HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 01:43:57 -0400 
From: "Joseph M. Newcomer" <jn11+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: Ye Olde Secrete Screene Cheete Sheete (long; 1300+ lines)

These are all from memory so I may have dropped a few bits...

The Motorola 6800 had an instruction that caused it to cycle through
all 65536 address lines, asserting VMA at the appropriate time.  There
were three explanations for this: it was intended to be a manufacturing
diagnostic, it was part of an uncompleted dynamic memory refresh mechanism
(it was supposed to be able to refresh 4K or 16K RAMS but there ended up
being too little silicon to complete it, so it was just left in) and
finally that it was a way to detect if the 6800 had been reverse-engineered
by clean-room techniques (using the published specs) or by ripping off the
microcode.

The '286 has an undocumented instruction which allows data to be moved
from and to extended memory without going into virtual mode, and which
is used to implement VDISK.SYS.

The best set of such features, however, was on the 360 series, and quite
possibly their derivatives.  The instruction hex 83, "diagnose", was
specified as being "model-specific diagnostic functions".  It turns out
you needed to sign a nondisclosure to find out what it did; on the
360/67 it was an instruction whose effect was to cause a microcode
branch using the instruction's effective address as the microstore
address.  

It has probably been a year since I told this story, so I'll repeat it
here (those of you who have heard it can stop reading now).

About once every three days the 360/67 running TSS/360 at CMU would
stop.  Not just wedge; it would STOP.  Now on a /360, there was NO WAY
to make the computer stop.  For one thing, there was no "halt" instruction.
The best you could hope to do was load a PSW with the 'wait' bit set (and
the importance of the 'wait' bit was that the billing clock was stopped!)
If, in addition, you set the interrupt mask to blind all interrupts, you
could well and truly wedge the machine.  But it remained in RUN mode, with
the WAIT light on.  What we were seeing was the STOP light turning on.
The only way this could be done was by the operator hitting the STOP key.
But the operator didn't hit the stop key.

It was finally discovered.  Due to the utterly horrible decision to (a)
write the kernel in assembler and (b) allow each intermodule call to 
define its own calling convention, a particular subroutine would 
occasionally clobber a register it was not supposed to modify.  The
result was that when some caller higher in the chain finally returned
through this register, instead of returning to code, it branched into
data.  Mostly, this caused an opcode trap in the kernel and the system
rebooted.  However, about every three days, the data pointed to contained
hex 83 followed by some other bits (always the same).  This caused a
microcode branch to the microcode subroutine that processed the STOP
key!
                                joe

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.unix.misc
From: lezz@merlin.dev.cdx.mot.com (Lezz Giles)
Subject: Re:  The need for an assembler (was: Favorite CPU)
Reply-To: lezz@merlin.dev.cdx.mot.com (Lezz Giles)
Organization: Motorola Codex, Canton, MA
Date: Mon, 7 Sep 1992 15:27:53 GMT

In article <Bu6svH.31J@hatch.socal.com>, richg@hatch.socal.com (Rich Greenberg) writes:
|>In article <liam.06m7@durie.amigans.gen.nz> liam@durie.amigans.gen.nz (Liam Greenwood) writes:
|>
|>>   O.K. then, the above code put onto some machines say... RS/6000, some
|>>IBM PC or clone therof, Amiga, NCR Tower, Unisys 1100/2200, U6000, some
|>>CP/M machine, really anything with a K&R C or ANSI C compiler. Compile it
|>>and it will run. Please show us the code to do this on the above list of
|>>machines in assembler.
|>
|>OK, here is some assembler code that will run on every member (except
|>the 360/20) of IBM's 360, 370, 303x, 43xx, 308x, 3090, 9370, and 390 series 
|>of mainframes, plus the compatables from Amdahl, Hitachi et al that are 
|>running any flavor of OS (PCP, *MFT*, MVT, VS1, SVS, and MVS/*),  
|>or are running in CMS under the control of VM (any flavor):
|> 
|>	HELLO    CSECT
|>	         SAVE   (14,12)
|>	         LR     12,15
|>	         USING  HELLO,12
|>	         WTO    'Hello World.'
|>	         SR     15,15
|>	         RETURN (14,12)
|>	         END    HELLO
|>
|>I may have the operands of SAVE & RESTORE off a bit (I usually use
|>different macros) but once corrected, this will assemble and execute
|>across the board in the IBM mainframe world.
|>
|>Thats close to a hundred models from IBM and perhaps 50 from all
|>compatable mfgrs. and about 15 different versions of operating
|>system.

