Subversion Repositories wimsdev

!07/11 PDP a ni deppart m'I  !pleH

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101 USES FOR A DEAD MICROPROCESSOR

	(1)  Scarecrow for centipedes

	(2)  Dead cat brush

	(3)  Hair barrettes

	(4)  Cleats

	(5)  Self-piercing earrings

	(6)  Fungus trellis

	(7)  False eyelashes

	(8)  Prosthetic dog claws

        .

        .

        .

	(99)  Window garden harrow (pulled behind Tonka tractors)

	(100) Killer velcro

	(101) Currency

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1: No code table for op: ++post

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4.2 BSD UNIX #57: Sun Jun 1 23:02:07 EDT 1986

You swing at the Sun.  You miss.  The Sun swings.  He hits you with a

575MB disk!  You read the 575MB disk.  It is written in an alien

tongue and cannot be read by your tired Sun-2 eyes.  You throw the

575MB disk at the Sun.  You hit!  The Sun must repair your eyes.  The

Sun reads a scroll.  He hits your 130MB disk!  He has defeated the

130MB disk!  The Sun reads a scroll.  He hits your Ethernet board!  He

has defeated your Ethernet board!  You read a scroll of "postpone until

Monday at 9 AM".  Everything goes dark...

		-- /etc/motd, cbosgd

%

A biologist, a statistician, a mathematician and a computer scientist are on

a photo-safari in Africa.  As they're driving along the savannah in their

jeep, they stop and scout the horizon with their binoculars.

The biologist: "Look!  A herd of zebras!  And there's a white zebra!

	Fantastic!  We'll be famous!"

The statistician: "Hey, calm down, it's not significant.  We only know

	there's one white zebra."

The mathematician: "Actually, we only know there exists a zebra, which is

	white on one side."

The computer scientist : "Oh, no!  A special case!"

%

... A booming voice says, "Wrong, cretin!", and you notice that you

have turned into a pile of dust.

%

A bug in the code is worth two in the documentation.

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A bug in the hand is better than one as yet undetected.

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A certain monk had a habit of pestering the Grand Tortue (the only one who 

had ever reached the Enlightenment 'Yond Enlightenment), by asking whether 

various objects had Buddha-nature or not.  To such a question Tortue 

invariably sat silent.  The monk had already asked about a bean, a lake, 

and a moonlit night.  One day he brought to Tortue a piece of string, and 

asked the same question.  In reply, the Grand Tortue grasped the loop 

between his feet and, with a few simple manipulations, created a complex 

string which he proferred wordlessly to the monk.  At that moment, the monk 

was enlightened. 

From then on, the monk did not bother Tortue.  Instead, he made string after 

string by Tortue's method; and he passed the method on to his own disciples, 

who passed it on to theirs.

%

A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a

simple system that works.

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[A computer is] like an Old Testament god, with a lot of rules and no mercy.

		-- Joseph Campbell

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A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any other invention,

with the possible exceptions of handguns and Tequilla.

	-- Mitch Ratcliffe

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A computer salesman visits a company president for the purpose of selling

the president one of the latest talking computers.

Salesman:	"This machine knows everything. I can ask it any quesstion

		and it'll give the correct answer.  Computer, what is the

		speed of light?"

Computer:	186,282 miles per second.

Salesman:	"Who was the first president of the United States?"

Computer:	George Washington.

President:	"I'm still not convinced. Let me ask a question.

		Where is my father?"

Computer:	Your father is fishing in Georgia.

President:	"Hah!! The computer is wrong. My father died over twenty

		years ago!"

Computer:	Your mother's husband died 22 years ago. Your father just

		landed a twelve pound bass.

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A computer scientist is someone who fixes things that aren't broken.

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A computer without COBOL and Fortran is like a piece of chocolate cake

without ketchup and mustard.

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A CONS is an object which cares.

		-- Bernie Greenberg.

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A debugged program is one for which you have not yet found the conditions

that make it fail.

		-- Jerry Ogdin

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	A disciple of another sect once came to Drescher as he was eating

his morning meal.  "I would like to give you this personality test", said

the outsider, "because I want you to be happy."

	Drescher took the paper that was offered him and put it into the

toaster -- "I wish the toaster to be happy too".

%

	A doctor, an architect, and a computer scientist were arguing about 

whose profession was the oldest.  In the course of their arguments, they

got all the way back to the Garden of Eden, whereupon the doctor said, "The

medical profession is clearly the oldest, because Eve was made from Adam's

rib, as the story goes, and that was a simply incredible surgical feat."

	The architect did not agree.  He said, "But if you look at the Garden 

itself, in the beginning there was chaos and void, and out of that the Garden 

and the world were created.  So God must have been an architect."

	The computer scientist, who'd listened carefully to all of this, then 

commented, "Yes, but where do you think the chaos came from?"

%

A famous Lisp Hacker noticed an Undergraduate sitting in front of a Xerox

1108, trying to edit a complex Klone network via a browser. Wanting to

help, the Hacker clicked one of the nodes in the network with the mouse,

and asked "what do you see?" Very earnestly, the Undergraduate replied "I

see a cursor." The Hacker then quickly pressed the boot toggle at the back

of the keyboard, while simultaneously hitting the Undergraduate over the head

with a thick Interlisp Manual.  The Undergraduate was then Enlightened.

%

A formal parsing algorithm should not always be used.

		-- D. Gries

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A Fortran compiler is the hobgoblin of little minis.

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A hacker does for love what others would not do for money.

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A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is

not worth knowing.

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A language that doesn't have everything is actually easier to program

in than some that do.

