My sister opened a computer store in Hawaii. She sells C shells by the seashore.
A computer program does what you tell it to do, not what you want it to do.
A computer scientist is someone who fixes things that aren't broken.
I bet the human brain is a kludge. - Marvin Minsky
I haven't lost my mind; it's backed up on tape somewhere.
The program is absolutely right; therefore the computer must be wrong.
Earth is 98% full...please delete anyone you can.
Any given program will expand to fill available memory.
Any nitwit can understand computers. Many do. - Ted Nelson
Any program that runs right is obsolete.
Artificial Intelligence: Making computers behave like they do in the movies.
CChheecckk yyoouurr dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh..
Diagnostics are the programs that run when nothing else will.
f u cn rd ths, u cn gt a gd jb n cmptr prgrmmng.
I came, I saw, I deleted all your files.
Never forget: 2 + 2 = 5 for extremely large values of 2.
My computer NEVER cras
Life would be so much easier if we could just look at the source code.
Long computations that yield zero are probably all for naught.
Meets quality standards: Compiles without errors.
Backups? We don't *NEED* no steenking baX%^~,VbKx NO CARRIER
All wiyht. Rho sritched mg kegtops awound?
System going down at 5 pm to install scheduler bug.
Unprecedented performance: Nothing ever ran this slow before.
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it.
The only thing good about "standards" in computer science is that there are so many to choose from.
If only women came with pull-down menus and online help.
If debugging is the process of removing bugs, then programming must be the process of putting them in. - Dykstra
If at first you don't succeed, call it version 1.0
Know Your Unix System Administrator - A Field Guide
There are four major species of Unix system administrators:
How To Identify Your System Administrator:
Situation: Low disk space.
Technical Thug: Writes a suite of scripts to monitor disk usage, maintain a database of historic disk usage, predict future disk usage via least squares regression analysis, identify users who are more than a standard deviation over the mean, and send mail to the offending parties. Places script in cron. Disk usage does not change, since disk-hogs, by nature, either ignore scriptgenerated mail, or file it away in triplicate.
Administrative Fascist: Puts disk usage policy in motd. Uses disk quotas. Allows no exceptions, thus crippling development work. Locks accounts that go over quota.
Maniac:
# cd /home
# rm -rf `du -s * | sort -rn | head -1 | awk '{print $2}'`;
Idiot:
# cd /home
# cat `du -s * | sort -rn | head -1 | awk '{ printf "%s/*\n", $2}'` | compress
Situation: Excessive CPU usage.
Technical Thug: Writes a suite of scripts to monitor processes, maintain a database of CPU usage, identify processes more than a standard deviation over the norm, and renice offending processes. Places script in cron. Ends up renicing the production database into oblivion, bringing operations to a grinding halt, much to the delight of the xtrek freaks.
Administrative Fascist: Puts CPU usage policy in motd. Uses CPU quotas. Locks accounts that go over quota. Allows no exceptions, thus crippling development work, much to the delight of the xtrek freaks.
Maniac:
# kill -9 `ps -augxww | sort -rn +8 -9 | head -1 | awk '{print $2}'`
Idiot:
# compress -f `ps -augxww | sort -rn +8 -9 | head -1 | awk '{print $2}'`
Situation: New account creation.
Technical Thug: Writes perl script that creates home directory, copies in incomprehensible default environment, and places entries in /etc/passwd, /etc/shadow, and /etc/group. (By hand, NOT with passmgmt.) Slaps on setuid bit; tells a nearby secretary to handle new accounts. Usually, said secretary is still dithering over the difference between 'enter' and 'return'; and so, no new accounts are ever created.
Administrative Fascist: Puts new account policy in motd. Since people without accounts cannot read the motd, nobody ever fulfills the bureaucratic requirements; and so, no new accounts are ever created.
Maniac: "If you're too stupid to break in and create your own account, I don't want you on the system. We've got too many goddamn sh*t-for-brains a**holes on this box anyway."
