HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: eric@snark.thyrsus.com (Eric S. Raymond)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Patron saint of programmers?
Date: 6 Apr 92 15:26:18 GMT
Distribution: world

In <1992Apr5.224954.21480@cs.uow.edu.au> The Jester wrote:
> The Warlock (at Large, enraged....) has a monastic sect of engineers,
> it has kind of Murphy deity. I can't remember the author off hand, I 
> will find out if anyone wants me to.

Author, Cristopher Stasheff.  Patron saint, Vidicon of Cathode.  The monastic
order of St. Vidicon are the only technologists on the planet Gramarye.  Fun
books for the first five or so, even though everything he thinks he knows
about anarchists and totalitarians is jarringly wrong.

But St. Vidicon won't do; too much Christian sanctity about him for hackerdom.
Besides, the connection is a stretch.  Fortunately, there is one major
religion that *explicitly* associates a deity with computers --- Santeria.

Santeria is a heavily syncretic polytheism related to Haitian voudoun
(descended from the same Yoruba religion).  It's practised by millions of
Hispanics, Blacks and Indios throughout the Americas, including a good
number in North American cities.  A few of these have been in the news lately
in Dade County, Florida; they practice animal sacrifice and there's a
constitutional lawsuit going now over whether county government can forbid
the practice.

One of the Santeria deities is called El or Legba (there are other common
names but it's been years since I read my source for this).  His symbol is
the cowrie shell; his function is intercessor with the other gods (one of
his titles is "Opener of the Way" and he is always invoked first in ritual).
He is also regarded as the special patron of divination, logic, intellectual
effort *and computers*.  This combination of roles is reminiscent of the
Greco-Roman Thoth-Hermes, which a classically-educated Santerist would
probably tell you is the same god.

(Disclaimer: I am not a Santerist.  However, as a syncretic polytheist myself
I feel a natural sympathy for them and have gotten along well with the few I've
met.)
-- 
      Eric S. Raymond = eric@snark.thyrsus.com  (mad mastermind of TMN-Netnews)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: weisee@aix.rpi.edu (Elizabeth A. Weise)
Subject: Re: Space Shuttle Computers
Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1992 16:22:43 GMT

>>or a 68000 on it anytime soon.  I would be willing to bet my career that 
>>the shuttle will never say INTEL INSIDE.
>
>Wrong, I think. NASA TV was on community cable on Sunday 3/29. Bunch of
>scientists in headsets talking to the astronauts about their spectrograph
>experiments, which kept getting UAEs. (Unrecoverable Application Errors,
>a characteristic feature of Windows.) Ground guys were advising the
>astronauts not to leave so many programs running. 
>
Betcha that machine running Windows is attached to one of the experiments,
and not connected to the shuttle itself, except for power. Same bet goes
for the Mac referenced in an earlier message in this thread.

The overall topic here was the shuttle's internal guidance and control
machines, where reliability is important. If they're running Windows,
I bet they're not too concerned about reliability. (smirk)

-- Tom Moeller, under the guise of 
-- 
****************************************************************************
Beth Weise / PhD Student / Dept. of Language, Literature, & Communication
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute / Troy, New York
Weisee@rpi.edu / Beth_Weise@mts.rpi.edu
From: payne@hyperion.loni.ucla.edu (Brad Payne)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: microwaves
Date: 17 Apr 92 18:30:44 GMT
Organization: UCLA Laboratory of Neuro Imaging

In article <MS-C.703465159.1103527590.mrc@Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU> mrc@Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU (Mark Crispin) writes:
>That story about burning a potato in the microwave due to its lousy interface
>brings back memories.
>
>The timer on a microwave oven, like a speedometer, is one of those devices
>that should be *REQUIRED* to be analog.  The sheer idiocy of digital input and
>display on such a thing boggles the imagination.  The designers responsible
>for such crap should be drawn & quartered, and their offspring sterilized so
>that the defective genes die out...  ;-}
>

I think there is a case to be made either way.  I recently bought a microwave,
and specifically required a digital timer.  The problem with analog timers
is that they are optimized for long cook times; it is very difficult to heat
for 30 seconds using a dial that goes up to 30 minutes.  Given a little play
in the dial, you can wind up with anything from 10 seconds to a minute.
For something like reheating bread, this makes a big difference!