		-- Dennis M. Ritchie

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A large number of installed systems work by fiat.  That is, they work

by being declared to work.

		-- Anatol Holt

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A LISP programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of nothing.

		-- Alan Perlis

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A list is only as strong as its weakest link.

		-- Don Knuth

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A little retrospection shows that although many fine, useful software systems

have been designed by committees and built as part of multipart projects,

those software systems that have excited passionate fans are those that are

the products of one or a few designing minds, great designers.  Consider Unix,

APL, Pascal, Modula, the Smalltalk interface, even Fortran; and contrast them

with Cobol, PL/I, Algol, MVS/370, and MS-DOS.

		-- Fred Brooks

%

	A man from AI walked across the mountains to SAIL to see the Master,

Knuth.  When he arrived, the Master was nowhere to be found.  "Where is the

wise one named Knuth?" he asked a passing student.

	"Ah," said the student, "you have not heard. He has gone on a

pilgrimage across the mountains to the temple of AI to seek out new

disciples."

	Hearing this, the man was Enlightened.

%

	A manager asked a programmer how long it would take him to finish the

program on which he was working.  "I will be finished tomorrow," the programmer

promptly replied.

	"I think you are being unrealistic," said the manager. "Truthfully,

how long will it take?"

	The programmer thought for a moment.  "I have some features that I wish

to add.  This will take at least two weeks," he finally said.

	"Even that is too much to expect," insisted the manager, "I will be

satisfied if you simply tell me when the program is complete."

	The programmer agreed to this.

	Several years later, the manager retired.  On the way to his

retirement lunch, he discovered the programmer asleep at his terminal.

He had been programming all night.

		-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"

%

	A manager was about to be fired, but a programmer who worked for him

invented a new program that became popular and sold well.  As a result, the

manager retained his job.

	The manager tried to give the programmer a bonus, but the programmer

refused it, saying, "I wrote the program because I though it was an interesting

concept, and thus I expect no reward."

	The manager, upon hearing this, remarked, "This programmer, though he

holds a position of small esteem, understands well the proper duty of an

employee.  Lets promote him to the exalted position of management consultant!"

	But when told this, the programmer once more refused, saying, "I exist

so that I can program.  If I were promoted, I would do nothing but waste

everyone's time.  Can I go now?  I have a program that I'm working on."

		-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"

%

	A manager went to his programmers and told them: "As regards to your

work hours: you are going to have to come in at nine in the morning and leave

at five in the afternoon."  At this, all of them became angry and several

resigned on the spot.

	So the manager said: "All right, in that case you may set your own

working hours, as long as you finish your projects on schedule."  The

programmers, now satisfied, began to come in a noon and work to the wee

hours of the morning.

		-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"

%

	A manager went to the master programmer and showed him the requirements

document for a new application.  The manager asked the master: "How long will

it take to design this system if I assign five programmers to it?"

	"It will take one year," said the master promptly.

	"But we need this system immediately or even sooner!  How long will it

take it I assign ten programmers to it?"

	The master programmer frowned.  "In that case, it will take two years."

	"And what if I assign a hundred programmers to it?"

	The master programmer shrugged.  "Then the design will never be

completed," he said.

		-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"

%

	A master programmer passed a novice programmer one day.  The master

noted the novice's preoccupation with a hand-held computer game.  "Excuse me",

he said, "may I examine it?"

	The novice bolted to attention and handed the device to the master.

"I see that the device claims to have three levels of play: Easy, Medium,

and Hard", said the master.  "Yet every such device has another level of play,

where the device seeks not to conquer the human, nor to be conquered by the

human."

	"Pray, great master," implored the novice, "how does one find this

mysterious setting?"

	The master dropped the device to the ground and crushed it under foot.

And suddenly the novice was enlightened.

		-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"

%

	A master was explaining the nature of Tao to one of his novices.

"The Tao is embodied in all software -- regardless of how insignificant,"

said the master.

	"Is Tao in a hand-held calculator?" asked the novice.

	"It is," came the reply.

	"Is the Tao in a video game?" continued the novice.

	"It is even in a video game," said the master.

	"And is the Tao in the DOS for a personal computer?"

	The master coughed and shifted his position slightly.  "The lesson

is over for today," he said.

		-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"

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A modem is a baudy house.

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A nasty looking dwarf throws a knife at you.

%

	*** A NEW KIND OF PROGRAMMING ***

Do you want the instant respect that comes from being able to use technical

terms that nobody understands?  Do you want to strike fear and loathing into

the hearts of DP managers everywhere?  If so, then let the Famous Programmers'

School lead you on... into the world of professional computer programming.

They say a good programmer can write 20 lines of effective program per day.

With our unique training course, we'll show you how to write 20 lines of code

and lots more besides.  Our training course covers every programming language

in existence, and some that aren't.  You'll learn why the on/off switch for a

computer is so important, what the words *fatal error* mean, and who and what

you should blame when you make a mistake.

	Yes, I want the brochure describing this incredible offer.

	I enclose $1000 is small unmarked bills to cover the cost of

	postage and handling. (No live poultry, please.)

*** Our Slogan:  Top down programming for the masses. ***

%

	A novice asked the Master: "Here is a programmer that never designs,

documents, or tests his programs.  Yet all who know him consider him one of

the best programmers in the world.  Why is this?"

	The Master replies: "That programmer has mastered the Tao.  He has

gone beyond the need for design; he does not become angry when the system

crashes, but accepts the universe without concern.  He has gone beyond the

need for documentation; he no longer cares if anyone else sees his code.  He

has gone beyond the need for testing; each of his programs are perfect within

themselves, serene and elegant, their purpose self-evident.  Truly, he has

entered the mystery of the Tao."

