sandell@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Gregory Sandell) (06/24/88)
I must preface this by saying that this is no joke. Although maybe the folks who wrote Apollo's C compiler are joking. My supervisor has been compiling some C code on our Apollo workstations,and an error message comes up which is not explained at error time, nor in any manual. All it says is "Irish Alert" followed by a bunch of addresses and system garbage. The folks at Apollo got a real chuckle when we told them about it, and they're looking into it. Does "Irish Alert" have any general meaning in the C language, or is it specific to Apollos? Does it mean that a potato famine is coming? Greg Sandell
bobd@bloom.UUCP (Bob Donaldson) (06/25/88)
In article <5279@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu>, sandell@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Gregory Sandell) writes: > > My supervisor has been compiling some C code on our Apollo workstations,and an error message comes up which is not explained at error time, nor in > any manual. All it says is "Irish Alert" followed by a bunch of addresses > and system garbage. The folks at Apollo got a real chuckle when we told > them about it, and they're looking into it. Sounds like an improvement. Several years ago [1983] compiling C code on an Apollo was more like a twighlight zone alert. Seems they had copied Pascal definitions into the C ....h files and filtered them to change syntax. It worked pretty well except for the bit field definitions, which [of course] they used to access error message text for all system calls. Boy was THAT fun! ---------------------------- These views are barely my own - I won't even share them with my employers, so I doubt they share them with me. Bob Donaldson ...!ut-emx!juniper!radian!bobd ...!sun!texsun!radian!bobd
richardh@killer.UUCP (Richard Hargrove) (06/25/88)
In article <5279@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu>, sandell@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Gregory Sandell) writes: > Does "Irish Alert" have any general meaning in the C language, or is it > specific to Apollos? Does it mean that a potato famine is coming? What do you think? See the many references to Irish Business Machines in the writings of Stan Kelly-Bootle (start with _The Devil's DP Dictionary_). richard hargrove ...!{ihnp4 | codas | cbosgd}!killer!richardh --------------------------------------------
stu@linus.UUCP (Stuart A. Werbner) (07/01/88)
Have you considered that maybe this is a symptom of a benign virus? Stuart Werbner "Viruses aren't just for pc's anymore."
oj@apollo.uucp (Ellis Oliver Jones) (07/04/88)
In article <5279@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu> sandell@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu (Gregory Sandell) writes: > > My supervisor has been compiling some C code on our Apollo >workstations,and an error message comes up which is not explained... >All it says is "Irish Alert" followed by a bunch of addresses... >... Does it mean that a potato famine is coming? The message in question is DEFINITELY NOT caused by a virus that infects potato plants! In article <35669@linus.UUCP> stu@faron.UUCP (Stuart A. Werbner) writes: > Have you considered that maybe this is a symptom of a benign virus? The message in question is DEFINITELY NOT caused by a virus that infects computers, software, networks, or file systems, either. Although none of my esteemed colleagues will own up to programming this message, it is rumored that people working on compilers found an elusive bunch of bugs late in the evening one St. Patrick's day. Happy French-fry eating! Ollie Jones My opinions are my own, not necessarily those of Apollo Computer, Inc.
sandell@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Gregory Sandell) (07/04/88)
Hello, I was the original poster on the "Irish Alert" article. I found out the answer to the question and thought I'd share it with you all. It seems that this error response was the result of a bug in the C compiler which the Apollo people noticed in the compiler on St. Patrick's Day. The error message is a vestige of the development stage and was not meant to remain in the released version. Greg Sandell