Analog timers are more intuitive and faster to use.  I would like to see a
quasi-logarithmic analog timer which solves the short cooking time problem.
Say the first third of the dial is 0-60 seconds, next third is 1-5 minutes,
rest is long cooking times.  This gives finer time control where needed (30
vs 45 seconds) and less where not (20 vs 20.25 minutes).  The mechanics
of building such a thing might be non-trivial though.

	- Brad
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.os.misc
From: zrepachol@cc.curtin.edu.au
Subject: Re: Multitasking and an old 10 hack
Organization: Curtin University of Technology
Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1992 19:17:03 GMT

In article <M05751.92Mar18151603@hypatia.data.st.statoil.no>, m05751@hypatia.data.st.statoil.no (Bjorn Larsen) writes:
> In article <1992Mar17.031559.27331@gorgon.uucp> dag@gorgon.uucp (Daniel A. Glasser) writes:
>>
>>Well, to tell you the truth, I believe that TOPS-10 allowed multiple
>>tasks per user.  RSX-11 cirtainly did -- in fact, it was hard to prevent
>>RSX from doing two things at once --

Very nice, just type "f77 humungous" and forget it.

>>
> 
> No, not in an easy manner. To create multiple tasks, you needed to
> open one or more PTY devices and start the new tasks in the jobs thus
> created.
> 
> A popular, if somewhat cryptic, tool that accomplished this was OPSER,
> the Operator Service program. In pre-Galaxy 4 days, the operators
> would run OPSER on the CTY, and under its control run the different
> batch/io subsystems (SPRINT, SPROUT, LPTSPL, PULSAR, i forget).
> 
> I was trained as an operator on one of these, with a LA36 for a CTY,
> and a dumb CRT next to it running SYSDPY. Neat program, that.
> 
> Two years later I was in charge of the conversion to Galaxy 4. Enter
> OPR and exit OPSER.
> 
> Oh, yes. Another way of managing multiple tasks would be to ^C a
> running program, CCONTINUE it, DETACH the entire job, and log in
> again. I think.
> 
> Bjorn
Yet another interesting use of PTYs, which I will leave to the reader to
ponder on for a while:

.ASighn PTY:
"PTY42 assigned"
.PIP
*pty42:=tty:
login 1,4
"password" ^Z
*^C
.K/B
"user foo loged out at 16:44
saved 10453234 of 1000 blocks"
.

If you wondered why PTYs where locked up...

enjoy

~Paul
From: peterk@public.sub.org (Peter Kittel)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Amusing index entries (was Re: Whales)
Date: 7 Apr 92 06:19:33 GMT
Organization: Public News & Mailserver, Commodore Germany PM UNIX, Frankfurt

In <204020@unix.cis.pitt.edu> jgh1+@pitt.edu (John G Hardie) writes:
>One of the ones that I liked was in a calculus book (but for the
>life of me I can't remember the authors).  In the index is an entry
>for Whales.  (WHALES?! What the Heck!?)  If you look up the references,
>the pages have plots of some functions which look like - wait for it -
>whales.

As I'm in charge for our german user manuals, I was very proud to succeed
in introducing a new entry in our Glossary part of the manual:
     Endless loop -   See Endless loop
Well, I must admit I didn't invent this, I saw it in other glossaries
before, but it was a nice feeling to see this printed. But on the next 
revision of the manual, it was cancelled again.

-- 
Best regards, Dr. Peter Kittel  // E-Mail to  \\  Only my personal opinions... 
Commodore Frankfurt, Germany  \X/ {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!cbmger!peterk
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: dagbrown@cayley.waterloo.edu (Dave Brown)
Subject: Re: Sinclair Lore Query
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1992 16:51:24 GMT

In article <kupr37INNhlm@skat.usc.edu> jlowrey@skat.usc.edu (John 'Fritz' Lowrey) writes:
>In article <1992Apr16.021018.28122@descartes.waterloo.edu> dagbrown@descartes.waterloo.edu (Dave Brown) writes:
>>In article <1992Apr13.094328.1@mdcbbs.com> rivero@mdcbbs.com writes:
>>>
>>>  Found a working Sinclair with memory expansion and some tape programs 
>>>for $5 at a yard sale over the weekend. Anyone have interesting stories about
>>>this little machine?
>>>
>>I remember using one of those!  Is it the ZX80, ZX81, or the Spectrum?
>>
>>I remember when the Spectrum first came out it was billed as featuring
>>"color and sound"  .  Not "more colors" or "Better sound..."   just
>>"color and sound."  The ZX80 had about 1K of RAM, and the ZX81 had a tiny
>>amount more and a calculator keyboard (not just a flat
>>piece of plastic...).  At any rate, I encountered a Spectrum
>[ ... edited ... ]
>
>	Wrongo Dave!
>	The keyboard on the ZX81 is the same flat, membrane keyboard that
>graced the ZX80.  An interesting piece of work, but a real snarl to actualy
>use (touch typing?  forget it!).

