HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: okes@essex.ac.uk (Oke S)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,talk.bizarre
Subject: Re: You know when you're hacking too long when...
Date: 28 Sep 92 10:03:30 GMT
	<1992Sep16.145437.871@tpki.toppoint.de>
	<1992Sep18.075936.20819@lugb.latrobe.edu.au>
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of Essex, UK.
In-reply-to: 9125113g@lux.latrobe.edu.au's message of 18 Sep 92 07:59:36 GMT

In article <1992Sep18.075936.20819@lugb.latrobe.edu.au> 9125113g@lux.latrobe.edu.au (Mitch Davis) writes:

>Here at La Trobe, we have a CS lecturer who's internals must be in LISP.  
>Every five minutes, he freezes solid for about thirty seconds then 
>continues on as if nothing ever happened.

We have one of those here...

>We hypothesize that he's garbage collecting....

And drew the same conclusion last year...

--
This signature is copyright 12/6/1992 Simon Oke. All rights reserved. If you
like it and keep a copy for your own use, you owe me $20. Please pass it on
to your friends with all documentation.              Email okes@essex.ac.uk.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Hell's bells!" the machine roared as it plummeted fifteen storeys and
	smashed itself to bits on the ground below.
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: ralph@cs.stanford.edu (Ralph Melton)
Subject: Re: That darn "Bug" story
Originator: ralph@Xenon.Stanford.EDU
Organization: CS Department, Stanford University, California, USA
Date: 28 Sep 92 23:29:22 GMT

In <9209251038.AA00395@dacke.thep.lu.se> magnus@THEP.LU.SE (Magnus Olsson) writes:
>Apart from being ridiculously pedantic, not
>allowing empty statements would cause problems in several places:

>2) The following is a very common construct in C, where almost
>   everything has side effects, but I like to do it in Pascal
>   as well:

>   function foo (var bar : integer) : Boolean;
>   begin
>       (* Function body omitted; return true if success *)
>   end;

>       while not foo (bar) do ;
>       
>   Not allowing blank statements would force me to put a dummy assignment
>   or something between the do and the ;

IMAO, it is an EVIL thing that this is allowed.  The way to express
this should be

	while not foo(bar) do nothing;
or
	while not foo(bar) do
	  begin
	  end;

either of these expresses the empty loop body better, and it is a
very desirable thing to prohibit errors of the form

	while not foo(bar) do;
	  i := i + 1;

Just my $0.02...

Ralph
-- 
"As a hushed commentary on my RL surroundings here... I hate people who think
Mike McDermott (Pog)
From: emv@msen.com (Edward Vielmetti)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: hunt the wumpus code
Date: 29 Sep 1992 01:42:03 -0400
Organization: Msen, Inc. -- Ann Arbor, Michigan
NNTP-Posting-Host: nigel.msen.com
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]

the first coinage i've seen was from Geoff Collyer, though it might not be
original.

part of the problem facing news readers these days is dealing with all of
the crud you guys type, er, trying to make more efficient use of the
header information in news articles so that readers can do things like
threading and kill files (and cool stuff like auto select) cheaply and
quickly.  in order to do this several people have hacked auxiliary
databases that sit on the side of NNTP or the news spool.

as with all good developments in netnews people didn't consult an ISO
standard, and they didn't enjoy many fine IETF lunches and dinners, they
just hacked some code.  Alas enough people hacked enough code in enough
different places that you couldn't use one threads or headers database
with another news reader, cause no one bothered to write down exactly what
they did and besides it wasn't clear at the time - isn't clear now? - the
minimum set of additional stuff you need to do it "right".

anyway, to the point of the story, one more reason that people haven't
picked up on each other's work yet is the state of the database code.  in
one case the data structures are sufficiently tangled and circular that
they defy easy exporation.  the common term for this is "hunt the wumpus
code", from the 'wumpus' game's circular maze, and you'll see in
news.software.readers apologies from newsreader authors saying they don't
have mthreads support yet because they haven't hunted the wumpus yet.