I'm sorry - I tried to run this code on my DECstation 5000/133 with Ultrix,
my neighbour's Sun, my pet Macintosh that I normally use for reading mail,
my Acorn Archimedes (precursor to the Acorn A4 for those of you who read Byte),
and the PC emulator on my Acorn Archimedes.  I also tried to run the
original 8-liner C program.  (actually, to be honest I only tried to run
them in my imagination, but I'm sure that I can reproduce the results in
reality :-)  Guess what the results were?!

If I still had access to it, I would've also tried running your code on
the Amdahl 5890 running UTS (SVR2) - I don't know whether it would've run
but I somehow doubt it...

So I'm not sure what you're trying to say here - are you saying that
on compatible machines you can run the same piece of code?  Are you saying
that 150 models and 15 versions of OS make up a significant proportion
of all computer models/operating systems in the world?  I'm not flaming
(honest ;-), I'm just curious... 

Lezz "I never liked the taste of stale Twinkie bars" Giles
From: pd@x.co.uk (Paul Davey)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Alternative Acronyms - now the seven dwarfs
Date: 11 Sep 92 19:18:58 GMT
	<fstuart.920908174608@lab16.eng.auburn.edu>
Organization: IXI Ltd.


After the IBM definition saga it seems only fair to give some other
firms the same treatment.

This list applies to little rather than big blue and was generated a
few years ago (at another site) refering to a particular box rather
than the company as a whole.

Enjoy:

Habitual Penury
Hackneyed Placebo
Hairy Prig
Halfhearted Plagiarist
Halibut Performance
Hallucinate Phantasy
Haphazard Primitive
Hardboiled Pervert
Hardworking Profundity
Hatchet Psychopath
Hateful Phobia
Haughty Puppet
Hazardous Philosophy
Hazelnut Pie
Hazy Photograph
Hearty Portrayal
Heavyweight Paperweight
Hectic Porcupine
Hedgehog Puddle
Hefty Potato
Hellish Posterior
Hemorrhoid Provocateur
Hereditary Poseur
Heretical Potpourri
Hereunder Po
Hermaprodite Piano
Herring Poisson
Hesitant Pig
Hibernating Parrot
Hick Puzzle
Hidebound Pinhead
Hideous Paradigm
Hieroglyphic Pancake
Hifalutin Pigeon
Hindmost Patsy
Hippopotamus Prophylactic
Hiroshima Payoff
Hodge-Podge
Homesick Parakeet
Homicidal Poodle
Homosexual Powderpuff
Honorary Penguin
Hopeless Plonker
Horny Possum
Horrible Phenomenon
Howdy Partner
Huckleberry Pudding
Huckster Pincushion
Humpback Purgatory
Hungarian Pumpkin
Hunky Pussycat
Hustling Puffball
Hypertensive Pogo
Hypocritic Puritan
Hypothalamus Puncture
Hysterical Purgative

--
 Regards,			  pd@x.co.uk           IXI Ltd.
	Paul Davey		  pd@ixi.uucp          62-74 Burleigh St.
				  ...!uunet!ixi!pd     Cambridge,  U.K.
 "These _are_ interesting times"  +44 223 462 131      CB1  1OJ
From: 9125113g@lux.latrobe.edu.au (Mitch Davis)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: automatic CP/M to MS-DOS migration?
Keywords: assembler, 8080, 8088, 8086
Date: 11 Sep 92 07:31:35 GMT
Organization: La Trobe University