	Damn.  You're right.  The Spectrum came up with the calculator
keyboard.  I must have been thinking of the TRS-80 MC-10 (anyone
remember _those_).  It's been a while....

>
>						Lovin' the Z80,
	I'd rather program in assembly on the Z80 than
on just about any other chip in existence...it's just
that Sinclair's machines that ran off it were terrible.  The
Spectrum+3 could run CP/M, though (albeit off those weird
Amstrad 3" disks.  Not 3.5"...)

				Dave 
				dagbrown@descartes.waterloo.edu

Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1992 02:09:07 -0400 
From: "Joseph M. Newcomer" <jn11+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Patron saint of hackers

Things one picks up with a Catholic education...

One form of torture that was rather popular in the early days was to seal
someone up in a casketlike device so that only their head protruded, and
then simply feed them well  "The body then performed those actions which
were naturual to it..."  The resulting environment became infested with
maggots, and the person eventually died of disease, usually from worms
and maggots.  (Religious types like to use these examples to show how
True Faith can help you die gleefully...and they like to tell the stories
as gorily as possible).  If we could identify one saint who died in this
fashion, however, we have our Patron Saint: someone who died by being
eaten alive by bugs...
                                joe
From: dave@cs.arizona.edu (Dave Schaumann)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: You know you've been in hack mode too long when...
Date: 15 Apr 92 05:45:29 GMT
Reply-To: dave@cs.arizona.edu (Dave Schaumann)
Organization: University of Arizona

I'm taking a graphics class this semester.  Currently I'm working
on a 3D object drawing program.

Last night I dreamed about transform matrixes and Liang-Barsky clipping...

I sure will be glad when summer's here.

-- 
You unlock this door with the key of imagination.  Beyond it is another
dimension: a dimension if sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind.
You're moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas.
You've just crossed over into... the Twilight Zone.
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: phillips@swanee.ee.uwa.oz.au (Phillips C J)
Subject: Re: You kyou've been in hack mode too long ...
Organization: Elec Eng, Univ of Western Australia
Date: 14 Apr 92 15:08:33 GMT

u8802356@cs.uow.edu.au (Elephant) writes:

>You know you've been in hack mode to long when you test a program, and
>it fails, so you jump into the editor, look at it, jump out, recompile and
>test (without making changes) and it still doesn't work, so
>you jump ........ and it still doesn't work ...... recompile without
>any changes........ (this tends to happen after 24+ hours ;-))

Carefull...  That's been known to fix the bug on odd occasion.  And on that
rare occasion when it does, you are left worrying about where the bug got to,
and whether it's going to com back again sometime...

Christopher Jam						c64 forever!!!
--
Christopher Jam	__________________________________________________
'Another day, another try.  But remember, SHOOT OR DIE!' -turrican
phillips@swanee.ee.uwa.oz.au		c64 forever!!!!
------------------------------------------------------------------
From: karchie@cco.caltech.edu (Kevin Allen Archie)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Slashed o's (o's, not zeros)?
Date: 14 Apr 92 21:06:16 GMT
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena

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

>It's funny, but many English-speaking people seem to think that those
>funny little dots, slashes and rings used by Germans and Scandinavians
>are there just for decoration, and can be added or removed at will.
>Nothing could be further from the truth. The horror examples are heavy
>metal groups like Motorhead and Motley Crue, who've added some
>German-looking dots - I suppose for the visual effect. They would be
>less than pleased if they knew how ridiculous it sounds if you
>actually *pronounce* those dots... :-)

Yes, but what about Spinal Tap (umlaut over the n, o'course :)

	- Kevin
	karchie@cco.caltech.edu
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: dnichols@ceilidh.beartrack.com (Don Nichols (DoN.))
Subject: Re: Use of "crashme"
Organization: D and D Data, Vienna Virginia
Date: Sat, 4 Apr 1992 20:02:19 GMT