  Edward Vielmetti, vice president for research, Msen Inc. emv@Msen.com
        Msen Inc., 628 Brooks, Ann Arbor MI  48103 +1 313 998 4562
From: marc@vieta.math.uni-sb.de (Marc Conrad)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: you know, you 're reading news too long
Date: 2 Oct 92 17:27:47 GMT
Organization: U of Saarbruecken, Dept. of Computational Linguistics

....when you have a simple question about some stupid problem
(in my special case: to calculate Fahrenheit to Celsius and vice 
versa - No _don't_ post the answer. I know it!!!)
and the first idea, you get is to ask it on the net....
(and not to look in some books or to ask the nice peoble around you or 
to have a look in the holy bible K&R)
I only realized these alternatives, when I saw the flames :-(
Marc.
P.S: C = 5/9 ( F - 32 )

--
     \   /                     | Marc Conrad, Universitaet des Saarlandes 
      \ Luxemburg              | marc@math.uni-sb.de  phone: 0681 302-2297
France \|   Germany            | these opinions are not necessarily these   
        \x <---- you are here! | of the SIMATH-group (and maybe even not mine).
From: IQTI400@INDYCMS.IUPUI.EDU (macphil)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: dirty tricks
Date: 28 Sep 92 00:10:40 GMT
Organization: IUPUI

In article <1992Sep27.164747.16092@rchland.ibm.com>
jdahl@rchland.vnet.ibm.com (Jared Dahl) writes:
 
>When I was in school, several other departments required their
>students to take Programming I.  This created problems since
>there were more people in that class than there were in our
>CS department.  This resulted in a constantly full terminal room.
>I used to change the parity and baud rate on our vt220 terminals
>in our lab.  When turned on, they responded with gibberish and
>the normal "idiot newbie" responded by trying to find another
>terminal.  I never waited for a terminal after I started doing this.
 
At least you were *allowed* to take intro for the easy A.  I didn't
get to take frosh/soph classes.
 
On the other hand, they created a "majours room" where only
accounts belonging to CS majours could log onto the system.
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: jdahl@rchland.vnet.ibm.com (Jared Dahl)
Subject: Re: dirty tricks
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 02:23:32 GMT
Disclaimer: This posting represents the poster's views, not necessarily those of IBM
Organization: IBM Rochester
Keywords: ouch

In article <adrian.717782370@milton>, adrian@milton.u.washington.edu (Adrian Mariano) writes:
|> In <1992Sep27.164747.16092@rchland.ibm.com> jdahl@rchland.vnet.ibm.com (Jared Dahl) writes:
|> 
|> >in MS-DOS...
|> 
|> >PROMPT=?
|> >cls
|> 
|> >I know. you already knew that certain dos interrupts won't print
|> >a question mark, and the one used for the prompt is one of them.
|>   
|> Not in any version of MS-DOS I've ever used.  No I/O method eats the
|> '?' and the above simply gets '?' for the prompt.  

Sorry.  '?' should be '$'.  I don't use DOS very often any more. 
Sort or a reward I guess.

Jared Dahl 
-- 
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
| Jared Dahl             | "My heart is human, my blood is boiling, | 
| Systems Programmer     |  my brain IBM"                           |
| IBM - Rochester, MN    |              -- STYX,  "Mr. Roboto"      |
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Opinions expressed are mine, not IBM's.
From: ercm20@festival.ed.ac.uk (Sam Wilson)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: That darn Bug story
Date: 30 Sep 92 16:52:09 GMT

peter@NeoSoft.com (Peter da Silva) writes:
> In article <26322@castle.ed.ac.uk> ercm20@festival.ed.ac.uk (Sam Wilson) writes:
> > Edinburgh's EMAS (1972 - 1992, R.I.P.) did something like this.  All
> > references were indirect via a table built at load-and-run time.
> 
> Oh, while I'm sitting here: the Amiga dynamically links all binaries on
> loading. That way they all share a common address space. 

On EMAS it was partly because shared code DIDN'T run in the same address
space - ecah logged in user (not program!) had his or her own VM and
shared code had to execute at different addresses in different VMs.  The
code was shared but ecah user had an unshared linkage area with the
relocated addresses in. 

> ... It doesn't do
> dynamic linking for libraries, though, since they're opened explicitly at
> run-time and may be flushed from memory if nobody happens to have them
> open at a particular time.

Garbage collection, eh? Being a big, grown up system with paging and VM
(despite the original EMAS running 40 simultaneous interactive users on
a machine with 1Mb of main store - hardly 'grown up' these days) EMAS
just used to page over unused stuff, of course. 

Oh, one thing I didn't mention before was the extraordinary efficiency
of the memory mapped filing system for file i/o.  Whilst one could
emulate character or record or block i/o doing that actually slowed your
program down.  The efficient way was just to read consecutive memory
locations and let the paging system bring the file into memory as
necessary. 

