HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: daniel@mertwig.uucp (Daniel Drucker)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: all folklore
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 93 08:54:08 EST
Reply-To: daniel%mertwig@uunet.uu.net  (Daniel Drucker)
Organization: Abnormalities of Reality


I'm writing an essay on 'computer folklore', and I know that I'm
really not qualified to do that, but hey, its for honors credit. I'm
in search of ANY kind of things having to do with such; like songs,
sayings, everything. Things like blinkenlights.
(Yes, I know about the Jargon file!)

If anyone could email me things they have, or better, point me towards
some ftp sites, it would be greatly appreciated.

I'm looking in particular for older things; more 50s-70s than 80s.

--
Daniel Drucker        N2SXX | The number PI (3.14...) and all included
daniel%mertwig@uunet.uu.net | digits are (C) 1993 by BigCorp, and use
                            | without written consent is prohibited.

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: pmueller@ux4.cso.uiuc.edu (The Highlander)
Subject: Re: What one-liner, joke, saying would you like to see on a T-shirt
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 22:45:51 GMT

This has been floating around the net for a while...

A host is a host from coast to coast
And no one will talk to a host that's close
Unless the host (that isn't close)
is busy, hung or dead.

I think this is hysterical, and true :)
-pete
-- 
Peter Mueller                                | You MUST pay for your sin!!!
pmueller@ux4.cso.uiuc.edu                    | 
pmueller@sumter.cso.uiuc.edu <--- NeXT Mail  | If you have already paid, 
DISCLAIMER: Help! Help! I'm being Oppressed! | please disregard this notice...
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: kenc@sol.acs.unt.edu (Ken Corey - Operator)
Subject: Re: You know you've been playing games too long when...
Organization: University of North Texas
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 15:13:00 GMT

nickel@cs.tu-berlin.de (Juergen Nickelsen) writes:

>In article <1993Jan25.103136.186@actew.oz.au> ina_craig@actew.oz.au
>(Craig Alexander) writes:
>> I have heard stories of the game Tetris affecting people like this but much
>> more severely. Some people have said that they have gotten to the stage where
>> they can play tetris in their heads without needing a computer. 
>Some time when I played Tetris excessively, I dreamt of it (and I did
>*not* give me the perfectly fitting pieces in my dream). 

I haven't had these situations yet, but I heard on the radio this morning 
that several teenagers in Japan had collapsed into epileptic (sp?) fits, 
reputedly caused by arcade games.  This makes me wonder how many people in 
Japan read this thread?

The Consumer Protection Agency was supposed to have been planning to 
investigate further.

I can see where this is leading:

"It's _not_ programmers that kill people, the users just won't quit!"

Or possibly:

"Ban user friendliness!  The life you save may be your own!"

mega *8^)

Ken == kenc@sol.acs.unt.edu == kenc@vaxb.acs.unt.edu
 Sex is not the answer.  Sex is the question.  "Yes" is the answer.
 		-- Swami X
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: pv@gagme.chi.il.us (Paul Vader)
Subject: Re: Clever Power Down Instructions (was APPLE IIGS BEING DISC)
Originator: pv@gagme
Organization: Inline Software Creations
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 06:15:08 GMT

William Tyler writes:
>>When the Nautilus processors were a "big machine" (ie 6 mips meant
>>something), there was a certain thrill in typing "POWER OFF" and hearing
>>the nice <Thunk> of the breaker cutting power to the CPU.  
This is actually a power on story. While reverse engineering the warehouse
control system for our huge automated warehouse (With almost a mile of 
powered conveyor belts) we discovered a program called "wakeup" which when
entered from the main console in the computer room would cause every conveyor
in the building to start at once, five seconds after all their air horns
go off (HONK! in 100 part harmony). The program serves absolutely no
purpose (the conveyors turn themselves on when a carton passes a photoeye
at the end of the previous section, or when the operator presses a friendly
green button), so it must have been just done for the thrill of it. You can
bet that the replacement system will have a wakeup command too. I can't wait
to test it. I haven't picked up any union grievances this week. PV
-- 
Paul Vader            systems analyst, hell's cavenewt, rollerblader,
pv@gagme.chi.il.us    FOAF, smartass liberal democrat
Xref: sparky alt.folklore.computers:19151 comp.lang.misc:4137
From: dave@cs.arizona.edu (Dave Schaumann)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: BCPL
Keywords: where`o'where
Date: 21 Jan 93 16:32:18 GMT
Followup-To: alt.folklore.computers
Organization: U of Arizona CS Dept, Tucson

In article <P9aqXB1w165w@mantis.co.uk> tony@mantis.co.uk (Tony Lezard) writes:
>I can't think of any languages [besides BCPL] where you can make tests of
>the form
>
>    IF 4 <= x <= 8  $( ... $)
>
>(with the test succeeding if x is between 4 and 8 inclusive.)