In article <3!aH+kng6@cs.psu.edu> dsbarr@cs.psu.edu writes:
>In article <1992Apr2.215945.6571@cs.hw.ac.uk> sfleming@cs.hw.ac.uk writes:
>>
>>Chuq von Rospach reported a few years ago that he used to
>>test Mac programs by allowing his pet cockatoo to walk on
>>the keyboard.  It is quite amazing what random input will
>>do to "solid" utilities.
>
>Not to mention random output on the keyboard.  :-)

	Yes, I had a pet squirrel at one time, and generated some liquid
output on the keyboard of my first system.  It was down for a day, because I
had to wash it out and let it dry from the flood of clean water.  (The
output was VERY conductive :-)

-- 
Donald Nichols (DoN.)     | Voice (Days): (703) 704-2020 (Eves): (703) 938-4564
D&D Data                  |  Email: <dnichols@ceilidh.beartrack.com>
I said it - no one else   |         <dnichols@ceilidh.aes.com>
	--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: madd@world.std.com (jim frost)
Subject: Re: CS Hackers?
Organization: The World @ Software Tool & Die
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1992 18:22:58 GMT

In article <1992Mar17.051631.23128@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu>, lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner) writes:
> Bliss is ignorance :-).

...'tis folly to be wise?

(A free can of diluted caffeine to the first person who can tell me
the original work :-)

jim frost
madd@world.std.com
From: lg274524@hp9k.lag.itesm.mx (tita)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: advantajes and danious of computer utilization
Date: 9 Apr 92 01:18:01 GMT


use of computers as a teaching tool.

How usefull is the use of computer in a classroom ?

What are the benefits or harms caused by the use of computers in the following fields:
      Medicine, Education, Defense systems, Economy, Science, Research and Industry in United States, Japan and Canada ?

Please, send your answer a my count.  My count is lg274524

              Tanks !!

               Bye.... Fabiola.
From: jn11+@andrew.cmu.edu (Joseph M. Newcomer)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: TOPS-10 RAD50
Date: 16 Apr 92 04:26:43 GMT
Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

>>Didn't macro and the compilers output the symbols in the .REL files in 
>>RAD-50 ( sorry, MOD-40 ) so as to stuff 4 flag bits into the word?

Yep.  I spent a lot of time working with RAD50, as I did substantial
work in the SIX12 debugger, and build a .REL file disassembler.
                            joe
From: arensb@kong.gsfc.nasa.gov (Andrew Arensburger - RMS)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: You kyou've been in hack mode too long ...
Date: 15 Apr 92 21:28:20 GMT
Organization: Goddard Space Flight Center


	On at least one occasion, I've opened a window to find a phone
number in a file, then tried to cut & paste it to the phone...

--
Andrew Arensburger            | "Anyway, it never gets cold on Earth. Cold
arensb@kong.gsfc.nasa.gov     | enough to freeze water, yes, but not carbon
...!uunet!dftsrv!kong!arensb  | dioxide."     -- "Fallen Angels"
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: bwatson@isis.cs.du.edu (bruce watson)
Subject: Re: Computers for Apollo project
X-Disclaimer: Nyx is a public access Unix system run by the University
	of Denver for the Denver community.  The University has neither
	control over nor responsibility for the opinions of users.
Organization: Nyx, Public Access Unix at U. of Denver Math/CS dept.
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 92 20:08:56 GMT

In article <1992Apr14.163322.24004@cs.cornell.edu> chapman@cs.cornell.edu (Richard Chapman) writes:
>Last night on the PBS series "The Machine that changed the world," it
>was claimed that one of the driving forces for large-scale development
>of integrated circuits was the fact that during the Apollo project,
>the space ship had to enter and leave lunar orbit while the moon
>blocked radio communication with earth, hence necessitating an onboard
>computer.  Anyone able to elaborate? I'm no astronomer, but I once
>read that all the orbital calculations had been done in advance on
>mainframes -- what did this machine onboard actually have to do? What
>were its specs?

The orbital calculations on the ground were nominal and ideal. There was a
need for a burn on the other side of the moon to get them into and out
of lunar orbit and then there was the 1.3 second radio lag from earth
to moon (2.6+      seconds if information had to go from the lunar lander to
earth, compared with nominal and sent back). And remember redundancy
is what made the Apollo project work as well as it did.