Sam
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: sarr@sinshan.citi.umich.edu (Sarr J. Blumson)
Subject: Re: IBM 3021 Data Cell
Organization: University of Michigan, CITI
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 15:03:37 GMT

Another bit of datacell lore that just fell out of a somewhat dusty
neuron:

When it was broken, it would retry some enormous number of times, then
put the strip back, refetch it, and retry another enormous number of
times.  It would repeat this process an enormous number of times.  If
the strip really _was_ unreadable, it spent something like 20 minutes
before giving up.
(Sarr Blumson)
From: barmar@think.com (Barry Margolin)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Connection Machine posters (was Re: Mean-looking iron: design decision or just cool stuff?)
Date: 5 Oct 1992 14:54:36 GMT
Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge MA, USA
NNTP-Posting-Host: telecaster.think.com
Summary: Sorry, none for sale

Many people have posted (and emailed me directly) asking about the
availability of posters featuring the Connection Machine, particularly the
"mean-looking" CM5.

Sorry, but we don't have posters to send to the general public.  Only a
limited number of CM5 posters were produced.  These are intended primarily
for use by our sales and marketing departments to give to customers and
prospective customers, and (as RLK mentioned in his post) some were given
to employees as presents last year at the announcement party (they were
numbered, like collectible art prints, and the people on the CM5
development team got the low-numbered prints).  If you have a dying child
whose last wish is a CM5 poster, we should be able to accomodate you, but
we don't have enough to distribute (or sell) to the general public; if you
have a relationship with Thinking Machines, your sales rep should be able
to help you.
-- 
Barry Margolin
System Manager, Thinking Machines Corp.

barmar@think.com          {uunet,harvard}!think!barmar
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: payner@netcom.com (Rich Payne)
Subject: Re: Cliff Stoll live in concert!
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)
Distribution: U.S.
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 04:41:40 GMT

In article <BvMpFH.AwA@world.std.com> kibo@world.std.com (James "Kibo" Parry) writes:
>In article <BvLx0x.M1o@sti.com> stev0@sti.com (Steve Berlin) writes:
>>Attention!
>>
>>Cliff Stoll, author of "The Cuckoo's Egg", will be appearing on the NPR
>>radio show "West Coast Weekend" on October 17th.
>
>As always, be reminded not to confuse him with Gary Stollman (author of
>EMACS) and Richard Stallman (known to alt.alien.visitors readers.)

Errr, perhaps you got the names switched? I really doubt that the Gary
Stollman who posts to a.a.v. could write EMACS, although it is possible
that one of his clones might (perhaps the defective clone :^).
 
>>-- 
>>Stev0@sti.com
>>This is a kibo .signature virus.  Kibo's .sig file has now
>>been appended to yours.

Rich

payner@netcom.com


Xref: sparky alt.folklore.computers:14773 rec.games.int-fiction:435
From: gujn@uniwa.uwa.edu.au (Jeremy Nelson)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Mean-looking iron: design decision or just cool stuff?
Date: 1 Oct 1992 15:53:03 +0800
Organization: The University of Westrn Australia
NNTP-Posting-Host: uniwa.uwa.edu.au

barmar@think.com (Barry Margolin) writes:

>In article <BvDKvs.M5q@rice.edu> dboyes@is.rice.edu (David E Boyes) writes:
>>I just got my first look at the poster photos of a CM-5 --
>>Thinking Machine's latest super-powered warp-accelerated widget.
>>My first thought was: 
>>
>>  "Damn, that machine looks *mean*."
>>
>>I had a similar reaction to the CM2. Since a lot of the Thinking
>>Machines folks hang out here, can you tell us whether this is an
>>intentional design feature, or does it just happen this way?

>Outside designers were brought in to help us design the CM-5.  I believe
>one of them was the artist who designed the Vietnam Memorial Wall in
>Washington, D.C.  The CM-5 won a design award.  I don't know offhand
>whether "mean" was the intended look, but they were clearly trying to make
>a statement with the look of the machine.  Our management is extremely
>conscious of the interplay between form and function.
>-- 
>Barry Margolin
>System Manager, Thinking Machines Corp.


In article <BvDKvs.M5q@rice.edu> dboyes@is.rice.edu (David E Boyes) writes:
>HEY!  Anyway to get posters of CM-5 or CM-2?  They'd look cool in our
>lab (all we have is bare walls).  Does Thinking Machine make any posters?

Perhaps Thinking Machines could advertise their machines by having a
competition for some CM-5 posters?

