... I came across a T-shirt which read
C:DOS.
C:DOS:RUN.
RUN:DOS:RUN.
RUN:RUN:RUN.
What’s your earliest example of geek humour?
... I came across a T-shirt which read
C:DOS.
C:DOS:RUN.
RUN:DOS:RUN.
RUN:RUN:RUN.
What’s your earliest example of geek humour?
Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
... I came across a T-shirt which read
C:DOS.
C:DOS:RUN.
RUN:DOS:RUN.
RUN:RUN:RUN.
What’s your earliest example of geek humour?
this was very juvenile but it was funny:
IBM
UBM
WE ALL BM
FOR IBM
it is probably older than i am...
On 2024-12-01 12:11, songbird wrote:
Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
... I came across a T-shirt which read
C:DOS.
C:DOS:RUN.
RUN:DOS:RUN.
RUN:RUN:RUN.
What’s your earliest example of geek humour?
this was very juvenile but it was funny:
IBM
UBM
WE ALL BM
FOR IBM
it is probably older than i am...
I'm afraid I don't understand any of the two. English is not my first >language.
I'm afraid I don't understand any of the two. English is not my first language.
What’s your earliest example of geek humour?
... I came across a T-shirt which read
C:DOS.
C:DOS:RUN.
RUN:DOS:RUN.
RUN:RUN:RUN.
What’s your earliest example of geek humour?
On 2024-12-01, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
... I came across a T-shirt which read
C:DOS.
C:DOS:RUN.
RUN:DOS:RUN.
RUN:RUN:RUN.
What’s your earliest example of geek humour?
Back in the mainframe days, there were long lists of
bogus macine instructions, e.g.
Rewind and Break Tape
Execute Operator
Branch on Burned-Out Indicator
Reverse Drum Immediate
"Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> writes:
On 2024-12-01 12:11, songbird wrote:
Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
... I came across a T-shirt which read
C:DOS.
C:DOS:RUN.
RUN:DOS:RUN.
RUN:RUN:RUN.
What’s your earliest example of geek humour?
this was very juvenile but it was funny:
IBM
UBM
WE ALL BM
FOR IBM
it is probably older than i am...
I'm afraid I don't understand any of the two. English is not my first
language.
"BM" in this instance is scatalogical - it means "Bowel Movement".
On 2024-12-01 19:49, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
On 2024-12-01, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
... I came across a T-shirt which read
C:DOS.
C:DOS:RUN.
RUN:DOS:RUN.
RUN:RUN:RUN.
What’s your earliest example of geek humour?
Back in the mainframe days, there were long lists of
bogus macine instructions, e.g.
Rewind and Break Tape
Execute Operator
Branch on Burned-Out Indicator
Reverse Drum Immediate
Halt and catch fire.
Back in the mainframe days, there were long lists of bogus macine instructions, e.g.
Rewind and Break Tape
Execute Operator
Branch on Burned-Out Indicator
Reverse Drum Immediate
On 12/1/24 00:13, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
What’s your earliest example of geek humour?
I don't know about the earliest, but here are a few that I've known for
a LONG time.
- Who is General Failure and why is he trying to read my drive C:?
- <1st person>Microsoft Works<2nd person interrupts> NO IT DOESN'T!!!
Not sure which OS had the error message “bad device or file name” if it could not find the file you were looking for. The natural addition was
“Bad device or file name. Bad, bad, bad.”
What’s your earliest example of geek humour?
Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
... I came across a T-shirt which read
C:DOS.
C:DOS:RUN.
RUN:DOS:RUN.
RUN:RUN:RUN.
What’s your earliest example of geek humour?
I'm afraid I don't understand any of the two. English is not my first language.
See Spot run ...
The Blinkenlights blurb was endlessly photocopied and posted on computer
room doors and windows starting in the late 1950s.
Not sure which OS had the error message “bad device or file name” if it could not find the file you were looking for. The natural addition was
“Bad device or file name. Bad, bad, bad.”
On Sun, 1 Dec 2024 21:36:23 -0000 (UTC), John Levine wrote:
The Blinkenlights blurb was endlessly photocopied and posted on computer
room doors and windows starting in the late 1950s.
Ah yes. I remember that. You’d see it in every computer room, just about.
Remember that early case, of a computer malfunction that was traced down
to a dead moth caught in a circuit or some such? (I think Grace Hopper
might have been involved in tracking that down.) The actual bug was sellotaped in the log book next to the report about the error and the fix
-- the earliest known case of a literal computer “bug”.
Remember that early case, of a computer malfunction that was traced down
to a dead moth caught in a circuit or some such? (I think Grace Hopper
might have been involved in tracking that down.) The actual bug was
sellotaped in the log book next to the report about the error and the fix
-- the earliest known case of a literal computer “bug”.
