HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: jn11+@andrew.cmu.edu (Joseph M. Newcomer)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Why grey?
Date: 16 Apr 92 06:18:02 GMT
Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

PDP-10s, at least the ones I remember, had a light-blue/dark-blue color
style (for switches, in groups of 3) and the lines on the displays which
delimited groups of lights.

IBM computers came in Blue.  Blue.  Blue. and Blue.  Actually, I recall
that they were available in any number of colors, if you could pay for
it; I was once shown a color chart (yes, a set of baked enamel samples).  
One local hospital actually had their computer in Hospital White, which
was such a special order that it was the most expensive color they
offered; it apparently caused something of a local scandal because of
the expense of the "decorator" color.  It wasn't in the color sample set
I was shown.

The IBM Blue was a bizarre color to match; the company I worked for wanted
to paint the computer room with IBM Blue and it took FOREVER to get a
matching color, which was custom-mixed.  We ended up with wide IBM blue
stripes with wide lighter stripes, because after all that effort a complete
room painted in IBM blue is depressingly dark.  Putting up 8' light
stripes, however, made the place bearable.
                                    joe
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: adam@owlnet.rice.edu (Adam Justin Thornton)
Subject: Re: CS Hackers?
Organization: Milo's Meadow
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1992 21:39:59 GMT

In article <1992Apr7.202603.14297@cs.umn.edu> lsmith@cs.umn.edu (Lance "Cogsworth" Smith) writes:
>In article <BMCoEA.3oK@world.std.com> madd@world.std.com (jim frost) writes:
>>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
>
>Thomas Gray, Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College
>I prefer:
[...]
>Alfred Housman, A Shropshire Lad

Yeah, but

Malt does more than Milton can
To justify God's ways to man.

was always my favorite.

Adam
-- 
"Adam Thornton plays the homosexual Horatio without succumbing to _too_ many
 cliched stereotypes.  His Horatio, Hamlet's bosom companion...has a penchant
 for cream dresses and thigh-high black leather boots." | adam@owlnet.rice.edu
Rice and I don't share opinions, thankfully. | Retry Student A | 64,928 | ;-)
From: azog@thoth.rent.com (Billy D'Augustine)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Easter Egg FAQ list
Date: 14 Apr 92 02:35:52 GMT
Organization: Cranial Construction Corp

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

>In article <1992Apr13.084341.3452@pollux.lu.se> I write:
>>Has anybody got any idea why the "magic" username is "joshua!!"? 
>>And who is professor Falken?

>And, by the way, I'm neither too young to have seen that film, or so
>much of a geek that I never go to the cinema. If you want to adopt a
>cynical, snobbish attitude, you could say I'm too sensible to see all
>new Hollywood products. Or maybe I'm just too lazy. Or maybe I don't
>want to see yet another stupid, unrealistic film about computers,
>created by computer-illiterate Hollywood people for the
>computer-illiterate masses (ever noticed the way all Hollywood
>computers used to put characters on the screen at 110 baud, clicking
>and beeping all the time, because that was the way computers were
>supposed to work - like typewriters, I suppose). Or maybe I'm just
>stupid to miss such a great movie? Choose whichever alternative you
>like - I couldn't care less. 

You know, its funny that youve brought up that point. Maybe its because
Ive been hit with the geek stick once too many times, but I find that
above _real_ annoying. Your watching a good movie, with a mildly 
beliveable plot, and they try to go hi-tek and stick in some major
bogus computer trash...

Theres a television show, here in NJ, on channel 9, called 'Super Force'.
Part of the story is that this one guy who was a computer genius died,
so they turned him into AI, and they show him on (whats supposed to be)
computer screens, but its real trashy. Basiclly they just fuzz the
guys picture real bad, and pass that off...

At one point, they had this girl catch a computer virus! From answering
a telephone call that was meant for a fax machine!

>Magnus Olsson                   | \e+      /_
>Dept. of Theoretical Physics    |  \  Z   / q
>University of Lund, Sweden      |   >----<           
>Internet: magnus@thep.lu.se     |  /      \===== g
>Bitnet: THEPMO@SELDC52          | /e-      \q
-- 
Billy D'Augustine                | "Wish I had some goddamned milk!
...rutgers!bobsbox!thoth!azog    | "Cheerieos just aint the same!"
azog@thoth.rent.com              | - Stormtroopers of Death (SOD)
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 17:49:42 GMT

In article <1992Mar23.081448.24789@casbah.acns.nwu.edu> navarra@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (John Navarra) writes:
>
>	That's ridiculous! First and most importantly, emacs is NOT
>available everywhere -- vi is.