Idiot:
# cd /home; mkdir "Bob's home directory"
# echo "Bob Simon:gandalf:0:0::/dev/tty:compress -f" > /etc/passwd
Situation: Root disk fails.
Technical Thug: Repairs drive. Usually is able to repair filesystem from boot monitor. Failing that, front-panel toggles microkernel in and starts script on neighboring machine to load binary boot code into broken machine, reformat and reinstall OS. Lets it run over the weekend while he goes mountain climbing.
Administrative Fascist: Begins investigation to determine who broke the drive. Refuses to fix system until culprit is identified and charged for the equipment.
Maniac, large system: Rips drive from system, uses sledgehammer to smash same to flinders. Calls manufacturer, threatens pets. Abuses field engineer while they put in a new drive and reinstall the OS. Maniac, small system: Rips drive from system, uses ball-peen hammer to smash same to flinders. Calls Requisitions, threatens pets. Abuses bystanders while putting in new drive and reinstalling OS.
Idiot: Doesn't notice anything wrong.
Situation: Poor network response.
Technical Thug: Writes scripts to monitor network, then rewires entire machine room, improving response time by 2%. Shrugs shoulders, says, "I've done all I can do," and goes mountain climbing.
Administrative Fascist: Puts network usage policy in motd. Calls up Berkeley and AT&T, badgers whoever answers for network quotas. Tries to get xtrek freaks fired.
Maniac: Every two hours, pulls ethernet cable from wall and waits for connections to time out.
Idiot:
# compress -f /dev/en0
Situation: User questions.
Technical Thug: Hacks the code of emacs' doctor-mode to answer new users questions. Doesn't bother to tell people how to start the new "guru-mode", or for that matter, emacs.
Administrative Fascist: Puts user support policy in motd. Maintains queue of questions. Answers them when he gets a chance, often within two weeks of receipt of the proper form.
Maniac: Screams at users until they go away. Sometimes barters knowledge for powerful drink and/or sycophantic adulation.
Idiot: Answers all questions to best of his knowledge until the user realizes few UNIX systems support punched cards or JCL.
Situation: *Stupid* user questions.
Technical Thug: Answers question in hex, binary, postfix, and/or French until user gives up and goes away.
Administrative Fascist: Locks user's account until user can present documentation demonstrating their qualification to use the machine.
Maniac:
# cat >> ~luser/. Cshrc
alias vi 'rm \!*;unalias vi;grep -v BoZo ~/. Csh> ~/. Z; mv -f ~/. Z ~/. Cshrc'
^D
Idiot: Answers all questions to best of his knowledge. Recruits user to system administration team.
Situation: Process accounting management.
Technical Thug: Ignores packaged accounting software; trusts scripts to sniff out any problems & compute charges.
Administrative Fascist: Devotes 75% of disk space to accounting records owned by root and chmod'ed 000.
Maniac: Laughs fool head off at very mention of accounting.
Idiot:
# lpr /etc/wtmp /usr/adm/paact
Situation: Religious war, BSD vs. System V.
Technical Thug: BSD. Crippled on System V boxes.
Administrative Fascist: System V. Horrified by the people who use BSD. Places frequent calls to DEA.
Maniac: Prefers BSD, but doesn't care as long as HIS processes run quickly.
Idiot:
# cd c:
Situation: Religious war, System V vs. AIX
Technical Thug: Weeps.
Administrative Fascist: AIX-- doesn't much care for the OS, but loves the jackboots.
Maniac: System V, but keeps AIX skills up, knowing full well how much Big Financial Institutions love IBM...
Idiot: AIX.
Situation: Balky printer daemons.
Technical Thug: Rewrites lpd in FORTH.
Administrative Fascist: Puts printer use policy in motd. Calls customer support every time the printer freezes. Tries to get user who submitted the most recent job fired.
Maniac: Writes script that kills all the daemons, clears all the print queues, and maybe restarts the daemons. Runs it once a hour from cron.