Or maybe a competition for a CM-5. :)

-- 
Jem.  Jeremy Nelson.  gujn@uniwa.uwa.edu.au       :\  =>  :) 
I fear two things: 
That I am not one of the most interesting people in the world... and that I am.
From: sandee@Think.COM (Daan Sandee)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: you know you've been hacking too long...
Date: 6 Oct 1992 12:35:03 GMT
Organization: TMC
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: telecaster.think.com
Keywords: hacking long absurd msdos TM

In article <Bvp6pq.5oF@rice.edu>, swaim@owlnet.rice.edu (Michael Parks Swaim) writes:
|> In article <1992Oct6.024025.24653@geovision.gvc.com> pt@geovision.gvc.com writes:
|> >If you don't know where to put your floppy, then it isn't much of a one
|> >night stand....
|> >
|> >[No 3.5 inchers here - I've got an old but still servicable 8 incher.]
|> 
|>   I'm still using my 8 inch jumbos. Just wish I could get rid of the box I'm
|> using them in.

Ah, those days of old, when Men were Men ... when I was shown how to insert
an 8-inch floppy, I was surprised to learn that in order to avert disaster,
it went in wrapper and all.
Those kids of today, they think 3.5" is a proper size ; they don't know what
they've missed. Even worse, they may be using a diskless node.

Daan Sandee                                           sandee@think.com
Thinking Machines Corporation
Cambridge, Mass 02142                                 (617) 234-5044
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: rf@cl.cam.ac.uk (Robin Fairbairns)
Subject: Re: Bumper Sticker
Reply-To: rf@cl.cam.ac.uk (Robin Fairbairns)
Organization: U of Cambridge, England
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 09:28:27 GMT


In article <1ai5veINN2nj@darkstar.UCSC.EDU>, haynes@cats.ucsc.edu (Jim
Haynes) writes:
|> 
|> One of my prized possessions (well, I think it's still here somewhere) is
|> a bumper sticker that says
|> 
|>      HONK IF YOU LOVE JCL

Surely the composer of this sticker deserves a prize from the noise
abatement society.
--
Robin (dump Brian Kay) Fairbairns                    rf@cl.cam.ac.uk
U of Cambridge Computer Lab, Pembroke St, Cambridge  CB2 3QG, UK
From: john@gu.uwa.edu.au (John West)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: dirty tricks
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 08:19:15 GMT
Organization: University Computer Club --- Perth, Western Australia
NNTP-Posting-Host: mullet.gu.uwa.edu.au

johnm@metro (John McKirdy) writes:

>One of my pet hates is people leaving terminals unattended.
>I have occassionally changed their login scripts to set the prompt to
>    Do not forget to log out>
>but found out some of the naive users hit by this didn't know what was
>going on and couldn't change it back.  It didn't work anyway, so now I
>just walk by.

We have a little program called 'shame', written specially for people like
that. When runs, it sends some nasty mail to the user, adds their name to
a file, and logs them out. (The program to display the list of offenders
is called hinch. Australian readers should be able to figure out why)

John West
-- 
For the humour impaired: Insert a :-) after every third word
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: adam@owlnet.rice.edu (Adam Justin Thornton)
Subject: Re: Bumper Sticker
Organization: Milo's Meadow
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 17:22:33 GMT

In article <1992Oct2.091252.16662@infodev.cam.ac.uk> rf@cl.cam.ac.uk (Robin Fairbairns) writes:

>Probably the 360 one.  The subject of possibly the most impossible
>question I've ever had in a job interview (this one at IBM Hursley
>Labs in Winchester): "If we gave you a document set for DOS and told
>you to sit down with it, what would you do?"

Hire a forklift?  Rent a bigger apartment?  Run screaming?

Adam
-- 
"Man is conceived in sin and born in corruption and he passeth from the
 stink of the didie to the stench of the shroud.  There is _always_
 something." -- Robert Penn Warren | Vote Cthulhu in '92! | adam@rice.edu
If Rice shared my opinions I wouldn't have this disclaimer | 64,928
From: clc@kepler.unh.edu (Llamist Lliason)
Subject: Re: Connection Machine posters (was Re: Mean-looking iron: design decision or just cool stuff?)
Organization: Holy Church of the Llama
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 22:21:03 GMT

In article <rdippold.718396192@qualcom> rdippold@qualcom.qualcomm.com (Ron Dippold) writes:
>barmar@think.com (Barry Margolin) writes:
>>development team got the low-numbered prints).  If you have a dying child
>>whose last wish is a CM5 poster, we should be able to accomodate you, but
>
>Dying child?  Just give me about an hour...

Craig Shergold is dying, and his last wish is to have a CM5 poster.  Please 
send your name, postcard, and offer to him.  Oh damn, I've misplaced the 
address.

