🚀 go-pugleaf

This brings back old memories.

I was an undergraduate (1973-1977) at Stevens Institute of Technology.
The Stevens Computer Center had, at that time, a DEC PDP-10 model KA10
with 80K of memory (that's about 368K bytes), a (5MB?) fixed-head
swapping disk, and two DEC RP02 (20 MB) disk drives for the
filesystem.  This was when model 33 and 35 Teletypes were the standard
terminal, although they did have a couple of "high-speed" (300 baud)
dial up lines.  However, even for the time this was a serverely
limited system.

This computer center was a cost center.  Departmental accounts were
more or less "funny money" although the billing did translate into
some form of support that the department was expected to cough up.
They also accepted outside customers.

The end result was a strict hierarchy.  At the top were the hard-money
paying outside customers and their student-employee minions who got
the lion's share.  In the middle were the departmental users.  At the
very bottom were students.

The only way a freshman was able to get a timesharing account (class
accounts were all batch punch-cards) was to join the local chapter of
the ACM.  This gave you an account which would let you log in after
5PM, provided that no more than 4 other students were logged in.

Students were given a disk allocation of 57.6 KB; later this was cut
to 28.8 KB.  You could not log out if you exceeded your disk
allocation.  Any files which you had not accessed in a week were
deleted by the system.

The only way you could get more space was to buy a DECtape, which was
a 3/4" mylar reel of tape holding 332 KB.  The Computer Center bought
large quantities of DECtapes from DEC at wholesale, unformatted.  They
would format the tapes and then sell them at DEC retail price.  There
were 8 DECtape drives, and they were always busy (and SLOW).  The
other alternative was to buy a 2400' magnetic tape, but since there
were only two 9-track tape drives (and one 7-track drive), typically
always in use by the outside customers or by the operators, this was
not a popular option.

Students resented the fact that outsiders were given the bulk of the
resources of a school computer that wasn't even adequate for the
student load.  This was the early 70's in a *very* conservative
school, and the students were essentially took to stuff it where the
sun don't shine.

There were three other levels in the feudal hierarchy, parallel to the
hierarchy noted above.  There were those in the Computer Center's "in
group", there were those who were definitely "out", and all others.
The "in group" consisted of the Computer Center employees (mostly
students) and their friends.  The "outs" were those who for one reason
or another had been put on the shit-list by the "in group."  I was one
of the "outs".

All sorts of special privileges were given to the "in group".  One of
the most important of these, albeit unintentional, was open license to
electronically harass the "outs".  The management of the Computer
Center consisted of well- meaning but poor managers who, in any
incident between an "in" and an "out", would believe the "in".
Discipline, such as it was, was harsh, but never directed against an
"in".  What resulted was the segregation of immature college kids into
a group that got away with anything and a group that got blamed for
everything.

What was worse, the former were in effect the system cops.  The "ins"
had access to the machine room.  There were no self-service printers
or DECtape drives; only "ins" could do this.  This meant that your
printouts, no matter how personal, were subject to intense perusal by
the "ins".  There were a few cases of "ins" stealing homework
assignments before we wised up and did our computer work elsewhere or
in the wee hours of the morning (making all printouts on the teletypes
rather than the lineprinter).

It isn't hard to imagine what resulted; an arrogant nasty group of
thugs with a license to kill (like the cops in A Clockword Orange) on
the one hand, and a bitter, resentful group of kicked-around users on
the other thirsting for revenge.  The situation got worse when the
manager quit and his subordinate took over.

The new manager was a scientific programmer by training, and had acted
as sort of a mommie-figure to the Computer Center staff, the "ins".
Because of this, she was almost completely blind to the goings-on of
her staff.  All she got to see was the other side -- that is, the
counter-measures (and, I must admit, attempts at revenge) by the
"outs".  That is, she saw an escalating progression of nasty stuff
being done at her Computer Center by a group of "bad apples" who
needed to be thoroughly monitored and stomped on.

And she delegated the monitoring and stomping-on to her staff.

They did so, far beyond the mandate she gave; but since they were the
cops there was no check on their acts.  When they did something that
was patently wrong (or even illegal), they would cover it up.  In one
incident, I found out that my private tapes were being read and their
entire contents printed out and examined.  The Computer Center manager
had not authorized this; this was a private adventure on the part of
the student programming staff.  When I complained about them doing
this they threw me out of the building.

It was a Sunday, and I could not go to the manager about this, but the
next day I went to her office with my complaint.  I found out that the
student programmers, witnessed by the student operator, had filed a
complaint against me for "vandalism" and I was going to be sent to the
dean.

Unbeknownst to her, the student operator was a friend of mine.  I
immediately tackled him and asked him what the f*ck was he doing.  He
apologized profusely.  He told me that he was forced into it, even
though he objected to perjuring himself.  He was told that if he
didn't witness the imaginary "vandalism" the same shit that was being
done to me would be done to him too.

Obviously, they couldn't push the perjured "vandalism" charges; they
would have fallen apart since nothing of the sort happened.  However,
it did neutralize me.  The situation did get better for a short while
after that; apparently this level of cover-up was a bit much and the
student staff was told to cool it.

After I graduated the war became hot between the "ins" and "outs".  To
some, I had become a folk hero credited with all sorts of miraculous
deeds for the betterment of Users against the Computer Center.
Needless to say, the reports were greatly exaggerated; I was far more
interested in getting my own work and programs done, having given up
long ago on the Computer Center.  I knew that it was better in the
real world, and was doing my best to move there ASAP.

My successors declared open warfare on the Computer Center.  There was
no longer any effort to accomplish anything; it was just to return
harassment with harassment.  About 6 months after I left, a bug was
discovered in the operating system that would put a user task into a
hardware privileged mode where one could execute any machine
instruction.  They would execute the machine instruction to turn off
the interrupt system (for you PDP-10 fans, that's "CONO 4,400") and
then execute a blocking system call.  Since the scheduler keyed off
clock interrupts, this would hang the system, however not until after
the bad guy's job context had been cleared (needless to say, they used
random class accounts and never their own).  I didn't approve of such
things, but I have to admit that I felt that the resulting lost of
credibility the Computer Center got served them right.

It had one major effect upon me.  After I left I ended up running a
computer facility.  I did almost the exact opposite of what the
Computer Center did in terms of system operations.  Although I had a
couple of wise-guy users who thought they could out-smart me (mostly
of the sort of making trap-doors), I never had any vandalism problems
from any of my users.  The wise-guys got an e-mail message from me --
	Subject: your giving yourself root privileges
	Very funny.  I've taken them away.
and that was it.  I think the only case a user ever got subject to
university discipline was a sex-harassment case.

Today, of course, Computer Centers are almost dead.  At home, I own
three DEC-20 (the successor to the PDP-10) computers, each with about
2.3 MB.  My office supplies me with a Toshiba PC with 1MB for home.
Sitting on my desk at work is a NeXT with 12MB.  With this much
computing power dedicated to me, who needs Computer Centers?!

 _____     ____ ---+---   /-\   Mark Crispin           Atheist & Proud
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 / | \   | |__| /     \ /     \ m...@CAC.Washington.EDU "Chigau. Gaijin ja nai.
kisha no kisha ga kisha de kisha-shita                  Omae ha gaijin darou."
sumomo mo momo, momo mo momo, momo ni mo iroiro aru    "Iie, boku ha nihonjin."
uraniwa ni wa niwa, niwa ni wa niwa niwatori ga iru    "Souka. Yappari gaijin!"