Idiot:
# kill -9 /dev/lp ; /dev/lp &
Situation: OS upgrade.
Technical Thug: Reads source code of new release, takes only what he likes.
Administrative Fascist: Instigates lawsuit against the vendor for having shipped a product with bugs in it in the first place.
Maniac:
# uptime
1:33pm up 19 days, 22:49, 167 users, load average: 6. 49, 6. 45, 6. 31
# wall
Well, it's upgrade time. Should take a few hours. And good luck on that
5:00 deadline, guys! We're all pulling for you!
^D
Idiot:
# dd if=/dev/rmt8 of=/vmunix
Situation: Balky mail.
Technical Thug: Rewrites sendmail. Cf from scratch. Rewrites sendmail in SNOBOL. Hacks kernel to implement file locking. Hacks kernel to implement "better" semaphores. Rewrites sendmail in assembly. Hacks kernel to . . .
Administrative Fascist: Puts mail use policy in motd. Locks accounts that go over mail use quota. Keeps quota low enough that people go back to interoffice mail, thus solving problem.
Maniac:
# kill -9 `ps -augxww | grep sendmail | awk '{print $2}'`
# rm -f /usr/spool/mail/*
# wall
Mail is down. Please use interoffice mail until we have it back up.
^D
# write max
I've got my boots and backpack. Ready to leave for Mount Tam?
^D
Idiot:
# echo "HELP!" | mail tech_support. AT. Vendor. Com%kremvax%bitnet! BIFF!!!
Situation: Users want phone list application.
Technical Thug: Writes RDBMS in perl and Smalltalk. Users give up and go back to post-it notes.
Administrative Fascist: Oracle. Users give up and go back to post-it notes.
Maniac: Tells the users to use flat files and grep, the way God meant man to keep track of phone numbers. Users give up and go back to post-it notes.
Idiot:
% dd ibs=80 if=/dev/rdisk001s7 | grep "Fred"
Other Guidelines:
Typical root . Cshrc File:
Technical Thug: Longer than eight kilobytes. Sources the output of a perl script, rewrites itself.
Administrative Fascist: Typical lines include:
umask 777
alias cd 'cd \!*; rm -rf ching *hack mille omega rogue xtrek >& /dev/null &'
Maniac: Typical lines include:
alias rm 'rm -rf \!*'
alias hose kill -9 '`ps -augxww | grep \!* | awk \'{print $2}\'`'
alias kill 'kill -9 \!* ; kill -9 \!* ; kill -9 \!*'
alias renice 'echo Renice\? You must mean kill -9.; kill -9 \!*'
Idiot: Typical lines include:
alias dir ls
alias era rm
alias kitty cat
alias process_table ps
setenv DISPLAY vt100
Hobbies, Technical:
Technical Thug: Writes entries for Obsfuscated C contest. Optimizes INTERCAL scripts. Maintains ENIAC emulator. Virtual reality .
Administrative Fascist: Bugs office. Audits card-key logs. Modifies old TVs to listen in on cellular phone conversations. Listens to police band.
Maniac: Volunteers at Survival Research Labs. Bugs office. Edits card-key logs. Modifies old TVs to listen in on cellular phone conversations. Jams police band.
Idiot: Ties shoes. Maintains COBOL decimal to roman numeral converter. Rereads flowcharts from his salad days at Rand.
Hobbies, Nontechnical:
Technical Thug: Drinks "Smart Drinks." Attends raves. Hangs out at poetry readings and Whole Earth Review events and tries to pick up Birkenstock MOTAS.
Administrative Fascist: Reads "Readers Digest" and "Mein Kampf." Sometimes turns up car radio and sings along to John Denver. Golfs. Drinks gin martinis. Hangs out in yuppie bars and tries to pick up dominatrixes.
Maniac: Reads "Utne Reader" and "Mein Kampf". Faithfully attends Dickies and Ramones concerts. Punches out people who say "virtual reality." Drinks damn near anything, but favors Wild Turkey, Black Bush, and grain alcohol. Hangs out in neighborhood bars and tries to pick up MOTAS by drinking longshoremen under the table .