I've never seen vi running under VMS, but I -have- seen EMACS there.
Not that I'd use either one if I saw them there, but...
-- 
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: zrepachol@cc.curtin.edu.au
Subject: Re: RAD-50 10READ/NEW/FOLLOWUPogy of cron)
Organization: Curtin University of Technology
Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1992 18:14:36 GMT

In article <M05751.92Mar24112236@hypatia.data.st.statoil.no>, m05751@hypatia.data.st.statoil.no (Bjorn Larsen) writes:
> 
> TOPS-10 also had some operations for Radix-50 manipulation (at the
> moment I can't remember where they were located.. In SCAN maybe?  Or
> am I thinking of TULIP? Never mind). No native TOPS-10 data structures
> used Radix-50, but if you wanted to read the PDP-11 front end area on
> the boot disk (the area holding the RSX-20F filesystem) you had to be
> able to interpret Radix-50.
> 
> Oh, yes: MACRO-10 had a RADIX50 pseudoop that let you specify a name
> in Radix-50.

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?

~Paul

Xref: sparky alt.folklore.computers:6462 talk.bizarre:11246
From: adw@cci632.cci.com (Allen Williams (co-op))
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,talk.bizarre
Subject: Help me upgrade my computer
Date: 15 Apr 92 17:48:06 GMT
Organization: Computer Consoles Incorporated


 After years of looking down at PC clones and their ilk, I finally broke
down and bought a cheap 286 at a flea market so I could play Infocom
games. (Infocom, or whoever owns it now, released 20 of their games in
one package for $50 or so. Buy it right now!)
 This 286 is embarrasing, as my friends are sure to taunt me after I've
been bragging that all PC owners were loosers for owning such a sorry
machine.
 So to save face, I have decided that I need to change the 286 from its
boring off-white office camaflauge look to something garish and shocking.
It will be my tribute to the Real Computers of the Good Ole Days before
the suits took over computerdom.
 Some ideas:

  1) The 'Hot Rod' look. Paint it red with flames, like the car in 'Grease'.

  2) The 'Mad Max' look. Paint it black and have black leather trim with
     big huge spikes sticking out of it.

  3) The 'Brenda Starr' look. Pink with fuzzy trim and red hearts.

  4) The 'US Military Hardware' look. Paint it olive drab green, and stencil
     in white, "US ARMY" with 'Capt. A. D. Williams' on the sides. Mabye
     'NO STEP' on top and 'JET FUEL ONLY' where the power cord is.

  5) The 'WWII Bomber' look. Strip the computer to bare metal, paint the
     usual half-naked bimbo on the side. My bimbo will be a 30's style
     caberet girl (brunette), half naked, throwing lightning bolts at a
     cartoon Hitler. The Hitler cartoon will be holding a banner saying
     "Intel Inside". I'll draw a small Swasika on the side for each Infocom
     game I complete. This would be hard, since I'm no art major. Drawing
     the Bimbo, not the Swasika.

  6) The 'Urban Graffiti' look. Nuff said. Easy to do.

  7) The 'Brazil' look. Replace the monitor with a 5 inch monochrome monitor
     with a fresnel lens mounted on front. Replace the keyboard with a 
     manual typewriter. Replace the case with a antique looking wooden box 
     with 30's style power gauges on it. Mabye a steam whistle too.

  8) The 'Rack Mount' look. Although the computer is quite small, all Real
     Computers are rack mounted. I'll put an A/C unit in it for that
     'Cold Computer Room' feel.

  9) The 'Sleeze' look. Glue some choice clippings from Hustler and laminate
     it on the case.

 10) The 'Bob' look. Paint some Dobbsheads on it to give it a feeling of
     'slack'. This would be ironic, as it doesn't have slack. See (3). 



  Mail me your ideas of what my computer should look like, or if you
have decorated your computer in a similar fashion, I would be interested
in hearing what you did. I will summarize the ideas I get after I've
decided on my computer's new look.

                                                        Derrick
From: smith@sctc.com (Rick Smith)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Mel: Fact or Fiction?
Date: 6 Apr 92 13:19:11 GMT
Article-I.D.: sctc.1992Apr6.131911.15962
Organization: SCTC

>Eric Raymond writes:

>>... I've spoken with him.  Mel was a real person.  I think Ed
>>told me that the story too place in 1964, but I'm not sure of that.

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

>1964 doesn't seem real to date the drum-memory machines.  Perhaps the story
>starts in 1964 and flashs back for most of its time-line.  Any company making
>non-core memory machines by then was already dead or dying.