In article <1992Sep8.085605.14973@news.columbia.edu> lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner) writes:
>In article <1992Sep6.021133.17107@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz> ecmtwhk@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz (Thomas Koenig) writes:
>>If I remember correctly, one of the points in favour of MS-DOS 1.0 when
>>it was introduced was the easy porting of CP/M software (^Z as end of
>>file marker, COM - files, file control blocks).
>>
>>Just how far was this automated? Are 8080 and 8086 related closely enough
>>that you could write an assembler which translated 8080 assembly into
>>8086 code? Was this how, for example, WordStar was ported?
>
>They aren't related at all, but the "order" of the file system calls are
>the same, so that less mental processes are needed to translate from
>one to another.

One other thing that was similar: The usage of the low byte of the
8086's flags corresponds exactly to the 8080's flags, and even today,
there are two instructions (LAHF and SAHF) which copy the lower byte of
the flags to and from the AH register.  This is very useful when writing
an emulator, since the behaviour of the flags on the 8086 is essentially
the same as the 8080.  To perform an 8080 arithmetic instruction,
perform the equivalent 8086 one, then copy (using SAHF) the 8086 flags
back to the memory location used for storing the 8080 pseudo-flags.

Mitch.
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: dsiebert@icaen.uiowa.edu (Doug Siebert)
Subject: Re: Is there a PDP-11 (or 8, or...) Emulator?
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 20:00:35 GMT
Organization: ISCA

In article <1992Sep09.113100.23379@tpki.toppoint.de> kris@tpki.toppoint.de (Kristian Koehntopp) writes:
>In <7264@charon.cwi.nl> dik@cwi.nl (Dik T. Winter) writes:
>>Eh?
>>	switch(codeword) {
>>	case 0:
>>	    ...
>>	case 4095:
>>	    ...
>>	}
>
>Will be a table lookup on many compilers. You might even code
>this directly:
>
>	psw = (func[codeword])();

Heh!  You guys have finally succeeded where cjl failed many times -- you have
provided a concrete example of a case where assembly will always produce more
efficient code than C, no matter how good the compiler!  There would overhead
for a function call to do this, even if the overhead was small, such as on a
RISC machine with register windows.  But in assembly, one could set it up such
that the codeword is multiplied and added to a base address, and that address
is indirectly jumped to.  If you multiply by, say, 32 (you would of course
shift left five places if this was more efficient, right cjl? ;-) ), you have
32 words in which to do any calculation necessary to complete the instruction.
Some space will be wasted, but it'd be damn fast and memory is cheap these
days.

I can't imagine a C compiler would compile a switch or jump table into
something like that, no matter how good the optimizer.  But I'd be interested
to see someone prove me wrong!

-- 
/-----------------------------------------------------------------------------\
| Doug Siebert                             | "I don't have to take this abuse |
| Internet:  dsiebert@isca.uiowa.edu       |  from you - I've got hundreds of |
| NeXTMail:  dsiebert@chop.isca.uiowa.edu  |  people waiting in line to abuse |
|     ICBM:  41d 39m 55s N, 91d 30m 43s W  |  me!"  Bill Murray, Ghostbusters |
\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------/
Xref: sparky alt.folklore.computers:13702 comp.unix.misc:3553 comp.os.os2.misc:29462
From: ecmtwhk@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz (Thomas Koenig)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.unix.misc,comp.os.os2.misc
Subject: HPFS (was: The need for an assembler)
Date: 7 Sep 92 10:58:19 GMT
Article-I.D.: ccu1.1992Sep7.105819.15388
Followup-To: comp.os.os2.misc
Organization: University of Auckland, New Zealand.

[note the followup to comp.os.os2.misc]

In alt.folklore.computers, lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner)
writes:

>BTW, OS/2 supports what is known euphimistically as the "High-Performance
>File System" option, wherebe the file system is laid out in a way incompatible
>with MS-DOS.  Operative word is "option".  It turns out that except for some
>potentially troublesome system configurations, the HPFS is actually *slower*
>than the DOS structure.

