henry (10/27/82)
Our uucp seems to have had a bit of a locking problem last night, I know not why. Our rnews indicated that about a dozen articles had problems. It is quite possible that these got out to some sites but not others. Here's what rnews sent to uucp's mailbox; you may want to check to see whether your system has gotten these items. (System administrators of systems who didn't get one or more, please let me know: I'd like to find out if there was a pattern of some sort.) ------------------------------------------ >From uucp Wed Oct 27 07:43:04 1982 rnews AERROR - (ret != -1) LOCK PROBLEM - LCK.SEQL----- From: decvax!cca!clyde@Utexas-11@sri-unix Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards Title: Reply to: efficiency of /etc/passwd lookup Article-I.D.: sri-unix.4044 Posted: Tue Oct 26 03:43:28 1982 From: Clyde W Hoover <clyde@Utexas-11> Date: 23 Oct 1982 at 2042-CDT We here at Utexas are working on a UNIX User Data Base system that contains all the sort of things you suggest. I designed the system along lines such as you mentioned. We will be keeping all accounting information in the data base, program privilegdes (in particular ARPANET access), and all sorts of other goodies. In addition, there is a 'whois' user information block that users can set (real name, phone #, colleagues, etc - like the 20 finger/whowill be data base). This data is publicly readable while the system data will not be. We will be generating /etc/passwd from this data base, and I plan to do some really sick things to the encrypted passwords in /etc/passwd (since we won't be using them for anything real) to lead totally astray any brute-forcers. The access and modification libary routines are completed and I am now working on the first version of the data base manager. I hope to have something that can be looked at by other folks sometime towards the end of November, by Usenix next Jan. for sure (maybe not a distribution, but we'll see). I plan for the data base to affect the operation of the system in many essential ways. Most importantly, we will have total administrative control over user capabilites (disk quotas, whether they can send or recieve mail, even if they can change their password). There are a lot more possibilities that I have only begun to think about, and won't know the feasability of until we actually start using it. ------- ----- >From uucp Wed Oct 27 07:50:15 1982 rnews AERROR - (ret != -1) LOCK PROBLEM - LCK.SEQL----- From: decvax!harpo!ihps3!ihuxr!dlr Newsgroups: net.jokes Title: Re: trb Article-I.D.: ihuxr.161 Posted: Tue Oct 26 08:32:46 1982 Well folks, the show is over. The Great Pavod (cwruecmp!krm) is on to our game. The truth finally comes out, but Andy is not the only one. Actually, ALL items that come from BTL sites are the result of an AI project. Each and every last submission is really the work of a deamon on the machine that spawns the article. Why, just this morning I had to be re-started after my water bed took a floating exception... Not afraid to core dump, Dave Rosik ihuxr!dlr BTL Naperville PID 13746 ----- >From uucp Wed Oct 27 08:01:38 1982 rnews AERROR - (ret != -1) LOCK PROBLEM - LCK.SEQL----- From: decvax!harpo!ihps3!ixn5h!dcn Newsgroups: net.micro Title: More Ultimate Computer Games Article-I.D.: ixn5h.116 Posted: Tue Oct 26 08:59:53 1982 One of the most sophisticated computer games ever written is now available for home computers. Zork is a large and complex decendant of original Adventure. It was first implemented on main- frame machines, but has been adapted to micros by releasing it in three parts. Zork's most interesting feature is the English-like input language, which allows for much more flexibility than "take rock" or "kill dragon". A short example follows: Kitchen You are in the kitchen of the white house. A table seems to have neen used recently for the preparation of food. A passage leads to the west and a dark staircase can be seen leading upward. A dark chimney leads down and to the east is a small window which is open. On the table is an elongated brown sack, smelling of hot peppers. A bottle is sitting on the table. The glass bottle contains: A quantity of water. > PICK UP pick up what? > ALL BUT SACK kitchen table: An interesting idea... glass bottle: Taken. quantity of water: I can't reach that. > TAKE SACK Taken. > LOOK IN SACK The brown sack is closed. > OPEN SACK Opening the brown sack reveals a lunch, and a clove of garlic. > TAKE LUNCH OUT Taken. > TAKE CLOVE THEN PUT BOTTLE IN SACK Taken. Done. > LOOK IN SACK The brown sack contains: A glass bottle. The glass bottle contains: A quantity of water The other features of Zork include: large vocabulary, interesting puzzles to solve, other characters (troll, thief), witty remarks to dumb questions, and figuring out how to win. In short, Zork is a small universe to explore and conquer. It is a very attractive alternative to the "hack & slash" variety of "adventures" and the never-ending flow of arcade games from 15 year old hackers. For more information, see the list of articles appended. David Newkirk ixn5h!dcn "Zork: A Computerized Fantasy Simulation Game", by P. Lebling, M. Blank and T. Anderson, Computer, April 1979, p51-59. "How to Fit a Large Program into a Small Machine", M. Blank and S. Galley, Creative Computing, July 1980, p80-87. "Zork and the Future of Computerized Fantasy Simulations", P. Lebling, Byte, December 1980, p172-182. ----- >From uucp Wed Oct 27 08:25:39 1982 rnews AERROR - (ret != -1) LOCK PROBLEM - LCK.SEQL----- From: decvax!harpo!ihps3!ixn5c!inuxc!pur-ee!CSvax:mds Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards Title: want Pascal compiler with default case for TeX82 Article-I.D.: purdue.418 Posted: Tue Oct 26 12:36:40 1982 Am installing Don Knuth's TeX82 document compiler on a VAX 11/780 running Berkeley UNIX 4.1bsd. The task would be easier if we had a Pascal compiler that supported default cases in the case statement. Presently running Berkeley Pascal 2.0. Anybody have a suitable compiler? Please respond via mail. Mark Senn mds@purdue ...!decvax!pur-ee!purdue!mds ----- >From uucp Wed Oct 27 08:49:20 1982 rnews AERROR - (ret != -1) LOCK PROBLEM - LCK.SEQL----- From: decvax!harpo!ihps3!ixn5c!inuxc!pur-ee!CSvax:ncrday!larry Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards Title: Re: 11/24 and 11/44 printf problems Article-I.D.: ncrday.108 Posted: Mon Oct 25 12:22:12 1982 References: lime.309 UNIX System III is already ported to the PDP-11/44. I did it about a year ago and it has been made available to the world at large through AT&T in Greensboro, NC. You may want to contact them for the appropriate tapes and documentation. I also added an RK06/7 driver, fixed a bug (I think I did) in the RL01/2 driver, changed the TE16 driver to work as a UNIBUS device, and updated all relevant documentation (AT&T doesn't print these changes, but they are in the machine readable form of the tape). In relation to your question, I came accross the same problem, but that phase of the project was changed such that the VAX-11/730 became the target machine, so a solution was not pursued. Since then, I've left Western Electric and no longer have access to a PDP-11/44. Internally, AT&T also has the Version 7 system I moved to the 44 and UNIX 4.0. After that, I lost interest as has the Bell System in general with PDP-11s. I should also state that the system did work well on the 44 (outside of the problem indicated), but Berkeley 2.? for PDP-11s is a much more usable system and I would prefer it wherever possible. Larry Rogers purdue!ncrday!larry ----- >From uucp Wed Oct 27 08:51:41 1982 rnews AERROR - (ret != -1) LOCK PROBLEM - LCK.SEQL----- From: decvax!harpo!npoiv!alice!rabbit!jj Newsgroups: net.followup Title: Re: How can they do this Article-I.D.: rabbit.841 Posted: Tue Oct 26 14:50:29 1982 References: vax1.231 Well, Kurt, that wasn't my last word. I read your article again, and fixated on the part that aruged that the person must have some responsibility for their plight. That statement is untrue, very offensive to me, and also ignores the realities and psychology of families without income. In my own situation, I went to college from an economically depressed region, around Youngstown, Ohio, where even lousy jobs didn't exist. My father was dead, my mother 60 years old and on pension, and myself without any financial resources from the past. I challenge you to show me that I could have fixed the economy of the area, brought my father back to life, found employment for my mother, and created $20,000 of savings. What I could do, I did. I nearly killed myself trying. While it certainly wasn't your fault that this happened, or anyone's for that matter, I greatly resent your assumption that I had control over the situation.(I realize that you do not know me, and you were not directing your comments directly to me, but your statement included me, and I reserve the right to flame back.) Furthermore, I resent your lumping all "economically disadvantaged persons" under the same heading. So would, I suspect, a lot of other people. For the record, I am White, Celtic, and Protestant, and thus I didn't even qualify for the (VERY MINIMAL) affirmative action programs that were then in force, in fact, they continually siphoned resources away from me. rabbit!jj, who is unsubscribing to this newsgroup until he feels the adrenalin shutting off. ----- >From uucp Wed Oct 27 08:59:14 1982 rnews AERROR - (ret != -1) LOCK PROBLEM - LCK.SEQL----- From: decvax!harpo!ihps3!ixn5c!inuxc!pur-ee!uiucdcs!mcdaniel Newsgroups: net.singles Title: Re: Dear bmcjmp - (nf) Article-I.D.: uiucdcs.918 Posted: Mon Oct 25 22:33:27 1982 #R:rabbit:-83800:uiucdcs:26600001:000:164 uiucdcs!mcdaniel Oct 25 22:27:00 1982 Half of the messages on this net have "typogarphical erors", though. Depending on subtle spellings to get your point across on this net is definitely a *bad* idea. ----- >From uucp Wed Oct 27 09:20:32 1982 rnews AERROR - (ret != -1) LOCK PROBLEM - LCK.SEQL----- From: decvax!ittvax!swatt Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards Title: Re: register variables Article-I.D.: ittvax.474 Posted: Tue Oct 26 17:54:01 1982 References: sri-unix.4042 From: Brian Harvey <BH at SU-AI> Date: 22 Oct 1982 0752-PDT When I started working on a PDP-11/70, I was told by someone or other that the architecture of that machine was such that cache references were actually FASTER than register references, and therefore ints should NOT be declared as register ints. Registers should still be used for pointers which are being referenced through because that can be done in one instruction if the pointer is in a register. Question: what is the right register strategy for the Vax? Does it vary between models? Someone gave you bad advice -- ALL references in pdp-11 architecture are register-based. You CAN'T get to cache without first fetching a value out of a register. If you're talking about C, and the choice is between "register" and "auto" integers, the statement: register int foo = 0; will be: clr r4 and int foo = 0; will be: clr -4(r5) You can look in the timing section of any pdp-11 processor handbook and prove to yourself how much time the register declaration saves. Both compile into one instruction, but what counts is the number of memory cycles needed to fetch and store all the operands. What the processor handbook will give is the cost of each memory cycle and the time to add for each one if NOT found in cache. So the base times assume 100% cache hit. I'm not that familiar with VAX, but the addressing scheme seems to be the same. Note that DEC does not publish VAX instruction times. - Alan S. Watt ----- >From uucp Wed Oct 27 09:32:05 1982 rnews AERROR - (ret != -1) LOCK PROBLEM - LCK.SEQL----- From: decvax!harpo!floyd!cmcl2!philabs!sdcsvax!logo Newsgroups: net.records Title: Re: more surfmusic Article-I.D.: sdcsvax.2408 Posted: Sat Oct 23 21:43:09 1982 References: whuxlb.720 i will be talking to an uncle of a member of Honk sometime next week. i will post to the net whatever i find out. David (Reisner) uucp : ...!ucbvax!sdcsvax!logo arpanet : sdcsvax!logo@nprdc ----- >From uucp Wed Oct 27 09:37:42 1982 rnews AERROR - (ret != -1) LOCK PROBLEM - LCK.SEQL----- From: decvax!harpo!ihps3!ixn5c!inuxc!burton Newsgroups: net.trivia Title: TV Trivia Answers Article-I.D.: inuxc.487 Posted: Tue Oct 26 14:43:08 1982 The answers to the TV trivia questions I posted (with their questions): 1. The show I was thinking of which aired more than once a week was Batman. Apparently, some others remembered Peyton Place also aired more than once a week. 2. The only 2 45 minute prime time shows which I know of were Music Scene and The New People, which ran in late 1969. They were back to back (of course), from 7:30 to 8:15 and 8:15 to 9:00. Now, does anyone out there remember these shows (besides the one person who sent me the correct answer)? As for the new trivia question, which neighbor on an old tv show went on to direct a hit nostalgia tv show, that was the old Dick Van Dyke show, and the neighbor was of course Rob's dentist-neighbor Jerry (whose wife's name was Millie, although I can't remember their last name); he later went on to direct the Happy Days show. (I watch 'Entertainment Tonight' too!). Doug Burton inuxc!burton ----- >From uucp Wed Oct 27 09:47:46 1982 rnews AERROR - (ret != -1) LOCK PROBLEM - LCK.SEQL----- From: decvax!harpo!floyd!cmcl2!philabs!sdcsvax!davidson Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards Title: Re: Up with files that begin with a dot?? Article-I.D.: sdcsvax.2412 Posted: Mon Oct 25 05:15:15 1982 References: tpdcvax.180 I use invisible . files for lots of purposes, which would otherwise require an extra directory to contain them in EVERY regular directory: 1. My rm (and mv, cp and ln where they would stomp a file) prepend the file to be removed with a #, and stash them under the directory .save in the directory the file is removed from (successive versions go into .save/1, .save/2, etc.). Thus, I never lose files, but they go away magically as soon as they've been backed up (well, that night). 2. My cd, push and pop aliases (push=pushd, pop=popd) are all of the form `come ; ... ; go', where: alias come `if (-e .chdir_come) source .chdir_come' alias go 'if (-e .chdir_go) source .chdir_go' provide the hooks that allow me to make directories active objects, in which special aliases live, which start up programs automatically on entering, and delete them when leaving, etc. 3. EMACS leaves special . prefixed files in directories to allow EMACS to default to editing the last file you edited in a particular directory. Its actually rather nice. 4. .lock directories in a shared account I set up locked files against multiple editing, by having vi check for (approximately) head-of-filename/.lock/tail-of-filename to see if the file was being edited. 5. .log provided a mechanism for logging the use of files in the same shared account mentioned above. `Invisible' files are great! How can you doubt it after reading DEC WARS!? Greg ----- >From uucp Wed Oct 27 10:11:54 1982 rnews AERROR - (ret != -1) LOCK PROBLEM - LCK.SEQL----- From: decvax!harpo!ihps3!ixn5c!inuxc!pur-ee!CSvax:dmc Newsgroups: net.micro Title: Request for info Article-I.D.: purdue.421 Posted: Tue Oct 26 16:23:41 1982 Can anyone recommend a book or magazine article which contains a compilation of the organizations and instruction sets of the current widely-used microprocessors? Thanks. Dave Capka purdue!dmc dmc@purdue ----- >From uucp Wed Oct 27 10:17:54 1982 rnews AERROR - (ret != -1) LOCK PROBLEM - LCK.SEQL----- From: decvax!yale-com!bj Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards Title: Re: What"s the difference between UNIX and UN*X? Article-I.D.: yale-com.154 Posted: Tue Oct 26 22:00:25 1982 References: otuxa.135 There are legal problems with using UNIX (tm). Every time you mention it, the lawyers at Ma Bell want you to say it is a registered trademark of somebody. They also want the word to be an adjective ("The UNIX system" rather than "UNIX"). Since I would never want to cause them problems (I don't want to lose my phone), I avoid using the "adjective" UNIX. Instead I use the (non-trademarked) noun UN*X. B.J. decvax!yale-comix!herbison-bj Herbison-BJ@Yale ----- >From uucp Wed Oct 27 11:30:23 1982 rnews AERROR - (ret != -1) LOCK PROBLEM - LCK.SEQL----- From: decvax!harpo!eagle!mhuxt!mhuxj!cbosgd!mark Newsgroups: net.news.group Title: Re: ads on the net Article-I.D.: cbosgd.2752 Posted: Tue Oct 26 15:20:15 1982 Reply-To: mark@cbosgd.UUCP (Mark Horton) References: utah-gr.600 No commercial use of the ARPANET? Are you sure? There is lots of commercial use of the ARPANET, there are entire companies who do their business making heavy use of the ARPANET. BBN and RAND are two examples that come to mind. I do know that, technically, any "use" of the ARPANET by someone who is not a DOD contractor is illegal. Some people interpret this to include netnews articles originated by a person who is not a DOD contractor, others (including myself) feel that anything two consenting DOD contractors decide to send each other over the ARPANET in order to help do their DOD contract (and netnews, as a whole, helps them do their jobs) is OK. If there really is a problem with the ARPANET, and the ARPANET sites are worried that ads might be politically a bad thing to have appear on their machine, those sites should speak up. Mark ----- >From uucp Wed Oct 27 12:01:04 1982 rnews AERROR - (ret != -1) LOCK PROBLEM - LCK.SEQL----- From: decvax!harpo!ihps3!houxi!houxn!hsc Newsgroups: fa.works,net.works Title: Info. wanted on desktop UNIX systems Article-I.D.: houxn.292 Posted: Tue Oct 26 16:49:39 1982 I am compiling a set of descriptions of desktop, microprocessor-based UNIX systems. Pointers to manufacturers, distributors, magazine articles, reports, personal comments, sales literature, etc. would be appreciated. If there is sufficient interest I will publish a summary. Harvey S. Cohen (houxn!hsc) 1C314 Bell Labs 307 Middletown/Lincroft Rd. Lincroft, NJ 07738 (201)576-6059 ----- ------------------------------------------