I believe IBM was still pushing 650s in 1960; I have some PR material
from back then. The Bendix and Librascope machines would still have been
less than 10 years old in '64.

The machine was almost certainly not brand-new in '64. On the other
hand, few companies could afford to scrap a 5 year old machine that
they spent $200,000 on if they could get sort of use out of it.
Game programs like blackjack seem a reasonable chore to be assigned
to an otherwise obsolete machine.

Rick.
smith@sctc.com           arden hills, minnesota
Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1992 20:38:56 -0400 
From: "Jonathan R. Ferro" <jf41+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: Cute Comments (was Re: Bad commenting style)

This falls somewhere to the left of "cute", but it is yet another grand
example of how comments show the state of mind of the person who wrote
the code, in this case Richard Mlynarik.  In particular, note that the
plural of "fixnum" is "fixna".  This is from the GNU Emacs terminal
emulator package.

----
;;;; what a complete loss

(defun te-quote-arg-for-sh (fuckme)
  (cond ((string-match "\\`[a-zA-Z0-9-+=_.@/:]+\\'"
		       fuckme)
	 fuckme)
	((not (string-match "[$]" fuckme))
	 ;; "[\"\\]" are special to sh and the lisp reader in the same way
	 (prin1-to-string fuckme))
	(t
	 (let ((harder "")
	       (cretin 0)
	       (stupid 0))
	   (while (cond ((>= cretin (length fuckme))
			 nil)
			;; this is the set of chars magic with "..." in `sh'
			((setq stupid (string-match "[\"\\$]"
						    fuckme cretin))
			 t)
			(t (setq harder (concat harder
						(substring fuckme cretin)))
			   nil))
	     (setq harder (concat harder (substring fuckme cretin stupid)
                                  ;; Can't use ?\\ since `concat'
                                  ;; unfortunately does prin1-to-string
                                  ;; on fixna.  Amazing.
				  "\\"
				  (substring fuckme
					     stupid
					     (1+ stupid)))
		   cretin (1+ stupid)))
	   (concat "\"" harder "\"")))))
----

--
Jon Ferro		MIT Transportation Modelling Research Center (TMRC)
jf41+@andrew.cmu.edu	"We can hack it!"
SGNTR VRS VRSN 3.1B: Strppd nd cmprssd fr qckr trnsmssn! nfct yrs tdy!
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: eigenstr@nyssa.cs.rose-hulman.edu (Todd R. Eigenschink)
Subject: Re: Naughty bits
Organization: Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1992 17:50:37 GMT

In article <AdvDre_00VsaI=5c8m@andrew.cmu.edu> "Joseph M. Newcomer" <jn11+@andrew.cmu.edu> writes:

   I don't know about GNU, unless they've Lost It and are coding in Ada.

   In Ada, the implementor gets to play with the private parts of a module.
				   joe


Ahhh...but in C++, only your friends get to play with your private
parts... :-)

--
Todd Eigenschink (eigenstr@CS.Rose-Hulman.Edu)
Assistant System Manager, News Administrator
Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, Terre Haute, IN
"G++ is to C++ as Turbo Pascal is to Pascal--it's a great compiler,
 but for a language other than C++."  -- Fred Sullivan
From: alang@trashbin.MV.COM (Alan Groupe)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Patron saint of programmers?
Date: 6 Apr 92 13:16:52 GMT
Organization: Background Processes

I always figured that St. John Neumann (1860) was the patron saint
of stored-program computing. 

Alan
From: ltf@ncmicro.lonestar.org (Lance Franklin)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Patron saint of programmers?
Date: 9 Apr 92 18:18:07 GMT
Organization: NC Microproducts, Inc.

In article <1992Apr5.224954.21480@cs.uow.edu.au> g8801935@cs.uow.edu.au (The Jester) writes:
}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.

Saint Vidicon, if I'm not mistaken...his icon is a small screwdriver.


Lance
-- 
Lance T. Franklin            +----------------------------------------------+
(ltf@ncmicro.lonestar.org)   | "You want I should bop you with this here    |
NC Microproducts, Inc.       |    Lollipop?!?"                 The Fat Fury |
Richardson, Texas            +----------------------------------------------+
From: Jay.Ashworth@f160.n3603.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Jay Ashworth)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Space Shuttle Computers
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 92 01:35:00 EDT
Organization: FidoNet node 1:3603/160 - Hacker's Haven, Clearwater FL

In a message of <Tuesday April 14 1992>, snail@lsl.co.uk wrote to All:

 >>>> or a 68000 on it anytime soon.  I would be willing to bet my career
 >>>> that the shuttle will never say INTEL INSIDE.

 scu> or MOTOROLA INSIDE would be a damn sight better. That large snail sig

Question here...