		-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"

%

	A novice asked the master: "I have a program that sometimes runs and

sometimes aborts.  I have followed the rules of programming, yet I am totally

baffled. What is the reason for this?"

	The master replied: "You are confused because you do not understand

the Tao.  Only a fool expects rational behavior from his fellow humans.  Why

do you expect it from a machine that humans have constructed?  Computers

simulate determinism; only the Tao is perfect.

	The rules of programming are transitory; only the Tao is eternal.

Therefore you must contemplate the Tao before you receive enlightenment."

	"But how will I know when I have received enlightenment?" asked the

novice.

	"Your program will then run correctly," replied the master.

		-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"

%

	A novice asked the master: "I perceive that one computer company is

much larger than all others.  It towers above its competition like a giant

among dwarfs.  Any one of its divisions could comprise an entire business.

Why is this so?"

	The master replied, "Why do you ask such foolish questions?  That

company is large because it is so large.  If it only made hardware, nobody

would buy it.  If it only maintained systems, people would treat it like a

servant.  But because it combines all of these things, people think it one

of the gods!  By not seeking to strive, it conquers without effort."

		-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"

%

	A novice asked the master: "In the east there is a great tree-structure

that men call 'Corporate Headquarters'.  It is bloated out of shape with

vice-presidents and accountants.  It issues a multitude of memos, each saying

'Go, Hence!' or 'Go, Hither!' and nobody knows what is meant.  Every year new

names are put onto the branches, but all to no avail.  How can such an

unnatural entity exist?"

	The master replies: "You perceive this immense structure and are

disturbed that it has no rational purpose.  Can you not take amusement from

its endless gyrations?  Do you not enjoy the untroubled ease of programming

beneath its sheltering branches?  Why are you bothered by its uselessness?"

		-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"

%

	A novice of the temple once approached the Chief Priest with a

question.

	"Master, does Emacs have the Buddha nature?" the novice asked.

	The Chief Priest had been in the temple for many years and could be

relied upon to know these things.  He thought for several minutes before

replying.

	"I don't see why not.  It's got bloody well everything else."

	With that, the Chief Priest went to lunch.  The novice suddenly

achieved enlightenment, several years later.

Commentary:

His Master is kind,

Answering his FAQ quickly,

With thought and sarcasm.

%

	A novice programmer was once assigned to code a simple financial

package.

	The novice worked furiously for many days, but when his master

reviewed his program, he discovered that it contained a screen editor, a set

of generalized graphics routines, and artificial intelligence interface,

but not the slightest mention of anything financial.

	When the master asked about this, the novice became indignant.

"Don't be so impatient," he said, "I'll put the financial stuff in eventually."

		-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"

%

	A novice was trying to fix a broken lisp machine by turning the

power off and on.  Knight, seeing what the student was doing spoke sternly,

"You cannot fix a machine by just power-cycling it with no understanding

of what is going wrong."  Knight turned the machine off and on.  The

machine worked.

%

A person who is more than casually interested in computers should be well

schooled in machine language, since it is a fundamental part of a computer.

		-- Donald Knuth

%

	A program should be light and agile, its subroutines connected like a

strings of pearls.  The spirit and intent of the program should be retained

throughout.  There should be neither too little nor too much, neither needless

loops nor useless variables, neither lack of structure nor overwhelming

rigidity.

	A program should follow the 'Law of Least Astonishment'.  What is this

law?  It is simply that the program should always respond to the user in the

way that astonishes him least.

	A program, no matter how complex, should act as a single unit.  The

program should be directed by the logic within rather than by outward

appearances.

	If the program fails in these requirements, it will be in a state of

disorder and confusion.  The only way to correct this is to rewrite the

program.

		-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"

%

	A programmer from a very large computer company went to a software

conference and then returned to report to his manager, saying: "What sort

of programmers work for other companies?  They behaved badly and were

unconcerned with appearances. Their hair was long and unkempt and their

clothes were wrinkled and old. They crashed out hospitality suites and they

made rude noises during my presentation."

	The manager said: "I should have never sent you to the conference.

Those programmers live beyond the physical world.  They consider life absurd,

an accidental coincidence.  They come and go without knowing limitations.

Without a care, they live only for their programs.  Why should they bother

with social conventions?"

	"They are alive within the Tao."

		-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"

%

A programmer is a person who passes as an exacting expert on the basis of

being able to turn out, after innumerable punching, an infinite series of

incomprehensible answers calculated with micrometric precisions from vague 

assumptions based on debatable figures taken from inconclusive documents 

and carried out on instruments of problematical accuracy by persons of 

dubious reliability and questionable mentality for the avowed purpose of

annoying and confounding a hopelessly defenseless department that was

unfortunate enough to ask for the information in the first place.

		-- IEEE Grid newsmagazine

%

A programming language is low level when its programs require attention

to the irrelevant.

%

A recent study has found that concentrating on difficult off-screen

objects, such as the faces of loved ones, causes eye strain in computer

scientists.  Researchers into the phenomenon cite the added concentration

needed to "make sense" of such unnatural three dimensional objects.

%

A rolling disk gathers no MOS.

%

	A sheet of paper crossed my desk the other day and as I read it,

realization of a basic truth came over me.  So simple!  So obvious we couldn't

see it.  John Knivlen, Chairman of Polamar Repeater Club, an amateur radio

group, had discovered how IC circuits work.  He says that smoke is the thing

that makes ICs work because every time you let the smoke out of an IC circuit,

it stops working.  He claims to have verified this with thorough testing.

	I was flabbergasted!  Of course!  Smoke makes all things electrical

work.  Remember the last time smoke escaped from your Lucas voltage regulator

Didn't it quit working?  I sat and smiled like an idiot as more of the truth

dawned.  It's the wiring harness that carries the smoke from one device to

another in your Mini, MG or Jag.  And when the harness springs a leak, it lets

the smoke out of everything at once, and then nothing works.  The starter motor

requires large quantities of smoke to operate properly, and that's why the wire

going to it is so large.

	Feeling very smug, I continued to expand my hypothesis.  Why are Lucas

electronics more likely to leak than say Bosch?  Hmmm...  Aha!!!  Lucas is

British, and all things British leak!  British convertible tops leak water,

British engines leak oil, British displacer units leak hydrostatic fluid, and

I might add Brititsh tires leak air, and the British defense unit leaks

secrets... so naturally British electronics leak smoke.

		-- Jack Banton, PCC Automotive Electrical School

	[Ummm ... IC circuits?  Integrated circuit circuits?]

%

A student, in hopes of understanding the Lambda-nature, came to Greenblatt.

As they spoke a Multics system hacker walked by.  "Is it true", asked the

student, "that PL-1 has many of the same data types as Lisp?"  Almost before

the student had finished his question, Greenblatt shouted, "FOO!", and hit

the student with a stick.

%

A successful [software] tool is one that was used to do something

undreamed of by its author.

		-- S. C. Johnson

%

A well-used door needs no oil on its hinges.

A swift-flowing steam does not grow stagnant.

Neither sound nor thoughts can travel through a vacuum.

Software rots if not used.

These are great mysteries.

		-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"

%

A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.

%

About the use of language: it is impossible to sharpen a pencil with a blunt

ax.  It is equally vain to try to do it with ten blunt axes instead.

		-- Edsger Dijkstra

%

Adding features does not necessarily increase functionality -- it just

makes the manuals thicker.

%

Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.

		-- F. Brooks, "The Mythical Man-Month"

Whenever one person is found adequate to the discharge of a duty by

close application thereto, it is worse execute by two persons and

scarcely done at all if three or more are employed therein.

		-- George Washington, 1732-1799

%

	After sifting through the overwritten remaining blocks of Luke's home

directory, Luke and PDP-1 sped away from /u/lars, across the surface of the

Winchester riding Luke's flying read/write head.  PDP-1 had Luke stop at the

edge of the cylinder overlooking /usr/spool/uucp.

	"Unix-to-Unix Copy Program;" said PDP-1.  "You will never find a more

wretched hive of bugs and flamers.  We must be cautious."

		-- DECWARS

%

Alan Turing thought about criteria to settle the question of whether

machines can think, a question of which we now know that it is about

as relevant as the question of whether submarines can swim.

		-- Dijkstra

%

Algol-60 surely must be regarded as the most important programming language

yet developed.

		-- T. Cheatham

%

All constants are variables.

%

===  ALL CSH USERS PLEASE NOTE  ========================

Set the variable $LOSERS to all the people that you think are losers.  This

will cause all said losers to have the variable $PEOPLE-WHO-THINK-I-AM-A-LOSER

updated in their .login file.  Should you attempt to execute a job on a 

machine with poor response time and a machine on your local net is currently

populated by losers, that machine will be freed up for your job through a

cold boot process.

%

All parts should go together without forcing.  You must remember that the parts

you are reassembling were disassembled by you.  Therefore, if you can't get

them together again, there must be a reason.  By all means, do not use a hammer.

		-- IBM maintenance manual, 1925

%

All programmers are optimists.  Perhaps this modern sorcery especially attracts

those who believe in happy endings and fairy godmothers.  Perhaps the hundreds

of nitty frustrations drive away all but those who habitually focus on the end

goal.  Perhaps it is merely that computers are young, programmers are younger,

and the young are always optimists.  But however the selection process works,

the result is indisputable:  "This time it will surely run," or "I just found

the last bug."

		-- Frederick Brooks, "The Mythical Man Month"

%

All programmers are playwrights and all computers are lousy actors.

%

"... all the good computer designs are bootlegged; the formally planned

products, if they are built at all, are dogs!"

		-- David E. Lundstrom, "A Few Good Men From Univac",

		   MIT Press, 1987

%

All the simple programs have been written.

%

===  ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE  ========================

A new system, the CIRCULATORY system, has been added.

The long-experimental CIRCULATORY system has been released to users.  The

Lisp Machine uses Type B fluid, the L machine uses Type A fluid.  When the 

switch to Common Lisp occurs both machines will, of course, be Type O.

Please check fluid level by using the DIP stick which is located in the

back of VMI monitors.  Unchecked low fluid levels can cause poor paging

performance.

%

===  ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE  ========================

Bug reports now amount to an average of 12,853 per day.  Unfortunately,

this is only a small fraction [ < 1% ] of the mail volume we receive.  In

order that we may more expeditiously deal with these valuable messages,

please communicate them by one of the following paths:

	ARPA:  WastebasketSLMHQ.ARPA

	UUCP:  [berkeley, seismo, harpo]!fubar!thekid!slmhq!wastebasket

 	Non-network sites:  Federal Express to:

		Wastebasket

		Room NE43-926

		Copernicus, The Moon, 12345-6789

	For that personal contact feeling call 1-415-642-4948; our trained

	operators are on call 24 hours a day.  VISA/MC accepted.*

* Our very rich lawyers have assured us that we are not 

  responsible for any errors or advice given over the phone.

%

===  ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE  ========================

CAR and CDR now return extra values.

The function CAR now returns two values.  Since it has to go to the trouble 

to figure out if the object is carcdr-able anyway, we figured you might as 

well get both halves at once.  For example, the following code shows how to 

destructure a cons (SOME-CONS) into its two slots (THE-CAR and THE-CDR):

	(MULTIPLE-VALUE-BIND (THE-CAR THE-CDR) (CAR SOME-CONS) ...)

For symmetry with CAR, CDR returns a second value which is the CAR of the

object.  In a related change, the functions MAKE-ARRAY and CONS have been 

fixed so they don't allocate any storage except on the stack.  This should

hopefully help people who don't like using the garbage collector because

it cold boots the machine so often.

%

===  ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE  ========================

Compiler optimizations have been made to macro expand LET into a WITHOUT-

INTERRUPTS special form so that it can PUSH things into a stack in the

LET-OPTIMIZATION area, SETQ the variables and then POP them back when it's

done.  Don't worry about this unless you use multiprocessing.

Note that LET *could* have been defined by:

	(LET ((LET '`(LET ((LET ',LET))

			,LET)))

	`(LET ((LET ',LET))

		,LET))

This is believed to speed up execution by as much as a factor of 1.01 or

3.50 depending on whether you believe our friendly marketing representatives.

This code was written by a new programmer here (we snatched him away from

Itty Bitti Machines where we was writting COUGHBOL code) so to give him

confidence we trusted his vows of "it works pretty well" and installed it.

%

===  ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE  ========================

JCL support as alternative to system menu.

In our continuing effort to support languages other than LISP on the CADDR,

we have developed an OS/360-compatible JCL.  This can be used as an

alternative to the standard system menu.  Type System J to get to a JCL

interactive read-execute-diagnose loop window.  [Note that for 360

compatibility, all input lines are truncated to 80 characters.]  This

window also maintains a mouse-sensitive display of critical job parameters

such as dataset allocation, core allocation, channels, etc.  When a JCL

syntax error is detected or your job ABENDs, the window-oriented JCL

debugger is entered.  The JCL debugger displays appropriate OS/360 error

messages (such as IEC703, "disk error") and allows you to dequeue your job.

%

===  ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE  ========================

The garbage collector now works.  In addition a new, experimental garbage 

collection algorithm has been installed.  With SI:%DSK-GC-QLX-BITS set to 17,

(NOT the default) the old garbage collection algorithm remains in force; when 

virtual storage is filled, the machine cold boots itself.  With SI:%DSK-GC-

QLX-BITS set to 23, the new garbage collector is enabled.  Unlike most garbage

collectors, the new gc starts its mark phase from the mind of the user, rather 

than from the obarray.  This allows the garbage collection of significantly 

more Qs.  As the garbage collector runs, it may ask you something like "Do you

remember what SI:RDTBL-TRANS does?", and if you can't give a reasonable answer

in thirty seconds, the symbol becomes a candidate for GCing.  The variable 

SI:%GC-QLX-LUSER-TM governs how long the GC waits before timing out the user.

%

===  ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE  ========================

There has been some confusion concerning MAPCAR.

	(DEFUN MAPCAR (&FUNCTIONAL FCN &EVAL &REST LISTS)

		(PROG (V P LP)

		(SETQ P (LOCF V))

	L	(SETQ LP LISTS)

		(%START-FUNCTION-CALL FCN T (LENGTH LISTS) NIL)

	L1	(OR LP (GO L2))

		(AND (NULL (CAR LP)) (RETURN V))

		(%PUSH (CAAR LP))

		(RPLACA LP (CDAR LP))

		(SETQ LP (CDR LP))

		(GO L1)

	L2	(%FINISH-FUNCTION-CALL FCN T (LENGTH LISTS) NIL)

		(SETQ LP (%POP))

		(RPLACD P (SETQ P (NCONS LP)))

		(GO L)))

We hope this clears up the many questions we've had about it.

%

All your files have been destroyed (sorry).  Paul.

%

Almost anything derogatory you could say about today's software design

would be accurate.

		-- K.E. Iverson

%

Although it is still a truism in industry that "no one was ever fired for

buying IBM," Bill O'Neil, the chief technology officer at Drexel Burnham

Lambert, says he knows for a fact that someone has been fired for just that

reason.  He knows it because he fired the guy.

	"He made a bad decision, and what it came down to was, 'Well, I

bought it because I figured it was safe to buy IBM,'"  Mr. O'Neil says.

"I said, 'No.  Wrong.  Game over.  Next contestant, please.'"

		-- The Wall Street Journal, December 6, 1989

%

AmigaDOS Beer: The company has gone out of business, but their recipe has 

been picked up by some weird German company, so now this beer will be an 

import.  This beer never really sold very well because the original 

manufacturer didn't understand marketing. Like Unix Beer, AmigaDOS Beer 

fans are an extremely loyal and loud group. It originally came in a 

16-oz. can, but now comes in 32-oz.  cans too.  When this can was 

originally introduced, it appeared flashy and colorful, but the design 

hasn't changed much over the years, so it appears dated now.  Critics of 

this beer claim that it is only meant for watching TV anyway.

%

An Ada exception is when a routine gets in trouble and says

'Beam me up, Scotty'.

%

An adequate bootstrap is a contradiction in terms.

%

An algorithm must be seen to be believed.

		-- D.E. Knuth

%

... an anecdote from IBM's Yorktown Heights Research Center.  When a

programmer used his new computer terminal, all was fine when he was sitting

down, but he couldn't log in to the system when he was standing up.  That

behavior was 100 percent repeatable: he could always log in when sitting and

never when standing.

Most of us just sit back and marvel at such a story; how could that terminal

know whether the poor guy was sitting or standing?  Good debuggers, though,

know that there has to be a reason.  Electrical theories are the easiest to

hypothesize: was there a loose with under the carpet, or problems with static

electricity?  But electrical problems are rarely consistently reproducible.

An alert IBMer finally noticed that the problem was in the terminal's keyboard:

the tops of two keys were switched.  When the programmer was seated he was a

touch typist and the problem went unnoticed, but when he stood he was led

astray by hunting and pecking.

	-- "Programming Pearls" column, by Jon Bentley in CACM February 1985

%

An elephant is a mouse with an operating system.

%

An engineer is someone who does list processing in FORTRAN.

%

An interpretation _I satisfies a sentence in the table language if and only if

each entry in the table designates the value of the function designated by the

function constant in the upper-left corner applied to the objects designated

by the corresponding row and column labels.

		-- Genesereth & Nilsson, "Logical foundations of Artificial

		   Intelligence"

%

And it should be the law: If you use the word `paradigm' without knowing

what the dictionary says it means, you go to jail.  No exceptions.

		-- David Jones

%

And on the seventh day, He exited from append mode.

%

Another megabytes the dust.

%

Any given program will expand to fill available memory.

%

Any given program, when running, is obsolete.

%

Any program which runs right is obsolete.

%

Any programming language is at its best before it is implemented and used.

%

... Any resemblance between the above views and those of my employer,

my terminal, or the view out my window are purely coincidental.  Any

resemblance between the above and my own views is non-deterministic.  The

question of the existence of views in the absence of anyone to hold them

is left as an exercise for the reader.  The question of the existence of

the reader is left as an exercise for the second god coefficient.  (A

discussion of non-orthogonal, non-integral polytheism is beyond the scope

of this article.)

%

Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature.

		-- Rich Kulawiec

%

Anyone who has attended a USENIX conference in a fancy hotel can tell you

that a sentence like "You're one of those computer people, aren't you?"

is roughly equivalent to "Look, another amazingly mobile form of slime

mold!" in the mouth of a hotel cocktail waitress.

		-- Elizabeth Zwicky

%

APL hackers do it in the quad.

%

APL is a mistake, carried through to perfection.  It is the language of the

future for the programming techniques of the past: it creates a new generation

of coding bums.

		-- Edsger W. Dijkstra, SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 17, Number 5

%

APL is a natural extension of assembler language programming;

...and is best for educational purposes.

		-- A. Perlis

%

APL is a write-only language.  I can write programs in APL, but I can't

read any of them.

		-- Roy Keir

%

Are we running light with overbyte?

%

Around computers it is difficult to find the correct unit of time to

measure progress.  Some cathedrals took a century to complete.  Can you

imagine the grandeur and scope of a program that would take as long?

		-- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982

%

As a computer, I find your faith in technology amusing.

%

As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error.

		-- Weisert

%

As in certain cults it is possible to kill a process if you know its true name.

		-- Ken Thompson and Dennis M. Ritchie

%

As in Protestant Europe, by contrast, where sects divided endlessly into

smaller competing sects and no church dominated any other, all is different

in the fragmented world of IBM.  That realm is now a chaos of conflicting

norms and standards that not even IBM can hope to control.  You can buy a

computer that works like an IBM machine but contains nothing made or sold by

IBM itself.  Renegades from IBM constantly set up rival firms and establish

standards of their own.  When IBM recently abandoned some of its original

standards and decreed new ones, many of its rivals declared a puritan

allegiance to IBM's original faith, and denounced the company as a divisive

innovator.  Still, the IBM world is united by its distrust of icons and

imagery.  IBM's screens are designed for language, not pictures.  Graven

images may be tolerated by the luxurious cults, but the true IBM faith relies

on the austerity of the word.

		-- Edward Mendelson, "The New Republic", February 22, 1988

%

As long as there are ill-defined goals, bizarre bugs, and unrealistic 

schedules, there will be Real Programmers willing to jump in and Solve 

The Problem, saving the documentation for later.

%

As of next Thursday, UNIX will be flushed in favor of TOPS-10.

Please update your programs.

%

As of next Tuesday, C will be flushed in favor of COBOL.

Please update your programs.

%

As of next week, passwords will be entered in Morse code.

%

As part of an ongoing effort to keep you, the Fortune reader, abreast of

the valuable information the daily crosses the USENET, Fortune presents:

News articles that answer *your* questions, #1:

	Newsgroups: comp.sources.d

	Subject: how do I run C code received from sources

	Keywords: C sources

	Distribution: na

	I do not know how to run the C programs that are posted in the

	sources newsgroup.  I save the files, edit them to remove the

	headers, and change the mode so that they are executable, but I

	cannot get them to run.  (I have never written a C program before.)

	Must they be compiled?  With what compiler?  How do I do this?  If

	I compile them, is an object code file generated or must I generate

	it explicitly with the > character?  Is there something else that

	must be done?

%

As part of the conversion, computer specialists rewrote 1,500 programs;

a process that traditionally requires some debugging.

		-- USA Today, referring to the Internal Revenue Service

		   conversion to a new computer system.

%

As soon as we started programming, we found to our surprise that it wasn't

as easy to get programs right as we had thought.  Debugging had to be

discovered.  I can remember the exact instant when I realized that a large

part of my life from then on was going to be spent in finding mistakes in

my own programs.

		-- Maurice Wilkes, designer of EDSAC, on programming, 1949

%

As the system comes up, the component builders will from time to time appear,

bearing hot new versions of their pieces -- faster, smaller, more complete,

or putatively less buggy.  The replacement of a working component by a new

version requires the same systematic testing procedure that adding a new

component does, although it should require less time, for more complete and

efficient test cases will usually be available.

		-- Frederick Brooks Jr., "The Mythical Man Month" 

%

As the trials of life continue to take their toll, remember that there

is always a future in Computer Maintenance.

		-- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata"

%

As Will Rogers would have said, "There is no such things as a free variable."

%

ASCII a stupid question, you get an EBCDIC answer.

%

ASHes to ASHes, DOS to DOS.

%

Ask not for whom the <CONTROL-G> tolls.

%

Assembly language experience is [important] for the maturity

and understanding of how computers work that it provides.

		-- D. Gries

%

Asynchronous inputs are at the root of our race problems.

		-- D. Winker and F. Prosser

%

At about 2500 A.D., humankind discovers a computer problem that *must* be

solved.  The only difficulty is that the problem is NP complete and will

take thousands of years even with the latest optical biologic technology

available.  The best computer scientists sit down to think up some solution.

In great dismay, one of the C.S. people tells her husband about it.  There

is only one solution, he says.  Remember physics 103, Modern Physics, general

relativity and all.  She replies, "What does that have to do with solving

a computer problem?"

	"Remember the twin paradox?"

	After a few minutes, she says, "I could put the computer on a very

fast machine and the computer would have just a few minutes to calculate but

that is the exact opposite of what we want... Of course!  Leave the

computer here, and accelerate the earth!"

	The problem was so important that they did exactly that.  When

the earth came back, they were presented with the answer:

	IEH032 Error in JOB Control Card.

%

At first sight, the idea of any rules or principles being superimposed on

the creative mind seems more likely to hinder than to help, but this is

quite untrue in practice.  Disciplined thinking focuses inspiration rather

than blinkers it.

		-- G.L. Glegg, "The Design of Design"

%

At Group L, Stoffel oversees six first-rate programmers, a managerial

challenge roughly comparable to herding cats.

		-- The Washington Post Magazine, 9 June, 1985

%

At the source of every error which is blamed on the computer you will find

at least two human errors, including the error of blaming it on the computer.

%

Avoid strange women and temporary variables.

%

Basic is a high level languish.  APL is a high level anguish.

%

BASIC is the Computer Science equivalent of `Scientific Creationism'.

%

BASIC is to computer programming as QWERTY is to typing.

		-- Seymour Papert

%

Be careful when a loop exits to the same place from side and bottom.

%

Behind every great computer sits a skinny little geek.

%

Bell Labs Unix -- Reach out and grep someone.

%

Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it.

		-- Donald Knuth

%

Beware of Programmers who carry screwdrivers.

		-- Leonard Brandwein

%

Beware of the Turing Tar-pit in which everything is possible but nothing of 

interest is easy.

%

Beware the new TTY code!

%

Blinding speed can compensate for a lot of deficiencies.

		-- David Nichols

%

BLISS is ignorance.

%

Both models are identical in performance, functional operation, and

interface circuit details.  The two models, however, are not compatible

on the same communications line connection.

		-- Bell System Technical Reference

%

Brace yourselves.  We're about to try something that borders on the unique:

an actually rather serious technical book which is not only (gasp) vehemently

anti-Solemn, but also (shudder) takes sides.  I tend to think of it as

`Constructive Snottiness.'

		-- Mike Padlipsky, "Elements of Networking Style"

%

Brain fried -- Core dumped

%

Breadth-first search is the bulldozer of science.

		-- Randy Goebel

%

	Brian Kernighan has an automobile which he helped design.

Unlike most automobiles, it has neither speedometer, nor gas gauge, nor

any of the numerous idiot lights which plague the modern driver.

Rather, if the driver makes any mistake, a giant "?" lights up in the

center of the dashboard.  "The experienced driver", he says, "will

usually know what's wrong."

%

Bringing computers into the home won't change either one, but may

revitalize the corner saloon.

%

Build a system that even a fool can use and only a fool will want to use it.

%

Building translators is good clean fun.

		-- T. Cheatham

%

Bus error -- driver executed.

%

Bus error -- please leave by the rear door.

%

But in our enthusiasm, we could not resist a radical overhaul of the

system, in which all of its major weaknesses have been exposed,

analyzed, and replaced with new weaknesses.

		-- Bruce Leverett, "Register Allocation in Optimizing Compilers"

%

But this has taken us far afield from interface, which is not a bad

place to be, since I particularly want to move ahead to the kludge.

Why do people have so much trouble understanding the kludge?  What

is a kludge, after all, but not enough K's, not enough ROM's, not

enough RAM's, poor quality interface and too few bytes to go around?

Have I explained yet about the bytes?

%

"But what we need to know is, do people want nasally-insertable computers?"

%

By long-standing tradition, I take this opportunity to savage other

designers in the thin disguise of good, clean fun.

		-- P.J. Plauger, "Computer Language", 1988, April

		   Fool's column.

%

BYTE editors are people who separate the wheat from the chaff, and then

carefully print the chaff.

%

Byte your tongue.

%

C Code.

C Code Run.

Run, Code, RUN!

	PLEASE!!!!

%

C for yourself.

%

C makes it easy for you to shoot yourself in the foot.  C++ makes that

harder, but when you do, it blows away your whole leg.

		-- Bjarne Stroustrup

%

C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas l'Informatique.

		-- Bosquet [on seeing the IBM 4341]

%

C++ is the best example of second-system effect since OS/360.

%

... C++ offers even more flexible control over the visibility of member

objects and member functions.  Specifically, members may be placed in the

public, private, or protected parts of a class.  Members declared in the

public parts are visible to all clients; members declared in the private

parts are fully encapsulated; and members declared in the protected parts

are visible only to the class itself and its subclasses.  C++ also supports

the notion of *_______friends*: cooperative classes that are permitted to see each

other's private parts.

		-- Grady Booch, "Object Oriented Design with Applications"

%

Calm down, it's *____only* ones and zeroes.

%

Can't open /usr/fortunes.  Lid stuck on cookie jar.

%

Can't open /usr/games/lib/fortunes.dat.

%

CChheecckk yyoouurr dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh..

%

CCI Power 6/40: one board, a megabyte of cache, and an attitude...

%

Center meeting at 4pm in 2C-543.

%

Civilization, as we know it, will end sometime this evening.

See SYSNOTE tomorrow for more information.

%

COBOL is for morons.

		-- E.W. Dijkstra

%

Cobol programmers are down in the dumps.

%

Coding is easy;  All you do is sit staring at a terminal until the drops

of blood form on your forehead.

%

Comparing software engineering to classical engineering assumes that software

has the ability to wear out.  Software typically behaves, or it does not.  It

either works, or it does not.  Software generally does not degrade, abrade,

stretch, twist, or ablate.  To treat it as a physical entity, therefore, is

misapplication of our engineering skills.  Classical engineering deals with

the characteristics of hardware; software engineering should deal with the

characteristics of *software*, and not with hardware or management.

		-- Dan Klein

%

COMPASS [for the CDC-6000 series] is the sort of assembler one expects from

a corporation whose president codes in octal.

		-- J.N. Gray

%

... computer hardware progress is so fast.  No other technology since

civilization began has seen six orders of magnitude in performance-price

gain in 30 years.

		-- Fred Brooks

%

Computer programmers do it byte by byte.

%

Computer programmers never die, they just get lost in the processing.

%

Computer programs expand so as to fill the core available.

%

Computer Science is merely the post-Turing decline in formal systems theory.

%

Computer Science is the only discipline in which we view adding a new wing

to a building as being maintenance

		-- Jim Horning

%

Computers are not intelligent.  They only think they are.

%

Computers are unreliable, but humans are even more unreliable.

Any system which depends on human reliability is unreliable.

		-- Gilb

%

Computers are useless.  They can only give you answers.

		-- Pablo Picasso

%

Computers can figure out all kinds of problems, except the things in

the world that just don't add up.

%

Computers don't actually think.

	You just think they think.

		(We think.)

%

Computers will not be perfected until they can compute how much more

than the estimate the job will cost.

%

Conceptual integrity in turn dictates that the design must proceed

from one mind, or from a very small number of agreeing resonant minds.

		-- Frederick Brooks Jr., "The Mythical Man Month" 

%

Congratulations!  You are the one-millionth user to log into our system.

If there's anything special we can do for you, anything at all, don't

hesitate to ask!

%

	Cosmotronic Software Unlimited Inc. does not warrant that the

functions contained in the program will meet your requirements or that

the operation of the program will be uninterrupted or error-free.

	However, Cosmotronic Software Unlimited Inc. warrants the

diskette(s) on which the program is furnished to be of black color and

square shape under normal use for a period of ninety (90) days from the

date of purchase.

	NOTE: IN NO EVENT WILL COSMOTRONIC SOFTWARE UNLIMITED OR ITS

DISTRIBUTORS AND THEIR DEALERS BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ANY DAMAGES, INCLUDING

ANY LOST PROFIT, LOST SAVINGS, LOST PATIENCE OR OTHER INCIDENTAL OR

CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES.

		-- Horstmann Software Design, the "ChiWriter" user manual

%

Couldn't we jury-rig the cat to act as an audio switch, and have it yell 

at people to save their core images before logging them out?  I'm sure 

the cattle prod would be effective in this regard.  In any case, a traverse 

mounted iguana, while more perverted, gives better traction, not to mention

being easier to stake.

%

Counting in binary is just like counting in decimal -- if you are all thumbs.

		-- Glaser and Way

%

Counting in octal is just like counting in decimal--if you don't use your thumbs.

		-- Tom Lehrer

%

[Crash programs] fail because they are based on the theory that, with nine

women pregnant, you can get a baby a month.

		-- Wernher von Braun

%

Crazee Edeee, his prices are INSANE!!!

%

Creating computer software is always a demanding and painstaking

process -- an exercise in logic, clear expression, and almost fanatical

attention to detail.  It requires intelligence, dedication, and an

enormous amount of hard work.  But, a certain amount of unpredictable

and often unrepeatable inspiration is what usually makes the difference

between adequacy and excellence.

%

Creating computer software is always a demanding and painstaking

process -- an exercise in logic, clear expression, and almost fanatical

attention to detail.  It requires intelligence, dedication, and an

enormous amount of hard work.  But, a certain amount of unpredictable

and often unrepeatable inspiration is what usually makes the difference

between adequacy and excellence.

%

%DCL-MEM-BAD, bad memory

VMS-F-PDGERS, pudding between the ears

%

Dear Emily, what about test messages?

		-- Concerned

Dear Concerned:

	It is important, when testing, to test the entire net.  Never test

merely a subnet distribution when the whole net can be done.  Also put "please

ignore" on your test messages, since we all know that everybody always skips

a message with a line like that.  Don't use a subject like "My sex is female

but I demand to be addressed as male." because such articles are read in depth

by all USEnauts.

		-- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette

%

Dear Emily:

	How can I choose what groups to post in?

		-- Confused