You can do this in icon.
--
Dave Schaumann			dave@cs.arizona.edu
From: bob@kc2wz.bubble.org (Bob Billson)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: You know you've been playing games too long when...
Date: 28 Jan 93 03:54:31 GMT
Organization: Color Computer 3: Tandy's 'game' machine

khill@leven.appcomp.utas.edu.au (Katrina Hill) says:

[snip]

>        A doctor this morning was sort of "basically" [i'm no authority]
>        saying it MAY happens to 1 in 10 epileptics. The journalists were the
>        panicy kind and wanted to know the general "should we burn them in a 
>        big pile or not?" questions that go with this type of issue.
>
>        Aussie journo's tend to over simplify what they do not know!!
         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
American journalists are not much different except they will invent
explanations to "simplify" things.  Usually their explanations are so far off
it would be laughable if so many didn't take it as gospel truth. <sigh>
Within the past few days the local newsfolk (New York City area at least) are
having a fun time with the latest cancer scare...cellular telephone and brain
cancer.

  "...There is no definite connection between the use of cell phones and brain
cancer..." <but we won't let this stop us from making a big story out of it!>

Want to trade?  Aussie reporters for ours?  We'll pay the shipping. :-)

     Bob
-- 
  Bob Billson, KC2WZ                          | internet: bob@kc2wz.bubble.org
  $nail:  21 Bates Way,  Westfield, NJ 07090  | uucp:     ...!uunet!kc2wz!bob
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.religion.kibology
From: pt@geovision.gvc.com (Paul Tomblin)
Subject: Re: What one-liner, joke, saying would you like to see on a T-shirt
Reply-To: pt@geovision.gvc.com
Organization: Not officially GeoVision Systems Inc., Ottawa, Ontario
Distribution: usa
Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1993 01:36:24 GMT

kibo@world.std.com (James "Kibo" Parry) writes:

>"Kibo Is No Ordinary Bozo."  My charity is The Kibology Center, which
>you can contact c/o me.

I'd buy that for two-fifty.  Oh wait - wrong newsgroup.

(After all, I've got the campain poster.)
-- 
Paul Tomblin (I don't make or state policy for this company)
Dilbert: "I had an imaginary friend when I was a kid.  But he told me I was
boring and he ran away"
Dogbert: "There are times when no snide comment seems adequate"
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: jfe@alchemy.TN.Cornell.EDU (Brian Chung)
Subject: Re: Pentia
Organization: The Loyal Taxpayers Pub
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 03:52:02 GMT

In article <1k4p7sINNj2s@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> aj923@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (P. J. Remner) writes:
>
>In a previous article, alien@acheron.amigans.gen.nz (Ross Smith) says:
>
>>If a "586" is a Pentium (pl. Pentia?), then are 386s trivia?
>>
>
>Nice.  I'm using a Quadrium right now (man, Apple would be PISSED if
>Intel called the 486 the "Quadrium", sounds too much like Quadra), and
>I have a bidium in my room.  But, what's an 8088?
>
	Obsolete.  :)
>
>PS - I'm going to call the new 64-bit wunderkomputer a 586.  Pentium
>sounds like a new model Lexus or Infiniti.  I hate Lexus and Infiniti,
>but that belongs in rec.autos.japanese.pretentious.  As Dvorak said,
>what are they going to call the P6?  Sextium?  Will it be pronounced
>"sex-tee-um" or "sext-yum"?  I mean, REALLY.

	Looks like you forgot to brush up on your Latin and Greek.  If
Intel follows its logic, P6 should be called Heptium, not Sextium.  But
then, for marketing purposes, they just might...remember the time when
Apple insisted SCSI be pronounced "sexy"?
>

-- 
T. H. Brian Chung               | Happiness is...
jfe@alchemy.tn.cornell.edu      | "Tea, Earl Grey, hot."
jfe@cornella.bitnet             | 210 Lake St. Apt. 11-A
CESR10::THC                     | Ithaca, NY 14850
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.arch,comp.sys.intel
From: pt@geovision.gvc.com (Paul Tomblin)
Subject: Re: Best 486dx setup.
Followup-To: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Reply-To: pt@geovision.gvc.com
Organization: Not officially GeoVision Systems Inc., Ottawa, Ontario
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 16:22:42 GMT

bhoughto@sedona.intel.com (Blair P. Houghton) writes:

>In article <1993Jan18.231150.28165@bradley.bradley.edu> mrr2ro@cs1.bradley.edu (Arturo Pinzon) writes:
>>Stephen J. Padbury (pads@ravel.udel.edu) wrote:
>>>	Personally, I thought the TC ad on page seventy-something looked pretty
>>>good. A apparently well-loaded 486DX2/66mhz for $2295.
>>what magazine..
>Computer Shopper, January 1993.