Anybody have any opinions on the fact that Intel won't even admit their chips _have_ bugs, whilst  Motorola _posts_ theirs to the net every week?

Cheers,
-- jra

--  
Internet: Jay.Ashworth@f160.n3603.z1.FIDONET.ORG
UUCP: ...!uunet!myrddin!tct!psycho!160!Jay.Ashworth
Note:psycho is a free gateway between Usenet & Fidonet. For info write to
     root@psycho.fidonet.org.
From: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: CS Hackers?
Date: 7 Apr 92 19:40:23 GMT
Reply-To: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner)
Organization: Columbia University

In article <1992Apr7.013837.1@cc.curtin.edu.au> zrepachol@cc.curtin.edu.au writes:

>The thing I like most about nearly all asm's I've seen is the layout:
>
>label... code... args... comment char... short comment on what we are doing
>
>Even C programmers seem unable to resist filling in the right hand side..
>
>~Paul
>

Most assemblers indeed work as you said.  A significent incentive about the
line-at-a-time comments is that, unless within a conditional (some asm's
anyway) there are no reserved characters within the comment, and the end
of the line delimits the statement, comment and all.

Languages like PL/I, C, etc, with explicit comment start/end pairings cause
the tedium of requiring you to spend four times as much effort to form
comments and you must avoid their delimiter within the intended comment
text to avoid premature live statement parse.  It isn't much, but it is a
disincentive to comment this way.

My personal style is to use blocks of comments in front of the section of code
revealing any specific stuff to the whole routine, like calling conventions,
or overall what it's trying to do, dependencies, pitfalls, etc., and then
some detail comments on each line of code that is an instruction.  (I don't
put comments on each and every line of a table, just the header and possibly
the last line in case you need to know how to add one, etc.)

I believe I came across at least one asm language that doesn't require a
comment start character at all, because the statements are inherently complete
so additional stuff on the line is ignored.

Ever encounter some source files where the comments were created by using some
"failing" conditionals?  Such as:

	IFZERO	1	<

	Have a nice day, etc.




	whatever


			>


In some assemblers, you can XLIST the conditionals, so the comments just
seem to be an assembly aberation.

Here's an old notion for batch users:

Anyone ever write a program whose purpose is to produce a precise copy of
what some other output looks like from another (possibly mythical, possibly
NOT) mimicking all the compiler-output specifics, for the express purpose
of fooling the operators/dispatchers, who handle the line-printer output?

There are several variations on this, if anyone would care to comment.

cjl (I dispatch my own LPT output these days :-))
From: fsspr@acad3.alaska.edu (Sean P. Ryan, Hardcore Alaskan)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: NET.CELEBRITIES Version Beta.33.8.3.4
Date: 7 Apr 92 05:08:50 GMT
Article-I.D.: acad3.6APR92200850
Reply-To: fsspr@acad3.alaska.edu
Organization: University of Fairbanks, Alaska...no wait, that's not right...
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.4-a3

Just a few others:

For net.gods, I was going to mention Brad Templeton, but he's already
included.  How about Brian Reid?  Also, I guess I should feel compelled
to include Bill Wisner in here.  After all, he is God - if you don't
believe that, just ask him!

Interesting personalities:  How could anyone forget Roger Carasso?  Hot
on his heels for legend status is Rich Halberstein, aka RICHH.

I'm sure I can think of some others, but that is all for now.

************************************************************************
Sean Patrick Ryan, Hardcore Alaskan*****Internet: fsspr@acad3.alaska.edu
WWIVnet: 220@9704*CFN: au414*IRC: RadioKAOS, Aoxomoxoa*Ph: (907)488-8365
BITnet: FSSPR@ALASKA****Snail: P.O. Box 83381, Fairbanks, AK  99708-3381
*Call me Pastor - Pastor - Pastor of Muppets I'm pulling your string...*
I'll do a disclaimer when they pry my cold dead hands from the keyboard.
From: graff@hearty.Corp.Sun.COM (Mark Graff)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Sigma9/CP-V
Date: 15 Apr 92 03:17:04 GMT
Reply-To: graff@hearty.Corp.Sun.COM
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
NNTP-Posting-Host: hearty.corp.sun.com

The stories I've read here concerning CP-V and the Sigma9 reminded me of the
guy at the U. of So. Mississippi who, during the last week of my senior year,
amused himself by crashing the system over and over. He had discovered that 
all he had to do was run a FORTRAN program that read from the line printer.