					Christian


-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| <.sig>::= <address> + <filler>    | Christian Longshore Claiborn, Genius   /
| <address>::= <name>|<name>+<more> | UNH Resident Computer Science Stud    /
| <more>::= <name> | <address>      | Available most of the time at:       /
| <name>::= <initials> | <handle>   | clc@kepler.unh.edu   OR             /
| <handle>::= <MyDog'sName>         | C_CLAIBORN@unhh.unh.edu            /
| <MyDog'sName>::= <Custer>         | I like fruit cup!  Yumm!          /
------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: twpierce@unix.amherst.edu (Tim Pierce)
Subject: Re: dirty tricks
Organization: Amherst College, Amherst MA
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 13:23:37 GMT

In article <15671@umd5.umd.edu> malmberg@umsa8.umd.edu (Norwin Malmberg) writes:

>On the early versions of suntools (and, for all I know, the current version),
>there is an escape sequence which "iconifies" the window.

VWS (VMS Windowing System) is kind of cool because by writing to the
OPA0: device, any process can create a window on the console.  It's a
lot of fun waiting until someone kind of clueless sits down and starts
trying to figure out how to log on and then popping up a window saying
"Push the left mouse button, stupid."

We always wanted to create windows with huge obscene statements
written on them when tours of prospective students and parents came
through the computer center.  Unfortunately, the workstations were
never placed where they would really see it.

-- 
____ Tim Pierce                / "You are just naive and repressed because
\  / twpierce@unix.amherst.edu /  penis envy is here and it's now and it's
 \/ (BITnet: TWPIERCE@AMHERST) /  all around you." -- Neal C. Wickham
From: rjg@doe.carleton.ca (Richard Griffith)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Bumper sticker
Date: 30 Sep 92 18:23:46 GMT
Organization: Dept. of Electronics, Carleton University

In <15858@mindlink.bc.ca> Charlie_Gibbs@mindlink.bc.ca (Charlie Gibbs) writes:
>     Seen on a car last weekend:

>          I <heart> DOS

>     Scary.

What do you consider the most scary
	1) someone would by this bumper sticker and proudly display it.
	2) someone would consider manufacturing these stickers and
		sell them for profit.
	3) a bank loan manager would look at the proposition produced by
		the person in 2) and ok it.
	4) we live in a society driven by money, largley dependent on the
		decisions of bank loan managers as 3).

Note no one would by such a sticker as a joke as some idiot might think they 
were serious.

I propose an alternate bumper sticker:

DOS - the implications are staggering.
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: ftit@engin.umich.edu (Sergej Roytman)
Subject: Re: MDL
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 92 14:25:27 EDT
Organization: University of Michigan Engineering, Ann Arbor

In article <1992Sep30.074947.148@news.columbia.edu> lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner) writes:
|In article <8em6K2C00YV9A1kfYt@andrew.cmu.edu> Samuel Roy Helwig <sh4j+@andrew.cmu.edu> writes:
|>
|>    Does anyone in this group remember MDL (muddle)?  I was told that
|>the original Adventure was written in it.  It seems that it was an
|>interactive fiction game language.  Is this true?  Also, I was told that
|>the Infocom text-based games were written in a language based on a
|>subset of MDL.  Finally, if anyone has the original Adventure source (in
|>MDL) or anything else in MDL, I'd like to look at it.
|>
|>                        thanx,
|>                        Sam
|
|
|Floating around the net is also a C-based version of Adventure that the
|authors were extremely careful to be faithful to the original.  They point
|out a few bugs in the original, but in all other ways it's the same.  There
|are even compatibility switches to handle certain quirks to be as compatible
|as anyone would want, etc.
|

Any idea where it can be had?

|
|cjl
|

--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
|  ftit@engin.umich.edu   |   "... a stainless steel rat in the       |
|    (Sergej Roytman)     |  ferroconcrete wainscoting of Internet"   |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Say no to four-line .sigs.
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: logier@cheops.qld.tne.oz.au (Rob Logie)
Subject: Re: Quiche Eaters and Fortran
Organization: Telecom Australia, TNE Computer Support Services
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 10:28:53 GMT

logier@cheops.qld.tne.oz.au (Rob Logie) writes:

>About ten years ago there circulated a Article called something like 
>"Real Programmers use Fortran".  It was a article suggesting that only Quiche 
>Eaters used languages like Pascal while Real programmers used fortran ( or
>assembler if it couldn't be done in fortran ).

>Has any one got this article ,  If so could they please mail me a copy


>Thanks in Advance

Thanks to the people who replied.  I now have a new copy of the article,



regards


-- 
Rob Logie,   Telecom Australia    | The opions expressed are mine alone and in
           ( A.C.N. 051 775 556 ) | no-way reflect the views or policies of the
NWPD-NE Computer Support Services | Australian and Overseas Telecommunications
EMAIL: logier@cheops.qld.tne.oz.au| Corporation. "These are my opinions alone"