On 2024-12-02 00:21, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
On Sun, 1 Dec 2024 21:36:23 -0000 (UTC), John Levine wrote:
The Blinkenlights blurb was endlessly photocopied and posted on computer >>> room doors and windows starting in the late 1950s.
Ah yes. I remember that. You’d see it in every computer room, just about. >>
Remember that early case, of a computer malfunction that was traced down
to a dead moth caught in a circuit or some such? (I think Grace Hopper
might have been involved in tracking that down.) The actual bug was
sellotaped in the log book next to the report about the error and the fix
-- the earliest known case of a literal computer “bug”.
I remember reading about the bug, either in the contacts of a vacuum valve/tube, or in the contact of a relais. The thing sellotaped is new
to me. I guess the actual history has gone around a lot and the facts
are fuzzy by now :-)
On 2024-12-01 19:49, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
On 2024-12-01, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
... I came across a T-shirt which read
C:DOS.
C:DOS:RUN.
RUN:DOS:RUN.
RUN:RUN:RUN.
What’s your earliest example of geek humour?
Back in the mainframe days, there were long lists of
bogus macine instructions, e.g.
Rewind and Break Tape
Execute Operator
Branch on Burned-Out Indicator
Reverse Drum Immediate
Halt and catch fire.
...
On Sun, 1 Dec 2024 20:29:47 +0100, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2024-12-01 19:49, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
On 2024-12-01, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
... I came across a T-shirt which read
C:DOS.
C:DOS:RUN.
RUN:DOS:RUN.
RUN:RUN:RUN.
What’s your earliest example of geek humour?
Back in the mainframe days, there were long lists of
bogus macine instructions, e.g.
Rewind and Break Tape
Execute Operator
Branch on Burned-Out Indicator
Reverse Drum Immediate
Halt and catch fire.
...
In linux-6.12.1/drivers/char/lp.c:
printk(KERN_INFO "lp%d on fire\n", minor);
According to Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid>:
Remember that early case, of a computer malfunction that was traced down >>> to a dead moth caught in a circuit or some such? (I think Grace Hopper
might have been involved in tracking that down.) The actual bug was
sellotaped in the log book next to the report about the error and the fix >>> -- the earliest known case of a literal computer “bug”.
It was the Harvard Mark II, which was mostly electromechanical. The
log book with the moth taped to a page is in the Smithsonian. Here's
a picture of it:
https://daily.jstor.org/the-bug-in-the-computer-bug-story/
The word "bug" for a flaw in the equipment goes way back. Thomas
Edison used it in the 1800s.
In linux-6.12.1/drivers/char/lp.c:
printk(KERN_INFO "lp%d on fire\n", minor);
Wow :-)
How would the kernel know?
On 2024-12-02 00:21, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
On Sun, 1 Dec 2024 21:36:23 -0000 (UTC), John Levine wrote:
The Blinkenlights blurb was endlessly photocopied and posted on computer >>> room doors and windows starting in the late 1950s.
Ah yes. I remember that. You’d see it in every computer room, just about. >>
Remember that early case, of a computer malfunction that was traced down
to a dead moth caught in a circuit or some such? (I think Grace Hopper
might have been involved in tracking that down.) The actual bug was
sellotaped in the log book next to the report about the error and the fix
-- the earliest known case of a literal computer “bug”.
I remember reading about the bug, either in the contacts of a vacuum >valve/tube, or in the contact of a relais. The thing sellotaped is new
to me. I guess the actual history has gone around a lot and the facts
are fuzzy by now :-)
On Mon, 02 Dec 2024 13:31:57 +0100, Carlos E.R. wrote:
In linux-6.12.1/drivers/char/lp.c:
printk(KERN_INFO "lp%d on fire\n", minor);
Wow :-)
How would the kernel know?
Reminds me of this; true, I was there when it happened. And I worked on
the supervisor.
When the University of Kent's ICL 2960 mainframe was installed, it came
with a site engineer. For quite a while, one of these was someone who was
a Kent graduate. He was somewhat of a 'company man', and was not keen when
we abandoned the VME/K operating system in favour of EMAS (from the University of Edinburgh).
I managed EMAS; it had a novel way of handling filestore and (for the purposes of this story) peripherals such as printers. These were managed
via a Spooler process, which handled all of the exception conditions,
farmed out to it by the actual supervisor. Whoever wrote the code at Edinburgh had been a little obsessive about detailed error messages - a
good thing, and possible because all of the messages were inside a paged process.
One day, we saw a message we had never seen before. I forget the exact
text, but it indicated that a particular fuse had blown in the printer.
Edit: I just reviewed the source code; it was "Hammer Driver Fuse Blown".
We duly called the engineer from his room. He looked at the message, and shook his head, stating that no such fuse existed and "our" system was
wrong.
We pressed him on this, and after casting his eye over the defunct printer
he retired to his office and manuals. He returned a few minutes later, bearing a fuse. He silently opened a small panel in the printer casing,
and changed the fuse.
On 2024-12-02 09:51, vallor wrote:
In linux-6.12.1/drivers/char/lp.c:
printk(KERN_INFO "lp%d on fire\n", minor);
Wow :-)
How would the kernel know?
Back in the days when the main computer at the University where I was studying was a PDP-11/70 running the DEC RSTS/E operating system, there
was a powerful, if cryptic, command-driven text editor called TECO.
This was installed so that it could be invoked via either of two commands:
TECO «filename»
to open the existing file «filename» before starting the editing session, or
MAKE «filename»
to create a new file named «filename», and open it before starting the editing session.
Or you could just type the "TECO" command without any filename to start
the editor without pre-opening any files.
The startup sequence that interpreted the command line was itself written
in TECO. And it had a little Easter egg in it. If you typed the command
MAKE LOVE
then it would print the message "Not war?" before creating and opening the file named LOVE as directed.
On 2024-12-02 14:17, Bob Eager wrote:
On Mon, 02 Dec 2024 13:31:57 +0100, Carlos E.R. wrote:
In linux-6.12.1/drivers/char/lp.c:
printk(KERN_INFO "lp%d on fire\n", minor);
Wow :-)
How would the kernel know?
Reminds me of this; true, I was there when it happened. And I worked on
the supervisor.
When the University of Kent's ICL 2960 mainframe was installed, it came
with a site engineer. For quite a while, one of these was someone who was
a Kent graduate. He was somewhat of a 'company man', and was not keen when >> we abandoned the VME/K operating system in favour of EMAS (from the
University of Edinburgh).
I managed EMAS; it had a novel way of handling filestore and (for the
purposes of this story) peripherals such as printers. These were managed
via a Spooler process, which handled all of the exception conditions,
farmed out to it by the actual supervisor. Whoever wrote the code at
Edinburgh had been a little obsessive about detailed error messages - a
good thing, and possible because all of the messages were inside a paged
process.
One day, we saw a message we had never seen before. I forget the exact
text, but it indicated that a particular fuse had blown in the printer.
Edit: I just reviewed the source code; it was "Hammer Driver Fuse Blown".
We duly called the engineer from his room. He looked at the message, and
shook his head, stating that no such fuse existed and "our" system was
wrong.
We pressed him on this, and after casting his eye over the defunct printer >> he retired to his office and manuals. He returned a few minutes later,
bearing a fuse. He silently opened a small panel in the printer casing,
and changed the fuse.
:-))
I have no trouble imagining big machines knowing such things (because I >worked with one and it knew it all, including a fire (it was in the >manual)). But the Linux kernel, that runs on PCs? How would it know a
home printer is on fire? Of course, I can be mistaken, and the printers
are designed to tell such a thing back to the printer. But the original >printer protocol on PCs was unidirectional.
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:
Back in the days when the main computer at the University where I was
studying was a PDP-11/70 running the DEC RSTS/E operating system, there
was a powerful, if cryptic, command-driven text editor called TECO.
This was installed so that it could be invoked via either of two commands:
TECO filename
I don't know what you typed to get them, but the characters around "filename" are Arabic letters.
On 2024-12-02 14:17, Bob Eager wrote:
On Mon, 02 Dec 2024 13:31:57 +0100, Carlos E.R. wrote:
In linux-6.12.1/drivers/char/lp.c:
printk(KERN_INFO "lp%d on fire\n", minor);
Wow :-)
How would the kernel know?
Reminds me of this; true, I was there when it happened. And I worked on
the supervisor.
When the University of Kent's ICL 2960 mainframe was installed, it came
with a site engineer. For quite a while, one of these was someone who was
a Kent graduate. He was somewhat of a 'company man', and was not keen when >> we abandoned the VME/K operating system in favour of EMAS (from the
University of Edinburgh).
I managed EMAS; it had a novel way of handling filestore and (for the
purposes of this story) peripherals such as printers. These were managed
via a Spooler process, which handled all of the exception conditions,
farmed out to it by the actual supervisor. Whoever wrote the code at
Edinburgh had been a little obsessive about detailed error messages - a
good thing, and possible because all of the messages were inside a paged
process.
One day, we saw a message we had never seen before. I forget the exact
text, but it indicated that a particular fuse had blown in the printer.
Edit: I just reviewed the source code; it was "Hammer Driver Fuse Blown".
We duly called the engineer from his room. He looked at the message, and
shook his head, stating that no such fuse existed and "our" system was
wrong.
We pressed him on this, and after casting his eye over the defunct printer >> he retired to his office and manuals. He returned a few minutes later,
bearing a fuse. He silently opened a small panel in the printer casing,
and changed the fuse.
:-))
I have no trouble imagining big machines knowing such things (because I worked with one and it knew it all, including a fire (it was in the manual)). But the Linux kernel, that runs on PCs? How would it know a
home printer is on fire? Of course, I can be mistaken, and the printers
are designed to tell such a thing back to the printer. But the original printer protocol on PCs was unidirectional.
On Mon, 2 Dec 2024 21:08:17 +0100, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2024-12-02 14:17, Bob Eager wrote:
On Mon, 02 Dec 2024 13:31:57 +0100, Carlos E.R. wrote:
In linux-6.12.1/drivers/char/lp.c:
printk(KERN_INFO "lp%d on fire\n", minor);
Wow :-)
How would the kernel know?
Reminds me of this; true, I was there when it happened. And I worked on
the supervisor.
When the University of Kent's ICL 2960 mainframe was installed, it came
with a site engineer. For quite a while, one of these was someone who was >>> a Kent graduate. He was somewhat of a 'company man', and was not keen when >>> we abandoned the VME/K operating system in favour of EMAS (from the
University of Edinburgh).
I managed EMAS; it had a novel way of handling filestore and (for the
purposes of this story) peripherals such as printers. These were managed >>> via a Spooler process, which handled all of the exception conditions,
farmed out to it by the actual supervisor. Whoever wrote the code at
Edinburgh had been a little obsessive about detailed error messages - a
good thing, and possible because all of the messages were inside a paged >>> process.
One day, we saw a message we had never seen before. I forget the exact
text, but it indicated that a particular fuse had blown in the printer.
Edit: I just reviewed the source code; it was "Hammer Driver Fuse Blown". >>> We duly called the engineer from his room. He looked at the message, and >>> shook his head, stating that no such fuse existed and "our" system was
wrong.
We pressed him on this, and after casting his eye over the defunct printer >>> he retired to his office and manuals. He returned a few minutes later,
bearing a fuse. He silently opened a small panel in the printer casing,
and changed the fuse.
:-))
I have no trouble imagining big machines knowing such things (because I
worked with one and it knew it all, including a fire (it was in the
manual)). But the Linux kernel, that runs on PCs? How would it know a
home printer is on fire? Of course, I can be mistaken, and the printers
are designed to tell such a thing back to the printer. But the original
printer protocol on PCs was unidirectional.
It's just a goofy error message for an IO error with
the printer.
from the BSD man page for tunefs:
You can tune a file system, but you cannot tune a fish.
I (and others) keynote at NASA/CMU Dependable Computing workshop https://web.archive.org/web/20011004023230/http://www.hdcc.cs.cmu.edu/may01/index.html
from the BSD man page for tunefs:
You can tune a file system, but you cannot tune a fish.
... I came across a T-shirt which read
C:DOS.
C:DOS:RUN.
RUN:DOS:RUN.
RUN:RUN:RUN.
What’s your earliest example of geek humour?
Windows ME
On 12/4/24 15:01, ArseClown32 wrote:
Windows ME
Windows CE ME NT
On 12/4/24 19:14, Grant Taylor wrote:
On 12/4/24 15:01, ArseClown32 wrote:Any version of Windows is a joke.
Windows ME
Windows CE ME NT
On 1 Dec 2024 at 17:13:53 AEDT, "Lawrence D'Oliveiro" <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
... I came across a T-shirt which read
C:DOS.
C:DOS:RUN.
RUN:DOS:RUN.
RUN:RUN:RUN.
What’s your earliest example of geek humour?
Windows ME
In case you haven't used OS/2 2.1, it was better to NT 3.0 and released
years earlier.
On 2024-12-05, Grant Taylor <gtaylor@tnetconsulting.net> wrote:
On 12/4/24 15:01, ArseClown32 wrote:
Windows ME
Windows CE ME NT
WinCE
| Sysop: | Tetrazocine |
|---|---|
| Location: | Melbourne, VIC, Australia |
| Users: | 4 |
| Nodes: | 8 (0 / 8) |
| Uptime: | 215:12:51 |
| Calls: | 73 |
| Calls today: | 1 |
| Files: | 21,500 |
| Messages: | 73,913 |