Excuse me, but could you take this crap to a more appropriate newsgroup -
this has nothing to do with comp.arch or alt.folklore.computers, and only
marginally within the charter of comp.sys.intel (if at all - I thought
comp.sys.intel was for iRMX and similar systems.)

Any of the following would seem appropriate - I've set followups to the
first one:
comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware	XT/AT/EISA hardware, any vendor.
comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc	Discussion about IBM personal computers.
misc.forsale.computers.pc-clone	IBM PC related computer items.

The other two can maybe be excused for this behaviour, since they are
newless cluebies, but I've seen Blair's name around for a while, and I
expected better from him.

-- 
Paul Tomblin, pt@compass.gvc.com
(This is not an official opinion of GeoVision Systems Inc.)
"If you can read this, you're not looking through the Hubble Space Telescope"
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: uesu03@giac1.oscs.montana.edu (Lou Glassy)
Subject: Memetic Virii (was: Vestiges of Fortran, Memes, syntax)
Keywords: n
Organization: Montana State University, Bozeman  MT
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 18:50:09 GMT

Here's a memetic virus I've noted...

shrt vrbl nms wth few vwls in thm.

I've seen some 'new' C code lately (i.e. not written in the mid-70's)
with variable names like num, fptr, nbfr, and fcv.  I asked a friend
what the last one meant, and he said, 'fcv -- sure. that's a function
calculation variable.'

ruddy obvious.  not.

where did the short variable name meme come from?  FORTRAN, with
6-letter identifiers?  early BASIC, with 1-letter+maybe-1-digit
identifiers?  C and Unix, because no one wanted to wait for a model 33
teletype to print out more characters of output than were 'strictly
necessary'... (ergo, Unix's primary command set, where almost any two
letters in the alphabet do *something*...)...?

Lou.
-- 
Lou Glassy (uesu03@giac1.oscs.montana.edu)                  Eccl. 9:10
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: raph@panache.demon.co.uk (Raphael Mankin)
Subject: Re: Commodore k 
Distribution: world
Organization: Solvfield Ltd.
Reply-To: raph@panache.demon.co.uk
X-Mailer: Simple NEWS 1.90 (ka9q DIS 1.19)
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1993 12:34:35 +0000

In article <C12z72.BLq@panix.com> jhawk@panix.com writes:

...
>Ah. The original poster brings up an interesting question though
>(inadvertantly): what's the symbol/abbrevation for a mil (1/1000 of
>an inch)? (is there one?)
>
Over here, a thousandth of an inch is a 'thou'. 'Mil' (or 'mill')
is used for non-dimensional thousandths.

--------------
Raphael Mankin			Nil taurus excretum
From: lstowell@pyrnova.mis.pyramid.com (Lon Stowell)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Famous quotes...Re: What one-liner
Date: 22 Jan 93 01:51:53 GMT
Reply-To: lstowell@pyrnova.pyramid.com.pyramid.com (Lon Stowell)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Pyramid Technology Corporation


Several people have e-mailed asking for Dennis Ritchie's biblical
quotes on the sale of Unix Systems Labs to Novell.  
[Some even made it passed the mis-addressing....]

Quoted from Dennis and UST with the "usual" permission:


  "And Jacob said, Sell me this day thy birthright.  And Esau
  said, Behold I am at the point to die: and what profit shall 
  this birthright do to me?  And Jacob said, Swear to me this
  day; and he sware unto him: and he sold his birthright unto
  Jacob.  Then Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentils;
  and he did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way: thus
  Esau despised his birthright."  

				Genesis 25:31-34

  
  "...lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau,
  who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright.  For ye know
  how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing
  he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though
  he sought it carefully with tears."