I'd be very much interested in seeing references for that. Where was it
published, what benchmarks were used, etc.?
-- 
Thomas Koenig, ecmtwhk@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz, ib09@rz.uni-karlsruhe.de
The joy of engineering is to find a straight line on a double logarithmic
diagram.
Xref: sparky alt.folklore.computers:13648 comp.lang.c:13268
From: rh@smds.com (Richard Harter)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: bogosort revisited (with source)
Date: 6 Sep 92 02:36:47 GMT
Reply-To: rh@ishmael.UUCP (Richard Harter)
Organization: Software Maintenance & Development Systems, Inc.

In article <Bu41Lu.IKB@news.cso.uiuc.edu> gordon@osiris.cso.uiuc.edu (John Gordon) writes:
>>>> In alt.folklore.computers, there has been a discussion of the worst
>>>> possible sorting algorithm, which has been called "bogosort".
>
>>>> My interpretation of the algorithm is this: Exchange two randomly
>>>> chosen elements of the array to be sorted.  Check to see if the array
>>>> is in order.  Iterate until done.

It seems to me that introducing random chance is cheating; one can make
the time to sort as long as you please.  For example, given N elements
divide the sky up into N*(N-1)/2 sectors.  Do an exchange on the pair
corresponding to the first sector in which a supernova is observed.

The only fair way to approach this is to use a deterministic algorithm.
For example, generate all permutations in order.  For each permutation
apply it to the list to be sorted and see whether it produces a sorted
list.  Simple, elegant, and O(N!).

-- 
Richard Harter: SMDS Inc.  Net address: rh@smds.com Phone: 508-369-7398 
US Mail: SMDS Inc., PO Box 555, Concord MA 01742.    Fax: 508-369-8272
In the fields of Hell where the grass grows high
Are the graves of dreams allowed to die.
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: msb@sq.sq.com (Mark Brader)
Subject: Re: Whence comest "keyboard"
Summary: Organs, etc.
Organization: SoftQuad Inc., Toronto, Canada
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 92 07:09:08 GMT

That's "cometh".

> So, does anyone know when and with which computer, the term keyboard
> was first used to?  (I can only assume that the syllable "key" is
> originally from the keys on the typewriter; but why were the
> *things* on typewriters also called keys, i.e. most people know keys
> as being devices used to open locks. )

No, it's originally from musical instruments.  Think of pianos, for
instance.  The connection with the key of a lock is that the key is
the thing you use with your fingers to actuate a mechanism.

In the OED, the earliest citation of "key" as part of the keyboard of
a musical instrument is from circa 1500.  It doesn't mention a specific
instrument, but the next citation, from 1513, mentions the organ.
A citation from 1765 gives "key" for the valve actuators on wind
instruments like bassoons.

The next step was the telegrapher's key; the earliest citation for this
is from 1837.  The OED considers the typewriter usage to be the same,
and it isn't clear which one some of the 19th century citations mean.

"Keyboard" is first cited in 1819 for organs, 1851 for typewriters,
1893 for calculators, 1911 for typesetting machines, 1958 for data
entry (key to tape) machines, and 1970 for computers.  The last example
is perhaps worth quoting; it's from a text by Dopping and reads:
"The programmer sits at an electric typewriter connected to the
computer, and keys in his program with the keyboard."

Since the OED considers the typewriter and computer senses to be the
same (as do I), it should not be assumed that "keyboard" wasn't used
with computers before 1970.  I would expect the usage to have been
adopted along with the device itself, since it was a standard term.

