Thread View: alt.folklore.computers
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Started by Jonas Flygare
Tue, 19 Dec 1989 01:57
Some TOPS20 memories..
Author: Jonas Flygare
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 1989 01:57
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 1989 01:57
90 lines
5565 bytes
5565 bytes
A long, long time ago, when I was a second-year student.. :-)
a friend of mine wrote a small program, that would run on our
DEC2060. The program would sleep for some minutes, and then display a
random number of =,BS,>,BS,SPACE,BS,BS.. The result being a very small
pac-man lookalike gobbling the text you were writing. Then he would
walk around looking for terminals where the owner was out for coffee,
and install it in their LOGIN.CMD. Was it ever fun to see them sit down and
write, stop, stare, and then typeaway like crazy to keep up with the
pac-man.. :-) (Ahm, to be honest.. I also fell for this one.. :-)
Reminding this, I and a friend designed a PCL-script that would LINK
our terminal to some other users, and clear the screen. If they were
in EMACS, they would simply hit ^L, and go ahead. (These people being
1:st year students, on their first programming course) As they had been told
about completion and recognition, we supplied a more-than-usual smart
user interface in emacs. (Like filling out sentences, and program
structures... ) I wish I had a camera back then..
PCL could be used to have even more fun.. I wrote a PCL program once that
would switch most of the usual commands, so that DIR would list users,
WHO would show the date and time, etc, etc, and LOGOUT wouldn't work
until you said the secret word.. ("PLEASE!")..
Watching the teacher trying to figure out what was going on was the
best part..
(Of course we don't do these things anymore, we're much too grownup
for simple pranks like that.. .)
Our DEC2060 will be put to rest pretty soon. Sigh.. It's such a nice
machine. This summer we had a heat problem with it, and DEC FS came to
take a look. The guy thought it was a fan running slow, so he decided
to find out which one. This was accomplished by putting a screwdriver
into each fan, and listening... >SKREEEEEEE< >SKRREEEEEEE< >SKOOOOOOOO<
"This one's faulty, I'll change it." :-)
The "other" DEC2060 here have a tape station that sometimes malfunctions.
I was told that one of my friends was in the room when it was rewinding
a reel, and it jumped off the drive.. The other people told (very
animated story-telling inserted here..) how he was alternately being
chased by/trying to catch a tape wheel careening around the machine room
at some 90 mph.. :-) (Slight exaggeration here.. :-)--
jon...@kuling.docs.uu.se : "Doedth eddydthig dthrike you adth dthrayge
Jonas (flax) Flygare : aboud dthidth houdth?" -- Dirk Gently
Subject: Pac-man and the very-smart-EMACS
Newsgroups: alt.computer.folklore
A long, long time ago, when I was a second-year student.. :-)
a friend of mine wrote a small program, that would run on our
DEC2060. The program would sleep for some minutes, and then display a
random number of =,BS,>,BS,SPACE,BS,BS.. The result being a very small
pac-man lookalike gobbling the text you were writing. Then he would
walk around looking for terminals where the owner was out for coffee,
and install it in their LOGIN.CMD. Was it ever fun to see them sit down and
write, stop, stare, and then typeaway like crazy to keep up with the
pac-man.. :-) (Ahm, to be honest.. I also fell for this one.. :-)
Reminding this, I and a friend designed a PCL-script that would LINK
our terminal to some other users, and clear the screen. If they were
in EMACS, they would simply hit ^L, and go ahead. (These people being
1:st year students, on their first programming course) As they had been told
about completion and recognition, we supplied a more-than-usual smart
user interface in emacs. (Like filling out sentences, and program
structures... ) I wish I had a camera back then..
PCL could be used to have even more fun.. I wrote a PCL program once that
would switch most of the usual commands, so that DIR would list users,
WHO would show the date and time, etc, etc, and LOGOUT wouldn't work
until you said the secret word.. ("PLEASE!")..
Watching the teacher trying to figure out what was going on was the
best part..
(Of course we don't do these things anymore, we're much too grownup
for simple pranks like that.. .)
Our DEC2060 will be put to rest pretty soon. Sigh.. It's such a nice
machine. This summer we had a heat problem with it, and DEC FS came to
take a look. The guy thought it was a fan running slow, so he decided
to find out which one. This was accomplished by putting a screwdriver
into each fan, and listening... >SKREEEEEEE< >SKRREEEEEEE< >SKOOOOOOOO<
"This one's faulty, I'll change it." :-)
The "other" DEC2060 here have a tape station that sometimes malfunctions.
I was told that one of my friends was in the room when it was rewinding
a reel, and it jumped off the drive.. The other people told (very
animated story-telling inserted here..) how he was alternately being
chased by/trying to catch a tape wheel careening around the machine room
at some 90 mph.. :-) (Slight exaggeration here.. :-)
--
jon...@kuling.docs.uu.se : "Doedth eddydthig dthrike you adth dthrayge
Jonas (flax) Flygare : aboud dthidth houdth?" -- Dirk Gently
Re: Some TOPS20 memories..
Author: schw... Scott Schwartz
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 1989 08:37
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 1989 08:37
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In article <1302@kuling.UUCP> jonasf@kuling.UUCP (Jonas Flygare) writes: >Our DEC2060 will be put to rest pretty soon. Sigh.. It's such a nice >machine. This summer we had a heat problem with it, and DEC FS came to >take a look. The guy thought it was a fan running slow, so he decided >to find out which one. This was accomplished by putting a screwdriver >into each fan, and listening... >SKREEEEEEE< >SKRREEEEEEE< >SKOOOOOOOO< >"This one's faulty, I'll change it." :-) Well our engineering department has a DEC-10, and its not going to be put to rest soon.... The engineers do their own maintainance on it, though. The reason is that a few years back someone looked inside the (running) machine and saw that one of the power supplies had a hole in it, and a note from the DEC repairman taped to it saying "parts on order", and dated something like 1983. -- Scott Schwartz vacation? we don' need no steenking vacation!
Re: Some TOPS20 memories..
Author: w... Bill Fenner
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 1989 04:39
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 1989 04:39
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In article <1989Dec19.0...@psuvax1.cs.psu.edu> schw...@psuvax1.cs.psu.edu (Scott Schwartz) writes: |Well our engineering department has a DEC-10, and its not going to be |put to rest soon.... The engineers do their own maintainance on it, |though. The reason is that a few years back someone looked inside the |(running) machine and saw that one of the power supplies had a hole in |it, and a note from the DEC repairman taped to it saying "parts on |order", and dated something like 1983. Almost as good as our power conditioner. There's been a note on it since '84 or so that a new breaker is on order. The breaker very nearly completely refuses to reset after having blown. It needs a *lot* of patience to get it to work. I heard rumors that they were doing something about it the other day, but I don't believe it. 5 years just is too unbelievably short a response time. -- Bill Fenner w...@hcx.psu.edu ..!psuvax1!psuhcx!wcf sy...@hogbbs.fidonet.org (1:129/87 - 814/238-9633) ..!lll-winken!/
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