>Ob. General Whine: I wish the PBS series weren't quite so dumbed-down,
>maybe more after the pattern of the show "The Secret Life of Machines"
>which shows in the USA on the Discovery channel. Maybe I'm just wishing 
>the show were 50 hours long instead of five. 
>
Strong agreement there! Secret Life is not only informative but very
entertaining. I've yet to find a technical history of the development
of computers. That's something sadly lacking.>
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.unix.wizards,cct.ccc,cct.cuhug,comp.editors,comp.unix.questions
From: hshubs@eff.org (Howard Shubs)
Subject: Re: me vs. vi survey *please read*
Originator: hshubs@eff.org
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Wed, 25 Mar 1992 17:59:14 GMT

In article <aldavi01.701515301@starbase.spd.louisville.edu> aldavi01@starbase.spd.louisville.edu (Arlie Davis) writes:
>
>While everyone is proudly displaying their emacs/vi, does anyone think that
>Q-Edit (yes, MSDOS) is a worthy editor??  I do.  It was the One True Editor for
>me, when I still used DOS machines. (ugh, yuck, blecch)  It was small, fast,
>*powerful*.  (I can't stand having my editor take more than a second to load.
>It's one reason I prefer vi over emacs -- I'm constantly invoking, exitting,
>suspending, resuming my editting all day long.)


Aaah...  yer all clueless!  The best editor in existance is LSE, or
EVE if you can't get LSE.
-- 
Howard S Shubs      hshubs@eff.org      I don't represent the EFF,
The Denim Adept     hshubs@BIX.com      but I do agree with them.
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: colinm@alfred.carleton.ca (Colin McFadyen)
Subject: Re: CP-6?
Organization: Carleton University
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1992 19:54:55 GMT

In <8393@bnr-rsc.UUCP> christo@bcarh803.BNR.CA (Mark Christopher) writes:

>And the ancestor was Honeywell CP-V, formerly XDS (Xerox Data Systems).
>Back in the hazy undergrad days, I used a Sigma 9 running CP-V.  The
>filenames were of the format:  <filename>[.[<account>]][.<passwd>].
>So a file: 'myfile..passwd' referred to your own file 'myfile' with
>the password 'passwd'.  When you logged in, if you had a file called
>MAILBOX, CP-V would print "Check DC/MAILBOX".  (This is important for
>the next story.)

>At this particular university, I knew a "friend" who could trivially
                                          ^^^^^^
Finally, some folklore (AFOAF).  

>access the Registrar's accounts, through not exactly legitimate means.
>His fun only involved renaming files to have two trailing periods and
>leaving a message in MAILBOX saying "Don't forget the file passwords".
>Of course, the periods were not legal in filenames themselves, so they
>could not access the files unless they could rename them.  Of course,
>the registrar's DP staff didn't know how to do this and ended up always
>recovering the files from tape...

If you are talking about the CPV system we had here at CU then your friend
was talking crap.  Even if he could get into some other accounts, the
DP staff wouldn't restore the files from tape.  If they couldn't remove
a trailing period from a filename, how would you expect them to restore
a file from backup.  The systems dept. would have fixed the file if
anything was wrong, not restore it from backup.  

Almost every year, students from engineering or computer science brag that they
will break into the student records system or payroll on the CP-6 mainframe
and every year they are wrong.  

>-- 
>Mark Christopher                                christo@bnr.ca
>Bell-Northern Research                  ..!uunet!bnrgate!bcarh803!christo
>     Just adding my thoughts.  There, now my brain is empty again.
Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1992 04:01:22 -0400 
From: "Joseph M. Newcomer" <jn11+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Apollo computers

I'm not sure of the rationale of "why an onboard computer" but one of the
world's experts on NASA computers is Jim Tomayko, who is now @sei.cmu.edu.

What is cute is the early stories about spaceflight, in which there is no
onboard radio because it is too heavy, uses too much power, and in any
case wouldn't reach to the earth.  This was based on the obvious facts that
you couldn't do very distant radio communication on Earth, usually a few
hundred miles, so 250,000 miles was out of the question.  I think the
Apollo downlink was a 5-watt transmitter.  Such considerations as microwaves,
or those spiral-wrapped antennae with incredible directionality and gain
(the story of their invention is fascinating; it was an accidental discovery
of a U. Ohio radio astronomer, made in his basement; he owns the patent)
were inconceivable even in the 1950s.  I don't think radio silence was
a key consideration, but for the lunar landing and launch that's a different
question--a 2 second delay would be impossible.  There's a story, I think
by Phil Farmer (part of the Weird Heroes cycle) about an airship crash
caused by automatic cellular rerouting thru a satellite introducing
delays that turned a control feedback loop into a positive feedback cycle.
The technology was right, even predictive, but the systems architect should
have been shot during QA...
                                    joe