Idiot: Reads "Time" and "Newsweek" and believes them. Drinks Jagermeister. Tries to pick up close blood relations; often succeeds, producting next generation of idiots.
1992 Presidential Election:
Technical Thug: Clinton, but only because he liked Gore's book.
Administrative Fascist: Bush. Possibly Clinton, but only because he liked Tipper.
Maniac: Frank Zappa.
Idiot: Perot.
1996 Presidential Election:
Technical Thug: Richard Stallman - Larry Wall.
Administrative Fascist: Nixon - Buchanan.
Maniac: Frank Zappa.
Idiot: Quayle.
Compound System Administrators:
Technical Fascist: Hacks kernel & writes a horde of scripts to prevent folk from ever using more than their fair share of system resources. Resulting overhead and load brings system to its knees.
Technical Maniac: Writes scripts that SEEM to be monitoring the system, but are actually encrypting large lists of passwords. Uses nearby nodes as beta test sites for worms.
Technical Idiot: Writes superuser-run scripts that sooner or later do an "rm -rf /".
Fascistic Maniac: At first hint of cracker incursions, whether real or imagined, shuts down system by triggering water-on-the-brain detectors and Halon system.
Fascistic Idiot:
# cp /dev/null /etc/passwd
Maniacal Idiot: Napalms the CPU.
-= computer humor =-= 2 =----------------------------------------------------
El Explicito:
"I tried the thing, ya know, and it worked, ya know, but now it doesn't, ya
know?"
Advantages: Provides interesting communication challanges.
Disadvantages: So do chimps.
Symptoms: Complete inability to use proper nouns
Real Case: One user walked up to a certain Armenian pod manager and said, "I
can't get what I want!" The pod manager leaned back, put his hands on his
belt-buckle, and said, "Well, ma'am, you've come to the right place."
Mad Bomber:
"Well, I hit Alt-f6, shift-f8, Cntrl-f10, f4, and f9, and now it looks all
weird."
Advantages: Will try to find own solution to problems.
Disadvantages: User might have translated document to Navajo without meaning
to.
Symptoms: More than six stopped jobs in UNIX, a 2:1 code-to-letter ratio in
WordPerfect
Real Case: One user came in complaining that his WordPerfect document was
underlined. When I used reveal codes on it, I found that he'd set and unset
underline more than fifty times in his document.
Frying Pan/Fire Tactician:
"It didn't work with the data set we had, so I fed in my aunt's recipe for
key lime pie."
Advantages: Will usually fix error.
Disadvantages: 'Fix' is defined VERY loosely here.
Symptoms: A tendancy to delete lines that get errors instead of fixing them.
Real Case: One user complained that their program executed, but didn't do
anything. The scon looked at it for twenty minutes before realizing that they'd
commented out EVERY LINE. The user said, "Well, that was the only way I could
get it to compile."
Shaman:
"Last week, when the moon was full, the clouds were thick, and formahaut was
above the horizon, I typed f77, and lo, it did compile."
Advantages: Gives insight into primative mythology.
Disadvantages: Few scons are anthropology majors.
Symptoms: Frequent questions about irrelavent objects.
Real Case: One user complained that all information on one of their disks
got erased (as Norton Utilities showed nothing but empty sectors, I suspect
nothing had ever been on it). Reasoning that the deleted information went
*somewhere*, they wouldn't shut up until the scon checked four different disks
for the missing information.
X-user:
"Will you look at those...um, that resolution, quite impressive, really."
Advantages: Using the cutting-edge in graphics technology.
Disadvantages: Has little or no idea how to use the cutting-edge in graphics
technology.
Symptoms: Fuzzy hands, blindness
Real Case: When I was off duty, two users sat down in front of me at DEC
station 5000/200s that systems was reconfiguring. I suppressed my laughter
while, for twenty minutes, they sat down and did their best to act like they
were doing exectly what they wanted to do, even though they couldn't log in.