				Hebrews 12:16-17


Its a bit wordy, but it WOULD make a good T-shirt.....say for 
Uniforum attendees?
From: S.A.McIntyre@durham.ac.uk (Scott A. McIntyre)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: VIC-20 returns!
Date: 24 Jan 93 14:54:17 GMT
Reply-To: S.A.McIntyre@durham.ac.uk
Organization: University of Durham

Never had a Vic, but I used to use a Tandy 200 'N' 1 set to keep my sister out of my room.
 The photosensitive diode and some imaginative use of string meant that if the door opened
the plastic cover for the diode was exposed to light, which would promptly give the person
entering about 2 seconds to duck before a dart gun fired one of those rubber air-propelled
darts at about throat level.  My sister never learned to duck.

Scott

-- 
EMAIL: S.A.McIntyre@durham.ac.uk   OR   scott@shrug.dur.ac.uk (NeXTmail)
SNAIL: Pyschment of Departology, University of Durham, Durham, DH1 3LE
SUN Computers:  "Nice chips, shame about her OS"
"If a virtual tree falls in a virtual forest, does it make a virtual sound?"
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: adam@owlnet.rice.edu (Adam Justin Thornton)
Subject: Re: What one-liner, joke, saying would you like to see on a T-shirt
Organization: Milo's Meadow
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 02:30:49 GMT

"Hundreds if not thousands of dollars" should be part of the writing around
a logo, methinks.

Adam
-- 
"And in the heartbreak years that lie ahead, |++| adam@rice.edu |++| Cthulhu
 Be true to yourself and the Grateful Dead." --Joan Baez  | 64,928 | fthagn!
"Very often, a common stone, thrown away and despised, is worth more than
 a cow." -- Paracelsus | If these were Rice's opinions I'd shoot myself.
From: sverkerw@csd.uu.se (Sverker Wiberg)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: "Stringy Floppy"
Date: 26 Jan 1993 17:05:50 GMT
Organization: CS, University of Uppsala, Sweden
	<1993Jan17.215409.14180@massey.ac.nz>
NNTP-Posting-Host: minsk.docs.uu.se
In-reply-to: T.Stewart@massey.ac.nz's message of Sun, 17 Jan 93 21:54:09 GMT


T.Stewart@massey.ac.nz (T.M. Stewart) writes:
   I believe the string floppy concept was revivied with the Sinclar
   Spectrum's microdrives?

Yes, and in the 3rd-party add-on "Wafadrive". I had (still have) one
of those. The Wafadrive had three sizes of cartridges: 16k, 32k and 128k
(I think). As a bonus, it had a Centronics port and a RS232 port too.
--
Sverker Wiberg  <sverkerw@student.docs.uu.se>
  o===[----	Klia din hund p} magen.
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: efichtne@dante.nmsu.edu (FICHTNER)
Subject: Re: You know you've been playing games too long when...
Organization: New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 02:48:47 GMT

In article <1993Jan25.012915.11644@icaen.uiowa.edu> dsiebert@icaen.uiowa.edu (Doug Siebert) writes:
>ina_craig@actew.oz.au (Craig Alexander) writes:
>
>>In article <_dm3jvq@rpi.edu>, jonesr2@aix02.ecs.rpi.edu (Kazrak) writes:
>>> Today, I determined that I've been playing Lemmings too long.  How?  Well,
>>> when my fiancee and I were approaching the door to her building and I was
>>> trying to figure out how one of us could unlock the door without the other
>>> bouncing off and heading in the other direction, I figured I was a goner.
>>> 
>
>>I have heard stories of the game Tetris affecting people like this but much
>>more severely. Some people have said that they have gotten to the stage where
>>they can play tetris in their heads without needing a computer. 
>
>
>Wouldn't it be too easy then?  I don't know about other people, but I'd always
>give myself perfectly fitting pieces if I was playing it in my head ;-)
>

What?!, You mean you can't make every peice fit perfectly in every instance
already?   Play more tetris..  ;)



Xref: sparky alt.folklore.computers:19172 comp.lang.misc:4142
From: john@gu.uwa.edu.au (John West)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: BCPL
Date: 22 Jan 1993 05:51:04 GMT
Organization: The University of Western Australia
NNTP-Posting-Host: mackerel.gu.uwa.edu.au
Keywords: where`o'where

Tony Lezard <tony@mantis.co.uk> writes:

<BCPL>
>It had some nice syntactic elements as well. I can't think of any
>languages where you can make tests of the form

>    IF 4 <= x <= 8  $( ... $)

>(with the test succeeding if x is between 4 and 8 inclusive.)

ICON does it. It groups as (4<=x)<=8 (I think. It may be the other way around), 
with each comparison either returning the rightmost element or failing. So if
x is in fact greater than or equal to 4, then the (4<=x) will return x. It will
then evaluate x<=8. If x was less than 4, the (4<=x) would fail. Failure 
propogates through an expression, so the whole thing would fail (ICON doesn't
have booleans - expressions either produce a value or fail. Failure is what
IFs and other things test for). A rather neat language, for those who like that
sort of thing.

John West
--
For the humour impaired: Insert a :-) after every third word
From: wdao@aludra.usc.edu (Walter Dao)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Vic 20 returns !!!
Date: 25 Jan 1993 22:46:57 -0800
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: aludra.usc.edu


What do you mean "the Vic 20 returns !" ? as far as I am concerned, 
it never , NEVER !!! left.
sitting next to my oric Thermos (ooopss  I mean Atmos) and my zx 81 !!!!

				Walt
From: aldavi01@rigel.spd.louisville.edu (Arlie Davis)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: You know you've been playing games too long when...
Date: 26 Jan 93 22:52:20 GMT
Reply-To: Arlie Davis <aldavi01@starbase.spd.louisville.edu>
Organization: University of Louisville

In <C1H5x5.Cz7@acsu.buffalo.edu> dudek@acsu.buffalo.edu (The Cybard=) writes:

> ...you dream in 640x480x256 VGA!

Sounds like a NIGHTMARE.

-- 
lrwx------   1 aldavi01 emacsstu       9 Jun  6 12:43 .signature -> /dev/null
From: aj923@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (P. J. Remner)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Pentia
Date: 27 Jan 1993 21:06:19 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA)
Reply-To: aj923@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (P. J. Remner)
NNTP-Posting-Host: slc10.ins.cwru.edu


In a previous article, jfe@alchemy.TN.Cornell.EDU (Brian Chung) says:

>In article <1k4p7sINNj2s@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> aj923@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (P. J. Remner) writes:
>>I have a bidium in my room.  But, what's an 8088?
>>
>	Obsolete.  :)

Thought so.

>>
>>PS - I'm going to call the new 64-bit wunderkomputer a 586.  Pentium
>>sounds like a new model Lexus or Infiniti.  I hate Lexus and Infiniti,
>>but that belongs in rec.autos.japanese.pretentious.  As Dvorak said,
>>what are they going to call the P6?  Sextium?  Will it be pronounced
>>"sex-tee-um" or "sext-yum"?  I mean, REALLY.
>
>	Looks like you forgot to brush up on your Latin and Greek.  If
>Intel follows its logic, P6 should be called Heptium, not Sextium.  But
>then, for marketing purposes, they just might...remember the time when
>Apple insisted SCSI be pronounced "sexy"?
>>
>

Heptium... even worse!  686 sounds better, I think.


Waitaminute. SCSI shouldn't be pronounced "sexy", it should be pronounced
"ess-see-ess-eye".  Sheesh.

-- 
aj923@cleveland.freenet.edu (Nmetic polyalloy)								DestructoTab copy protect
			      _______________________							     /  ___________________(_)				
			    /  /\__________________							   /  /_/________________(_)				
			  /______________________							  \____________________(_)				
Xref: sparky alt.folklore.computers:19290 misc.forsale.computers.other:1901 phl.forsale:901
From: weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,misc.forsale.computers.other,phl.forsale
Subject: PDP-11 for sale cheap
Date: 27 Jan 93 16:52:26 GMT
Reply-To: weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Followup-To: poster
Distribution: usa
Organization: The Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology
Supersedes: <106715@netnews.upenn.edu>

>A friend here in Philadelphia, who knows almost nothing about computers,
>described the following over the phone to me: a PDP-11 micro with [etc]

Thanks to all those who replied.  It's been taken.
-- 
-Matthew P Wiener (weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu)    If Apple owned
 NBC, they would sue Nike for comedy-interface copyright violation.
From: ig25@fg70.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de (Thomas Koenig)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Vestiges of FORTRAN, Memes and Syntax
Date: 28 Jan 93 12:50:35 GMT
Organization: University of Karlsruhe, Germany
NNTP-Posting-Host: fg70.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de

fisher@qut.edu.au writes:

>However if you are going to insist on the custom stemming from a 
>computer language, it was not originated by Fortran. A language called 
>Mercury Auto Code used on the Mercury long predated Fortran and 
>had the convention that integers began with I,J,K etc.

A programming language that predated FORTRAN???  Please give names and
dates...  this is extremely interesting (if you're not talking about an
implementation on that particular coomputer).
-- 
Thomas Koenig, ig25@rz.uni-karlsruhe.de, ig25@dkauni2.bitnet
The joy of engineering is to find a straight line on a double
logarithmic diagram.