktikum Verteilte Systeme)
Organization: TU Braunschweig, Informatik (Bueltenweg), Germany
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 13:58:59 GMT


In article <1992Nov20.191739.3728@osf.org>, dbrooks@osf.org (David Brooks)
writes :

[insignificant stuff deleted]

}|> 
}|>           ->Xandribuuu = (Rtoff*)malloc(sizeof(h_andrx));
}
}If I were you (which I'm not, having an invalid arm count), I wouldn't
}trust flight-critical software that doesn't test the return value from
}malloc.  Just a minute...
}
}|>           jogg = (GnoBr (xuuuuuuuu, U_XXilef (_Xanshbr_tvn))?xuuuuuuuu->Zu
}:0);
}|>           xuuuuuuuu->_nHung.MxT->rt->Z_7->__0b->XanBr_->iu[0] = (jogg%37);
}|>           xuuuuuuuu->Shra = Ndelsef (v_78_K);
}|>           return xuuuuuuuu;
}
}Unles you can prove it is checked after returning from all calls to this
}procedure.
}-- 
}David Brooks					dbrooks@osf.org
}Open Software Foundation			uunet!osf.org!dbrooks
}All|berall und ewig blauen licht die Fernen!  Ewig... ewig... earwig... 
}O!
}

You're bloody right ! That piece of code is really distrustful. When I owned
one of these spaceship, I did not only correct the error in the procedure,
but also built in security checks, in this case I changed the malloc line 
into :

pt = (Rtoff*)malloc(sizeof(h_andrx));
if (pt==NULL) fatal_error (387);
xuuuuuuuu->...->Xandribuu = pt;

Yes, there is *NO* sufficient error detection and treatment in the z-9999q's
software originally, I had to do it on myself ! And if I hadn't done it, I
wouldn't sit here alive writing these lines.

May the SCHWARTZ never leave you alone !

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers