barad@brand.UUCP (Herb Barad) (08/02/85)
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over a quaint and curious program written long before, While I nodded nearly sleeping, suddenly I heard a beeping From my console; bugs a-creeping, creeping in the system core. 'Twas some misstroke I had entered, errant thumbstroke not well centered, Just a typo, nothing more. Ah, distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December, When each dying disk pack member's fate was listed on the door. Eagerly I wished the morrow. Hopefully I'd seek to borrow Program guides to ease my sorrow, from the dump piled on the floor. For my small glich had created endless loops of cosines, fated To be rooted evermore. Deep into my console peering, long I sat there wondering, fearing, Doubting, dreaming dreams all mortal programmers had dreamt before, That some subroutine, much needed, had my core space just exceeded, And was therefore rudely weeded, banished from the system core, Exiled to where none can forage, software limbo: federal storage. There to languish evermore. Had this ghastly curse befell me? Cpu time now would tell me. Missing code could very well be anywhere. I must explore. LIB.FORTRAN, LIB.CARDECK, even secret LIB.STARTREK, All these DSNS I queried. To the last they came up poor. One last hope, a final member: biorhythms for November, Only this and nothing more. But I knew there was insurance for my toil and hard endurance. Nervously I sought assurance, hopefully I did implore, Day and hour, nay every second, when the grand machine had reckoned I had backed up all my labors safe within the system core. For eons it did cogitate, then printed out that fateful date. Quoth the console, "Nevermore." - John A. Kogut New Carollton, Maryland Datamation, January 1980 p.184 -- Herb Barad [USC - Signal and Image Processing Institute] ...!{lbl-csam,trwrb}!trwspf!herb or ...!{lbl-csam,trwrb}!trwspf!brand!barad