Miracle Worker:
"But it read a file from it yesterday!" 'Sir, at a guess, this disk has been
swollowed and regurgitated.' "But I did that a month ago, and it read a file
from it yesterday!"
Advantages: Apparently has remarkable luck when you aren't around.
Disadvantages: People complain when scons actually use the word
"horse-puckey".
Symptoms: Loses all ability to do impossible when you're around. Must be
the kryptonite in your pocket.
Real Case: At least three users have claimed that they've loaded IBM
WordPerfect from Macintosh disks.
Taskmaster:
"Well, this is a file in MacWrite. Do you know how I can upload it to MUSIC,
transfer it over to UNIX from there, download it onto an IBM, convert it to
WordPerfect, and put it in three-column format?"
Advantages: Bold new challanges.
Disadvantages: Makes one wish to be a garbage collector.
Symptoms: An inability to keep quiet. Strong tendancies to make machines do
things they don't want to do.
Real Case: One user tried to get a scon to find out what another person's
E-mail address was even though the user didn't know his target's home system,
account name, or real name.
Maestro:
"Well, first I sat down, like this. Then I logged on, like this, and after
that, I typed in my password, like this, and after that I edited my file, like
this, and after that I went to this line here, like this, and after that I
picked my nose, like this..."
Advantages: Willing to show you exactly what they did to get an error.
Disadvantages: For as long as five or six hours.
Symptoms: Selective deafness to the phrases, "Right, right, okay, but what
was the ERROR?", and a strong fondness for the phrase, "Well, I'm getting to
that."
Real Case: I once had to spend half an hour looking over a user's shoulder
while they continuously retrieved a document into itself and denied that they
did it (the user was complaining that their document was 87 copies of the same
thing).
Princess (unfair, perhaps, as these tend, overwhelmingly, to be males):
"I need a Mac, and someone's got the one I like reserved, would you please
garrote him and put him in the paper recycling bin?"
Advantages: Flatters you with their high standards for your service.
Disadvantages: Impresses you with their obliviousness to other people on
this planet.
Symptoms: Inability to communicate except by complaining.
Real Case: One asked a scon to remove the message of the day because he (the
user) didn't like it.
Micro was a real-time operator and dedicated multi-user. His broad-band
protocol made it easy for him to interface with numerous input/output devices,
even if it meant time-sharing.
One evening he arrived home just as the Sun was crashing, and had parked his
Motorola 68040 in the main drive (he had missed the 5100 bus that morning), when
he noticed an elegant piece of liveware admiring the daisy wheels in his garden.
He thought to himself, "She looks user-friendly. I'll see if she'd like an
update tonight."
Mini was her name, and she was delightfully engineered with eyes like COBOL
and a PRIME mainframe architecture that set Micro's peripherals networking
all over the place.
He browsed over to her casually, admiring the power of her twin, 32-bit
floating point processors and enquired "How are you, Honeywell?". "Yes, I am
well", she responded, batting her optical fibers engagingly and smoothing her
console over her curvilinear functions.
Micro settled for a straight line approximation. "I'm stand-alone tonight",
he said, "How about computing a vector to my base address? I'll output a byte
to eat, and maybe we could get offset later on."
Mini ran a priority process for 2.6 milliseconds, then transmitted 8 K.
"I've been dumped myself recently, and a new page is just what I need to refresh
my disks. I'll park my machine cycle in your background and meet you inside."
She walked off, leaving Micro admiring her solenoids and thinking, "Wow, what a
global variable, I wonder if she'd like my firmware?"
They sat down at the process table to top of form feed of fiche and chips and
a bucket of baudot. Mini was in conversation mode and expanded on ambiguous
arguments while Micro gave the occasional acknowledgements, although, in
reality, he was analyzing the shortest and least critical path to her entry
point. He finally settled on the old 'Would you like to see my benchmark
routine', but Mini was again one step ahead.
Suddenly she was up and stripping off her parity bits to reveal the full
functionality of her operating system software. "Let's get BASIC, you RAM", she
said. Micro was loaded by this; his hardware was in danger of overflowing its
output buffer, a hang-up that Micro had consulted his analyst about. "Core",
was all he could say, as she prepared to log him off.
Micro soon recovered, however, when Mini went down on the DEC and opened her
divide files to reveal her data set ready. He accessed his fully packed root
device and was just about to start pushing into her CPU stack, when she
attempted an escape sequence.
"No, no!", she cried, "You're not shielded!"
"Reset, Baby", he replied, "I've been debugged."
"But I haven't got my current loop enabled, and I can't support child
processes", she protested.
"Don't run away", he said, "I'll generate an interrupt."
"No, that's too error prone, and I can't abort because of my design
philosophy."
Micro was locked in by this stage, though, and could not be turned off. But
Mini soon stopped his thrashing by introducing a coltage spike into his main
supply, whereupon he fell over with a head crash and went to sleep.
"Computers!", she thought, as she recompiled herself. "All they ever think
of is hex!"
====================================================================
One night, when his charge was pretty high, Micro-Farad decided to seek out a cute coil to let him discharge. He picked up Milli-Amp and took her for a ride on his Megacycle. They rode across the Wheatstone Bridge, around the Sine Waves, and stopped in the Magnetic Field by a flowing current. Micro-Farad, attracted by Milli-Amp's characteristic curves, soon had her fully charged and excited her resistance to a minimum. He laid her on the ground potential, raised her frequency, and lowered her reluctance. He pulled out his high voltage probe and inserted it in her socket, connecting them in parallel and began short circuiting her resistance shunt. Fully excited, Milli-Amp mumbled "OHM-OHM-OHM". With his tube operating at maximum and her field vibrating with his current flow, her shunt overheated, and Micro-Farad was rapidly discharged and drained of every electron. They fluxed all night trying various connections and sockets until his magnet had a soft core and had lost all it's field strength. Afterwards, Milli-Amp tried self-induction and damaged her solenoids. And with his battery fully discharged, Micro-Farad was unable to excite his field, so they spent the rest of the night reversing polarity and blowing each other's fuses.
=====================================================================
There was a doctor, a civil engineer, and a computer scientist sitting around
late one evening, and they got to discussing which was the oldest profession.
The doctor pointed out that according to Biblical tradition, God created Eve
from Adam's rib. This obviously required surgery, so therefore that was the
oldest profession in the world.
The engineer countered with an earlier passage in the Bible that stated that
God created order from the chaos, and that was most certainly the biggest and
best civil engineering example ever, and also proved that his profession was the
oldest profession.
The computer scientist leaned back in her chair, and with a sly smile
responded, "Yes, but who do you think created the chaos?"
======================================================================
Ten little gigabytes, waiting on line
one caught a virus, then there were nine.
Nine little gigabytes, holding just the date,
someone jammed a write protect, then there were eight.
Eight little gigabytes, should have been eleven,
then they cut the budget, now there are seven.
Seven little gigabytes, involved in mathematics
stored an even larger prime, now there are six.
Six little gigabytes, working like a hive,
one died of overwork, now there are five.
Five little gigabytes, trying to add more
plugged in the wrong lead, now there are four.
Four little gigabytes, failing frequently,
one used for spare parts, now there are three.
Three little gigabytes, have too much to do
service man on holiday, now there are two.
Two little gigabytes, badly overrun,
took the work elsewhere, now just need one.
One little gigabyte, systems far too small
shut the whole thing down, now there's none at all.
==============================================================
Last night, I dreamed that the Real World had adopted the "Unix Philosophy."
I went to a fast-food place for lunch. When I arrived, I found that the menu
had been taken down, and all the employees were standing in a line behind the
counter waiting for my orders. Each of them was smaller than I remembered,
there were more of them than I'd ever seen before, and they had very strange
names on their nametags.
I tried to give my order to the first employee, but he just said something
about a "syntax error." I tried another employee with no more luck. He just
said "Eh?" no matter what I told him. I had similar experiences with several
other employees. (One employee named "ed" didn't even say "Eh?," he just looked
at me quizzically.)
Disgusted, I sought out the manager (at least it said "man" on his nametag)
and asked him for help. He told me that he didn't know anything about "help,"
and to try somebody else with a strange name for more information. The fellow
with the strange name didn't know anything about "help" either, but when I told
him I just wanted to order he directed me to a girl named "oe," who handled
order entry. (He also told me about several other employees I couldn't care
less about, but at least I got the information I needed.) I went to "oe" and
when I got to the front of the queue she just smiled at me. I smiled back. She
just smiled some more.
Eventually, I realized that I shouldn't expect a prompt. I asked for a
hamburger. She didn't respond, but since she didn't say "Eh?" I knew I'd done
something right. We smiled at each other a little while longer, then I told her
I was finished with my order. She directed me to the cashier, where I paid and
received my order. The hamburger was fine, but it was completely bare...not
even a bun. I went back to "oe" to complain, but she just said "Eh?" a lot.
I went to the manager and asked him about "oe." The manager explained to me
that "oe" had thousands of options, but if I wanted any of them I'd have to know
in advance what they were and exactly how to ask for them. He also told me
about "vi," who would write down my order and let me correct it before it was
done, and how to hand the written order to "oe."
"vi" had a nasty habit of not writing down my corrections unless I told her
that I was about to make a correction, but it was still easier than dealing
directly with "oe." By this time, I was really hungry, but I didn't have enough
money to order again, so I figured out how to redirect somebody eles's order to
my plate. Security was pretty lax at that place. As I was walking out the
door, I was snagged by a giant Net. I screamed and woke up.
Guide to Posting on Bulletin Boards
How to debug a 'C' program - addendum
-= computer humor =-= 17 =----------------------------------------------------
Introducing
Studly-OS!!
Version 1.0
The Only Operating System You Will Ever Need!
Preface
Now that HappyNet is up and running, and Leader Kibo is ably directing the
entire world with his custom Mondo Zeugma 6866688786/XA/sxe/IV (see HappyNet
Manifesto), the fastest and best computer ever built in the history of time and
space (second best was Deep Thought), we at Studly Research, Inc. have come up
with an operating system that is simultaneously capable of keeping up with
Kibo's needs and sufficing for general use by all the rest of the common and
sometimes ignorant citizens of this planet, and of any other planets we can
think of.
No doubt you have been endlessly entertained by the furious religious
operating system wars now taking place on the PC hardware arena. Should you be
content with DOS and Windows? No! Should you switch to OS/2? No! Should you
try your luck running a buggy Windows NT beta? Never! How about NeXTstep/486,
or the upcoming Pink, or maybe Apple's System 7/486, or Linux, or Cray
XMP-OS/486?
None of these!!! We at Studly Research, Inc. have come up with a solution so
superior that the entire industry will soon switch over to our operating system
and accompanying software. Microsoft will fold and Bill Gates will get a job
working at a 7-11, handing out coupons. Apple will also collapse and John
Sculley will be found lying unconscious in a pool with a can of Pepsi and a
hypodermic needle lying nearby. IBM will survive, but will be forced to lay off
another 400,000,000 employees, and eventually end up as a subsidiary of the
Moscow McDonalds. The only surviving companies will be the cheap clone
manufacturers, producing faster and cheaper machines with the label
"Studly-Compatible" and "SPC" proudly displayed on the front panel.
What Is Studly-OS?
Studly-OS is the result of over three decades of intense operating systems reasearch at Studly Labs, also known as the Studly Laboratories For User Triumph, or SLUT. Extensive research with actual humans at SLUT, instead of the trained chimps used in most useability labs such as Xerox PARC*, Microsoft Barf-- and Borland Snooze--*, has determined that people are less interested in operating systems that offer a wide selection of native programs, or have a pretty interface, or simply go 'bing', than they are in the concept of an operating system that will quite simply solve ALL of their problems for them.