Followups to alt.folkore.organs. :-)
-- 
Mark Brader		   "... there is no such word as 'impossible' in
SoftQuad Inc., Toronto	    my dictionary.  In fact, everything between
utzoo!sq!msb		  'herring' and 'marmalade' appears to be missing."
msb@sq.com	    -- Douglas Adams:  Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

This article is in the public domain.
From: bob@pta.pyramid.com.au (Robert Vernon)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Is there a PDP-11 (or 8, or...) Emulator?
Date: 10 Sep 92 09:58:26 GMT
Organization: Pyramid Technology Corporation, Sydney

>In article <1992Sep2.043415.12160@ultb.isc.rit.edu> bmb1021@ultb.isc.rit.edu (B.M. Buck ) writes:
>>Is there a PDP-11 (or PDP-8, 10, 1, 6, etc) emulator available
>>(perferrably for MS-DOS or similar varients)?  While recently reading a
>>book on PDP-11 Assembly language, I wondered if it would be possible to
>>try writing some code for the beasties.  Not having a PDP-11, or even
>>knowing where to get one, I thought of emulation...
>>
>>Also suitable would be pointers on how to acquire one cheaply.
>>
>>  Thank you for your support.
>>    BP (bmb1021@ultb.isc.rit.edu)
>>

When I was at University (which must be almost 15 years ago now), we
did our assembler courses using a pdp-11 emulator called SYD-11.  This
was used so we could run everything on our cyber but pretend we had an
entire pdp-11 to ourselves.

As far as I could make out, it was written in Fortran so should be
portable to just about anything.  And based on its name I suspect it
was written and modified by successive years of honours students at
Sydney University.  But I have no idea if it still exists or who you
would contact if it does.


Bob V!
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: IQTI400@INDYCMS.IUPUI.EDU (macphil)
Subject: Re: GOTOs
Organization: IUPUI
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 92 21:34:12 EST

In article <1992Sep11.010558.16893@cs.cornell.edu>
csuley@cs.cornell.edu (Christopher Suley) writes:
 
>Couldn't it be argued that object-oriented programming has reintroduced
>this 'GOTO problem' in a much more insidious form?
>
>If you are reading a page of code that defines a method within an object,
>can you know how control reaches that point?  If the method is inherited
>or overridden, the problem becomes that much worse... trying to figure
>out when the superclass's method will be called, when it won't, etc.
>
>Or do I not understand OOP well enough yet? (A distinct possibility)
 
I'm not an OOP heavy, but it sounds (don't take this wrong) like your
concerns are either misdirected or a little paranoid...
 
An object's method will be invoked when your program says to, just
like any other program...it's just you are associating the method
directly /c the object...almost binding it as an action to be
performed by or upon the object.  It's not a matter of whether a
subordinate object inherits the method:  it always inherits the
characteristics of its ancestor(s) and can override as necessary, but
that doesn't prevent use of the ancestoral method as well...take a
look @ the Borland OWL (Object Windows Library) structure:  you
define a subordinate object and inherit everything, override what
you want to and can still call the ancestoral method in addition to
your overriding code...
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,rec.sport.football.pro
From: tbreeden@afit.af.mil (Thomas A. Breeden)
Subject: Re: Football Parity Error
Organization: Air Force Institute of Technology
Date: Mon, 7 Sep 1992 00:46:58 GMT

In article <1992Sep7.093216.1@ulkyvx.louisville.edu> amconn01@ulkyvx.louisville.edu writes:
>Lately I've had to deal with memory parity errors on MSDOS systems. Yesterday,
>after spending some time swapping SIMMs and attempting to track down an error
>in a recalcitrant system, I went home and turned on the TV to watch the
>Giants-49ers game. Around 1635 EDT, in the upper left corner of the screen,
>there appeared for a few seconds the usual memory parity error message:
>
>Memory parity interrupt at <address>.
>Type (S)hut off NMI, (R)eboot, other keys to continue.
>
>Was I hallucinating? Did anyone else see this? What does it mean? Help me!
>
>Connor/Castigat ridendo mores
I saw it, too.  I wonder what would have happened if CBS selected
(R)eboot.  Would the game have started over?  Would the Giants have
won?

Maybe the Cowboys can use this to their advantage tonight.

Andy

Goooo Gators/Cowboys/Emmitt !!!


Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: barr@pop.psu.edu (David Barr)
Subject: Re: Need IBM=It's Broke, Man expansions for COBOL.
Organization: Penn State Population Research Institute
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 92 03:12:52 GMT

In article <1992Sep15.161821.9883@cybernet.cse.fau.edu> michaelb@cse.fau.edu (Michael Rogero Brown) writes:
>In article <1992Sep14.150413.19904@ccu.umanitoba.ca> grnbrg@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Brian Greenberg) writes:
>>
>>Anybody have any good, nasty expansions for COBOL?
>>
>>Need it for a class in programming.
>>
>At Furman University, we always said it stood for:
>
>Completly Outdated Business Oriented Language

Completly Outdated But Omnipresent Language
Common Obsolete Business Opressive Language

(mine)

--Dave
-- 
System Administrator, Population Research Institute    barr@pop.psu.edu
  One is the loneliest number.
  Two is as lonely as one, just shifted to the left.
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: adh@cbnewsi.cb.att.com (andrew.d.hay)
Subject: Re: uNIX on tired iron FAQ Re: Help Me!!!
Organization: AT&T
Distribution: na
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 13:24:22 GMT

Eric Schnoebelen writes:
"joslin_paul@ae.ge.com writes:
"- P.S.  Extra credit if you know who "BUNCH" were, and who they are now...
"
"	B - Buroughs	- Unisys
"	U - Univac	- Unisys (via Sperry)
"	N - NCR		- AT&T
"	C - CDC		- CDC/Seagate (what other spin offs?)

MPI, for one.

"	H - Honeywell	- Groupe Bull
-- 
		+--------------------------------------------------------------+
Andrew Hay	"Do not fraternize with that creature, I am trying to train him"
a_d_hay@att.com	"But that's a parrot!"		"I was TALKING to the parrot..."
		+--------------------------------------------------------------+
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.unix.misc
From: peter@ferranti.com (peter da silva)
Subject: Re: The need for an assembler (was: Favorite CPU)
Organization: Xenix Support, FICC
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 15:34:45 GMT

In article <1992Sep8.101302.16606@news.columbia.edu> lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner) writes:
> Depending on the application, it may be pointless to use anything less
> than 100% assembly or 100% C.  I never claimed anything less.  But what I
> did claim is that assembler is underutilized, and that often projects are
> clumsily written in hll, in the sense that assembler could do portions a
> whole lot better.

I don't believe that. My experience is that assembly is heavily overutilised
in the real world. There may be a few cases where a HLL is used where assembly
could do the job better... even better enough to justify making the resulting
software nonportable... but they're way overshadowed by all the cases where
some hairy-chested hacker has used assembly simply because it's cool.

> Further, certain trade-offs of performance may dictate the direction of
> how much is enough, so I would never rule out 100% assembler.  The MS-DOS
> Kermit example probably need not be 100% so, but considering that the 
> alternative would be to tie the product to the folly of the C-based Kermits,

What folly? The C based kermits are very successful.

> Programs aren't written for machismo, they're written to satisfy engineering
> considerations in implementing systems.

If that was the case then I strongly doubt the 486 would have retained an 8086
compatibility mode.

> Your point is pointless machismo.

Moi?

> DOS improvement considerations are unrelated to an hll versus assembler 
> argument.

No, it's not. What keeps DOS from improving isn't because DOS is written in
assembly... I've even noted that's reasonable... it's because if it's changed
significantly all the badly-behaved programs, mostly written in assembly, will
break.
-- 
Peter da Silva                                               `-_-'
Ferranti Intl. Ctls. Corp.                                    'U` 
Sugar Land, TX  77487-5012
+1 713 274 5180                                   Har du kramat din varg idag?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.unix.misc
From: jimf@centerline.com (Jim Frost)
Subject: Re: The need for an assembler (was: Favorite CPU)
Organization: CenterLine Software, Inc.
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1992 18:30:04 GMT

quanstro@lars.StOlaf.edu (goon) writes:
>It's amazing how much damage Intel x86s can do to one's brain.

Yea, but some people survive.  I did -- although I know people who'd
tell you there was periferal damage. ;-)

jim frost
jimf@centerline.com
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers