HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: stevev@miser.uoregon.edu (Steve VanDevender)
Subject: Re: Sync Three Times...
Organization: University of Oregon Chemistry Stores
Date: 22 Nov 92 23:54:56

In article <1eis4rINNfni@uniwa.uwa.edu.au> john@gu.uwa.edu.au
(John West) writes:

   peter@NeoSoft.com (Peter da Silva) writes:

   >There's always the old bit-rot stuff. Lots of debugging techniques (just
   >try recompiling it) are practically superstitious...

   Or if you've got a 6502, and the program doesn't work, flip random BCx
   instructions. Unless, of course, you are one of the three people in this
   world who can actually remember whether its BCS or BCC for 'greater or
   equal'.

Oh, come on.  It's easy.

If you have a number m in A, and you do a CMP with value n, then
the carry depends on the value of m - n.  Since we're using
two's-complement arithmetic, then think of the value as instead
being m + 2^8 - n (assuming 8-bit values; this is, after all, a
6502).  If m - n is less than 0, then there will be no carry out.
If m - n is greater than or equal to zero, then there _will_ be a
carry out.  Therefore, if m >= n, the carry will be set after the
CMP.  So BCS could be aliased to BGE.

Motorola is kind enough to include many more conditional branches
in their processors (at least the 6800 and 68000) _and_ document
the logic formulas used on the condition code bits to determine
whether a condition is true.

You can get by with just a carry flag in a processor using
two's-complement arithmetic.  You can test if a number is
non-zero by adding a word of all ones -- if true, the carry flag
will be set.  cjl can undoubtedly describe many other tricks,
including his favorite method of testing for a value in a given
range using only one conditional branch, which uses only a test
of the carry flag (of course, this makes it easy to do on a
PDP-8).
--
Steve VanDevender 	stevev@greylady.uoregon.edu
"Bipedalism--an unrecognized disease affecting over 99% of the population.
Symptoms include lack of traffic sense, slow rate of travel, and the
classic, easily recognized behavior known as walking."
From: pt@geovision.gvc.com (Paul Tomblin)
Subject: Re: Computer Superstition
Reply-To: pt@geovision.gvc.com
Organization: Not officially GeoVision Systems Inc., Ottawa, Ontario
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 02:19:36 GMT

In article <10292323.7317.11306@kcbbs.gen.nz>, Murray_Moffatt@kcbbs.gen.nz (Murray Moffatt) writes:
|> We've all heard of common superstitions such as not walking under ladders 
|> and throwing salt over your left shoulder if you spill some, but are 
|> there any superstitions to do with computers?

What about that line in the old "Real Programmers" file - from memory:
 Real Programmers don't clear the registers twice before using them.  If you
 insist they will clear your registers - with a hammer.

I once asked somebody about clearing registers twice, and he said that there
was a particularly bletcherous dinosaur (possibly IBM/360) that you had to
do that to _make_sure_ the register was actually clear.

(The reminisence is _really_ foggy - but when has that ever stopped anybody
in this group?)

-- 
Paul Tomblin, pt@geovision.gvc.com
(This is not an official opinion of GeoVision Systems Inc.)
"I don't have time to think it through: I've got to get this code written!"
From: jdavis@bordeaux.kpno.noao.edu (Jim Davis)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTL
Summary: I need a vacation.
Keywords: I, need, a, vacation
Date: 19 Nov 92 22:36:22 GMT
Organization: Thomas Tupper Jr. High

So I'm trying to explain to someone why a certain Department of State
bureaucrat got canned recently.  "You see, there was this search of Bill
Clinton's _password_ file..."

Took three tries to get the phrase "passport file" out instead.
-- 
Jim Davis           | "I've already dropped hints everywhere but on his HEAD."
jdavis@noao.edu     |   -- Clarissa Darling
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,sci.math,rec.antiques
From: ryan@wk229.nas.nasa.gov (James S. Ryan)
Subject: Slide Rules (was Re: Swedish Adding Machine)
Keywords: slide rule, calculating
Followup-To: rec.antiques
Organization: NAS Program, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 92 00:34:57 GMT

I'd like to see if anyone can expand on the one or two
references made to slide rules in the original thread.
I've directed followups to rec.antiques, although
I'll try to follow all three groups for a few days.

Does anyone (besides me) collect slide rules?  Are there
any good public collections, or any recognized experts?
Any place where relevant articles are published?

Any unusual slide rules you'd like to describe?

Any good places to buy old slide rules?

My slide rules range from about 2 inches to 7 feet in size.
They're made of boxwood, mahogany, bamboo, aluminum, steel,
plastic, and paper.  They are straight, circular, cylindrical
with helical scales, and cylindrical with straight (parallel to
the axis) scales.  They come from Germany, England, France,
the United States, Japan, and Taiwan.

Slide rules fascinate me, even though I never used one regularly.
Electronic calculators were becoming affordable by the time
I needed more than pencil-and-paper math.

Steve Ryan
From: avg@rodan.UU.NET (Vadim Antonov)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: HELP! Need kermit for WANG CS2200
Date: 22 Nov 1992 01:14:29 -0500
Organization: UUNET Technologies Inc, Falls Church, VA
NNTP-Posting-Host: rodan.uu.net

In article <1992Nov21.011937.5863@coopsol.com> brentw@coopsol.com (Brent Williams) writes:
>I did this about 6 years ago for a consulting client and it went
>great for transferring about 100mb of data off the Wang -- not a 
>single transmission error, so I could have conceivably done with
>out the checksum part.

I actually ported DEMOS 2.0 (a merge of BSD2.9, DEMOS 1.3 (8-bit
transparent v7 with many many things from BSD 4.1) and MNOS RL 1.2
(my own flawor of Unix grown up from v6, entirely bilingual and with
strong BSDish slope)) to Elektronika-85 (aka DEC Professional 350)
over a serial line! It was equipped with 5" 400Kb floppies totally
incompatible with 8" floppies we had on SM-1420 (aka PDP-11/40)
or 360Kb 5" floppies on PC XT. Thus, pumping entire OS over the
serial line was the only choice. Debugging the video, keyboard and
floppy drivers was a real fun (no lights, no switches :-)

--vadim
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: stevev@miser.uoregon.edu (Steve VanDevender)
Subject: Re: ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE IBM
Organization: University of Oregon Chemistry Stores
Date: 17 Nov 92 10:42:40

In article <BxtpIv.AMD@mentor.cc.purdue.edu>
kodak@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Jason Balicki (KodaK)) writes:

   In article <16NOV92.12250000.0072@VM1.MCGILL.CA>
   IEGS@MUSICB.MCGILL.CA (IEGS) writes:

   >HOW COULD YOU SOLVE THIS:
   >DETERMINE HOW MANY MICRO-INSTRUCTIONS ARE REQUIRE TO PERFORM
   >THE ASSEMBLY INSTRUCTIONS WITH OPERATION CODES FROM 0 TO 4.
   >  WRITE A (MAC-1) ASSEMBLY IBM PROGRAM TO COMPUTE X = MIN(A,B)
   >{IF (A<B) X=A ELSE X=B}
   >PLEASE REPLY TO MC.BER

   Since you posted it twice I have to ask:  Is this your homework?

   If yes then: DO IT YOURSELF!!

   If no then: Sorry, I don't know Intel. (I *THINK* you're talking about a PC)

Bzzt!  Thank you for playing.  IBM doesn't just make IBM PCs.  In
any case, the 80x86 is not microprogrammable.  It may be
microprogrammed, but the control store is definitely not
writable.

I suspect that the questions apply to IBM's most famous series of
machines, the 360/370 series.  If you thought them placing
increasingly souped-up versions of the 8088 in IBM PCs was bad,
note that the 360/370 series has been using the same instruction
set and processor architecture for nearly _30 years_.  IBM's
top-end mainframes (like the 3090) still run IBM 360 programs in
binary form.
--
Steve VanDevender 	stevev@greylady.uoregon.edu
"Bipedalism--an unrecognized disease affecting over 99% of the population.
Symptoms include lack of traffic sense, slow rate of travel, and the
classic, easily recognized behavior known as walking."
From: jimf@centerline.com (Jim Frost)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Write a short story
Date: 24 Nov 1992 01:59:42 GMT
Organization: CenterLine Software, Inc.
NNTP-Posting-Host: 140.239.3.202

Martin A Laster <mlaster@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> writes:
>This is for all you creative story writers.  Let's see how well you can write.

>If you could create a character for you to be for only one night at your
>favorite night club, what would you think would happen that night at that
>club.

I think my character would be 'U'.  He could really hold his liquor
that way.

jim frost
jimf@centerline.com
From: tim@crash.canon.co.uk
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Cute inet daemon messages
Date: 19 Nov 92 13:26:02 GMT
Organization: me myself and i

mdw@theory.TC.Cornell.EDU (Matt Welsh) writes:

|Here's something I got today when I connected to SMTP on crash.canon.co.uk:
|
|"220 crash.canon.co.uk SMTP ready and waiting for your hot-mail-injection baby"
:
|Another cute thing, that I've seen in one strain of SMTP, when you use the
|"slave" command:
|
|100 Kinky, kinky. I don't support such perversions.

That's NNTP, but only a pedant would pick you up on that one.

|Any other hidden "easter eggs" in net daemons or elsewhere?

A personal favorite of mine comes from mail.Germany.EU.net's SMTP:

221-mail.Germany.EU.net closing connection
221 So long, and thanks for all the fish.

Tx. [uh, not that I go and manually connect to SMTP ports often y'know]
-- 
Tim F O'Donoghue <tim@crash.canon.co.uk> <uunet!canon!tim>
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: andrew@daneel.rdt.monash.edu.au (Andrew Moore)
Subject: Re: CM5 pic - terribly sorry gentlemen, it's a dud
Reply-To: andrew.moore@rdt.monash.edu.au
Organization: Monash University, Melb., Australia.
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 21:34:33 GMT


After my previous post someone (Hi Barry) pointed out to me that limiting
the prints (by numbering etc) is pretty acceptable for other art (other
drawings, photographs, etc) so just because the picture is of a
Computer (was that a capital C ? :-) ) surely this does not exempt it
from such protection.

I think everyone was anticipating a more Cray like attitude to PR
posters, but when they are limited edition etc etc, perhaps they stop
being PR devices (in the traditional bulk distribution sense) ?

We end up with the situation where the posters will become as sought
after as the machines :-) (truth be known, maybe this was the intent)

cheers,
Andrew.

(Still an absolute addict of "sexy" computer pictures :-) )

-- 
    Andrew Moore      |    Department of Robotics and Digital Technology
Ph:  +61 3 573 2063   |  Caulfield Campus, Monash Uni, VIC 3145, Australia
Fax: +61 3 573 2345   |       E-Mail:  andrew.moore@rdt.monash.edu.au 
 Be interested in the future, you will be spending the rest of your life there.
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner)
Subject: Re: ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE IBM
Reply-To: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner)
Organization: Columbia University
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 10:45:21 GMT

In article <NICKEL.92Nov17235221@desaster.cs.tu-berlin.de> nickel@cs.tu-berlin.de writes:
>
>If I remember Tanenbaum's "Structured Computer Organization" correctly
>(just lent it to a friend), the different 360/370 CPUs have the same
>instruction set and architecture only at the *programmnig level*, but
>are completely different at the microprogramming level, even different
>architectures.  I vaguely remember reading elsewhere that the
>top-of-the-line model of the 370 (360?) wasn't even microprogrammed
>but executed the machine instructions in hardware for speed reasons.
>A true RISC machine with a complex instruction set.

Hardly.  The machine is about as CISC as CISC can be; unless you're a VAX
lover.

In any case, this is talking about control-store architecture, not machine
architecture.  The implemented instruction set is the same as what was defined
on paper circa 1960 and simulated on 7090-class machines.  As someone posted
earlier, the binary of any program from the beginning will run on each and
every model.  This assumes that the implied O/S functions are present, as
many of these programs issue SVC instructions that have to be handled.  The
simplest ones might include their own such system elements, etc., so to
actually use a binary program, it may be necessary to strip away the
supporting routines to be replaced by the prevailing version of the *real*
O/S required, or to run it on a virtual machine.

cjl
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,sci.math,rec.antiques
From: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner)
Subject: Re: Swedish Adding Machine -- Help Wanted
Reply-To: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner)
Organization: Columbia University
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 05:24:36 GMT

In article <PCL.92Nov19174841@black.oxford.ac.uk> pcl@oxford.ac.uk (Paul Leyland) writes:
>
>Last weekend, I acquired a wind-up mechanical adding machine.  It is


>"Multo" (in a flowing script and underlined) and "ADDO" (in smaller
>capitals).  On another panel are some partially erased words.  The
>best I can make them out is: "A.B.  <obliterated, maybe 4-6
>characters> MALMO MADE IN SWEDEN".  There is a umlaut over the O of

This sounds like it was made by a unit of the FACIT company.

cjl
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner)
Subject: Re: PDP ftp archive
Reply-To: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner)
Organization: Columbia University
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1992 11:22:50 GMT

In article <1992Nov20.142937.9123@news.uiowa.edu> jones@pyrite.cs.uiowa.edu (Douglas W. Jones,201H MLH,3193350740,3193382879) writes:

>
>Although DEC documentation occasionally used the term PDP generically,
>without a qualifying number, this was generally used as a synonym for
>"DEC computer" and not as a reference to a specific machine.
>
>Nowdays, when I hear someone refer to a PDP, or to PDP collectors, I
>assume they're a fairly ignorant newbie unaware of the incredible
>variation between the different DEC PDP architectures.

Amen!

A lot of used-computer and other vendors suffer from the same disease:

("we will buy all of your PDP hardware")

A related issue:

Some of these same iron-moving types claim to be a vendor "for all of your
DEC VT's" as if VT-100 and up is all that DEC ever made.  Someone should
tell them about VT05, 50, 50H, 52, as well as some more obscure stuff like
VT-20, 06, and VT8E.

cjl
From: azog@spatula.rent.com (Billy D'Augustine)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE IBM
Date: 19 Nov 92 23:08:23 GMT
Organization: A kitchen utensil somewhere in central New Jersey

In article <1992Nov18.134855.28580@geovision.gvc.com> pt@geovision.gvc.com writes:
[ stuff about IBM S/370 ]
>From this I infer that you consider it a ``bad thing'' that an IBM mainframe
>(or PC) user can upgrade his hardware without buying new versions of commercial
>software?
>
>How is this bad?  Because it means you don't get the latest and greatest
>(mis)features by upgrading your software at the same time?  Because you can
>upgrade things incrementally?  Because software that works and does everything
>you need it to do will continue to work, only faster?
>

You can apply the same arguement to the whole world, and where would we
be? With 100MHz Intel 80586s, 64mb of RAM, all running MS-DOS 3.3. 

Do you really belive your statement? Your talking about an instruction set
that really hasent changed in over 25 years or more. This is progress? 
If you really belive this, you would get along good with the systems 
guy at our shop. Wont use 3480 tape cartridges. Why? He cant see them 
move, so how does he know its working! 

And then whats the point in making this wonderful hardware, if you dont
use it to its full potential? We have an ES/9000 (9121-190), that runs
VSE/ESA. It runs Power. It runs CICS. CICS is a batch job that sits in a
VSE/Power partition. Batch partitions? Interactive computing is not 
instrict to IBM mainframes. Else why would CICS be a layered product and
not a base installation option? 

The 9121 above has four ESCON channels (IBMs name for fiber optic disk
channels), which is pretty impressive. But in 1991, just last year, we
finally got rid of our card punch/reader. 

My point is why have progress at all, if you dont take advantage of it?

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

No lord shall stand before myself.
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.misc
From: richk@grebyn.com (Richard Krehbiel)
Subject: Re: How is the Net financed and what does it cost?
Organization: Grebyn Timesharing
	<1dea12INN9lf@rave.larc.nasa.gov>
	<1992Nov16.180013.3192@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu>
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 00:56:19 GMT

In article <1992Nov16.180013.3192@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> bwatson@nyx.cs.du.edu (bruce watson) writes:
>   In article <1dea12INN9lf@rave.larc.nasa.gov> kludge@grissom.larc.nasa.gov (Scott Dorsey) writes:
>   >In article <BxAzzF.C8x@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> kodak@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Jason Balicki (KodaK)) writes:
>   >>In article <1992Nov6.111648.5430@infodev.cam.ac.uk> rf@cl.cam.ac.uk (Robin Fairbairns) writes:
>   >>>In article <1992Nov4.181923.26835@wixer.cactus.org>, rhodesia@wixer.cactus.org (Felix S. Gallo) writes:
>   >>>|> [in reply to Barry Margolin]
>   >>>|> 
>   >>>|> so, assuming that my figures are close to correct, your posting a 1k article
>   >>>|> would cost the net approximately eight packets of Top Ramen (6/$1.00) plus
>   >>>|> enough change for some cheap gum.
>   >>>
>   >>>This is all very well, but what on earth are Top Ramen?               
>   >>
>   >>Why, it's only the greatest invention in the history of science!   Imagine,
>   >>you take some dehydrated noodles, put them in some water, put it all into
>   >>the 'wave and cook it for a few minutes.  Take it out, (I drain the water,
>   >>but some people leave the water in) add the flavoring (indescribable 
>   >>wonderful flavoring) and you then have the answer to hunger and famine
>
>   ...and *very* high in salt.

    Hey, that's okay, my blood pressure is low, sodium is about the
only thing I *can* eat; I have to avoid cholesterol and fat and
caffeine and alcohol and chocolate and nitrates and...
-- 
Richard Krehbiel                                 richk@grebyn.com
OS/2 2.0 will do for me until AmigaDOS for the 386 comes along...
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: bcc@lanai.Eyring.COM (Brian Cooper)
Subject: Re: Computer Superstition
Organization: University of Utah Computer Center
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 92 01:53:35 GMT

In article <1992Nov18.124517@frej.teknikum.uu.se> flax@mizar.docs.uu.se writes:
>In article <10292323.7317.11306@kcbbs.gen.nz>, Murray_Moffatt@kcbbs.gen.nz (Murray Moffatt) writes:
>|> We've all heard of common superstitions such as not walking under ladders 
>|> and throwing salt over your left shoulder if you spill some, but are 
>|> there any superstitions to do with computers?
>|> 
>Er, well, yes.. We no longer use Apollo around here, but there was a known
>bug with the 'system' library call. Under certain circumstances it
>thrashed the stack, including the return address.
>Easy fix to this was to pad the stack by declaring an character array of 
>size 12 or 16 (3-4 longwords would do it) to protect the return address.
>I found this out while debugging some assembler code, and when a friend was
>writing code along the lines of 
>int foobar(char *str)
>{
>/* stuff */
>return system(str);
>}
>things just wouldn't work out..
>
>I asked him to rewrite the code as:
>
>int foobar(char *str)
>{
>  char magic[12];
>  /* stuff */
>  return system(str);
>}
>
>and things would work, proving that you can't take magic out of
>your program.. :-)
>
>Several years after that I still see people add magic to programs
>using 'system', not knowing why, but stating that it can't hurt.. :-)
>

Ah, but sometimes the magic goes away!  I was writing a program where I
deliberately used this technique to increase the stack space between
recursive invocations and it wouldn't work.  Come to find out, two 
different compilers for two different systems optimized my code by
removing the dummy array.  Quietly, without any fanfare, the compiler
altered the meaning of my code.  Logic dictates that if the variable is
never referenced, it must not need to be there, right!?  I included a
stupid reference to the dummy variable and the program worked.  I recommend

	char magic[12];
	magic[0] = magic[1];

for modern wizards.
-- 
Brian Cooper	bcc@Eyring.COM
Eyring Corp.	+1 801-375-2434 or 1 800 YES PDOS
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: lucio@phyrql.Alt.ZA (Lucio de Re)
Subject: Re: linux
Organization: MegaByte Digital Communications
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1992 14:36:13 GMT

xyzzy@mertwig.UUCP (Daniel Drucker) writes:

>Is linux any good?

I thought you were the wizard :-)  If Linux isn't good enough for
a 14-year old, roll your own!

>        Daniel Max P. Drucker, the 14 year old networks wizard.

This signature guaranteed valid for 12 months.
-- 
Lucio de Re (lucio@phyrql.Alt.ZA)
The supernatural does not exist, but it gives me the creeps...
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: david@cs.uow.edu.au (David E A Wilson)
Subject: Re: Don't you hate it when...
Organization: Dept of Computer Science, Wollongong University, Australia
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 02:39:11 GMT

peter@NeoSoft.com (Peter da Silva) writes:
>In article <227311@zl2tnm.gen.nz> don@zl2tnm.gen.nz (Don Stokes) writes:
>> Probably not.  But note <a> that the stupid thing had been told that it had 
>> a VT100 on the end
>Most System-V-ish systems use "more" to page man entries. "More" doesn't know
>how to translate sequences of spaces and backspaces to control sequences. If
>you have "less" installed, try setting "PAGER" in your environment to "less".
>If it's not installed, FTP it. If "man" doesn't use "PAGER", try just piping
>"man" output to "less".

Strange - our SunOS 4.1.2 more does know how to translate x\b_ (or _\bx) into
either a stand-out mode x or an underlined x. It even has an option to
turn this off:

     -u   Suppress generation of  underlining  escape  sequences.
          Normally,  more  handles underlining, such as that pro-
          duced by nroff(1), in a manner appropriate to the  ter-
          minal.   If the terminal can perform underlining or has
          a stand-out  mode,  more  supplies  appropriate  escape
          sequences as called for in the text file.
-- 
David Wilson				+61 42 213802 voice, +61 42 213262 fax
Dept Comp Sci, Uni of Wollongong	david@cs.uow.edu.au
From: john@gu.uwa.edu.au (John West)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: command abbreviation
Date: 20 Nov 1992 07:32:15 GMT
Organization: The University of Western Australia
NNTP-Posting-Host: mackerel.gu.uwa.edu.au

hees@cubic.com (Phil Hees) writes:

>I always use the (dest [,dest], src [,src]) ordering for my own function
>calls, and really get locked into this mindset, to the point that I often
>find myself checking the man page to reassure myself that I am using the
>correct order for the cp (Unix) or copy (VMS, DOS) commands.

Zilog got it right (LoaD dest,src)
Motorola got it right (MOVE src,dest)
Intel got it wrong (MOVe dest,src)

You can have the operands either way around, but *please*, at least get the
name right. strcpy should be src,dest (copy THIS to THAT).

Oh dear. Is this called a religious issue?

John West
--
For the humour impaired: Insert a :-) after every third word