I do believe they let him graduate just to get rid of him.

---
Mark G. Graff
From: jf41+@andrew.cmu.edu (Jonathan R. Ferro)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: You know you've been in hack mode too long when...
Date: 12 Apr 92 21:11:10 GMT
 e.edu><JKONRATH.92Apr11222843@bronze.bronze.ucs.indiana.edu>
Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

jkonrath@bronze.bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (Jon Konrath) writes:
>anyone else wake up in the middle of the night with a half-idea
>on a program, and cant figure out why your emacs wont let you
>enter stuff, before you realize youre not in front of a computer?

I regularly sit up and stare at my (ringing (loudly!)) alarm clock
thinking, "I can't shut it off because if I do the error message will
scroll off the screen and then I won't be able to figure out what went
wrong."  Other times I scrabble around looking for the mouse to click on
the alarm clock window to focus input so that I can enter the snooze
button keypress.  Scary.

--
Jon Ferro		MIT Transportation Modelling Research Center (TMRC)
jf41+@andrew.cmu.edu	"We can hack it!"
SGNTR VRS VRSN 3.1B: Strppd nd cmprssd fr qckr trnsmssn! nfct yrs tdy!
From: ollis@redbck.enet.dec.com (Stephen Ollis)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Easter Egg FAQ list
Date: 14 Apr 92 03:33:33 GMT
Reply-To: ollis@redbck.enet.dec.com
Organization: DIGITAL Equipment Corporation, Rhodes, AUSTRALIA


ACtually .. to be pedantic

The computer being logged into was WOPR, the password was JOSHUA5,
5 being the age that Professor Falken's son JOSHUA died...
--
-----------------------------------+-----------------------------+
| Steve Ollis, DIGITAL Australia   | "She's the airhead from     | 
| Email: ollis@redbck.enet.dec.com |  hell..."                   |
+----------------------------------+-----------------------------+
From: magnus@thep.lu.se (Magnus Olsson)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Easter Egg FAQ list
Date: 13 Apr 92 08:43:41 GMT
Organization: Theoretical Physics, Lund University, Sweden

In article <1992Apr8.034515.19368@news.iastate.edu> radish@iastate.edu (R. Hoon) writes:

>  User? joshua!!
>  Greetings Professor Falken!
>
>  Would you like to play a game (Yes/No)?
>
>If you reply yes, it plays a simple number-guessing game and
>then tells you that you'd learn more with an Apple II than
>trying to break in to other people's systems.

So, to dig a little deeper into the folklorish aspects of this:

Has anybody got any idea why the "magic" username is "joshua!!"? 
And who is professor Falken?

Magnus Olsson                   | \e+      /_
Dept. of Theoretical Physics    |  \  Z   / q
University of Lund, Sweden      |   >----<           
Internet: magnus@thep.lu.se     |  /      \===== g
Bitnet: THEPMO@SELDC52          | /e-      \q
Xref: sparky alt.folklore.computers:6402 alt.cobol:189
From: magnus@thep.lu.se (Magnus Olsson)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.cobol
Subject: Re: Slashed o's (o's, not zeros)?
Date: 14 Apr 92 13:37:50 GMT
Followup-To: alt.folklore.computers
Organization: Theoretical Physics, Lund University, Sweden

In article <magyar.703160688@hss> magyar@hss.caltech.edu (Ted Turo'cy) writes:
>Well, as far as I can remember (~10 yrs), I've
>only seen _zeroes_ slashed, and never o's (except, of course, in those
>languages which have the slashed-o as a character...).  

I've seen it used, but only in the context of Cobol programming - I
don't know if that's a coincidence, or if this is a typical Cobol
programmer convention. 

Even though there is no slashed-o character in Swedish, most Swedes
are familiar enough with Danish and Norwegian (that use that
character) to make a Cobol statement like 

MOVE ZEROES TO FOO

look *very* silly if written with slashed o's - the Danish and
Norwegian slashed-o character is pronounced quite different from an
ordinary o, and rather like the "e" in "sister". So to a Scandinavian,
a Cobol program written with slashed o's looks like it was written by
Inspecteur Closeau from the "Pink Panther" films... :-)

Magnus Olsson                   | \e+      /_
Dept. of Theoretical Physics    |  \  Z   / q
University of Lund, Sweden      |   >----<           
Internet: magnus@thep.lu.se     |  /      \===== g
Bitnet: THEPMO@SELDC52          | /e-      \q