Studly-OS is that operating system.
Not only will Studly-OS make any clone computer, from a ten year-old XT to a 486/330DX10, capable of doing more than all the former operating systems ever developed, it will also quickly, seamlessly, and invisibly solve all of their personal problems and make them happy, rich, sexually irresistible and permanently wonderful.
But What Is The Cost?
Nothing. We at Studly Research, Inc. have gained from our own inventions to the extent that we are already happy, rich, sexually irresistible and permanently wonderful. We are offering Studly-OS to the public free of charge. Every ftp site will soon be carrying, and running under, Studly-OS, and free diskette, CD-ROM and Braille copies will be available at bookstores, K-Marts and oil refineries worldwide.
How Is This Technological Miracle Accomplished?
Most of the developments at Studly Research, Inc. are of course patent-protected and highly secret, although we do not balk at hyping tantalizing tidbits of Studly technology, simply to gain free press coverage. Studly-OS is built around a nanokernel, the advanced descendant of microkernel operating systems available today. Our crack team of coders, hackers and pizza enthusiasts took an early beta of Microsoft's Windows NT, completely disassembled and analyzed the code, and then built Studly-OS by doing everything completely differently. We'd like to thank Microsoft for $69 well spent as a helpful exercise on how not to design operating systems. Whereas NT's microkernel is fat enough to tip over a bus, Studly-OS's nanokernel fits in under 1k. Instead of a multiple message queue, Studly-OS uses a method where messages are intercepted before the application in question has even sent them out. We redesigned the Windows interface to appeal less to schizophrenics and came up with a fully object-oriented system where the objects not only were oriented with respect to each other, but oriented themselves to best suit the individual computer user, including sexual and political preferences. No longer is the system merely user-friendly, it is positively user-worshiping!
The Operating System Respects The User
People work in different ways, and Studly-OS automatically adjusts to this, painlessly, seamlessly, smoothly and invisibly. We realize that most computer users want their operating systems to pretty much stay out of the way and run any application they choose to throw at it. Studly-OS handles all file manipulation. You will never touch another configuration file or menu again! For example, when the user sticks the first disk of an application in a drive, or even in between the little air vents in the front of the case, StudlyOS automatically determines what the program is, where it should be installed and how it should be set up, and then proceeds to build the rest of the program based on the contents of the first disk, taking out features which you will never use and adding those which the software manufacturer blindly left out. It then opens the icon editor and lets you create the ultimate icon for that application, filling in any tedious or difficult painting bits along the way. It then adds sound and animation to the icon, and while you watch, loads the application in the background and does your work for you while you play a quick game of Wing Commander III.
Studly-OS Is Compatible
Not sure if your application will run under Studly-OS? Studly-OS runs ALL software programs written for DOS (including those using VCPI, DPMI and Shmoodoo memory management, by rewriting and optimizing the code before installing) Windows (including Win32, Win32s, Win32c, Win32nb, Win32ack and Win32thbbth!), OS/2, GEM, AmigaDOS (including games which refuse to run on any Amiga past a 500), NeXTstep, Unix (Studly-OS maintains a daily-updated database on every Unix variation in existence, and automatically recompiles any Unix program in the background to work on your system) TRS-DOS, Apple ][ DOS and ProDOS, Macintosh Systems 1 through 9, Timex-Sinclair ZX81 programs, Atari 2600, Nintendo and Sega game cartridges, Heathkit HDOS, CP/M (including utilities that used weird Z80 opcodes), Epson's Q-DOS, Cromenco DOS, RISC OS, Commodore C=64, 128, VIC-20 and Plus/4 programs, and Coleco ADAM software. If Studly-OS encounters an application written for a platform it does not support, it rewrites it to conform to established standards. If Studly-OS senses that a particular application is not running at sufficient speed, it rewrites the code until it exceeds the performance on the best hardware available. For example, one user managed to get Studly-OS to run Strike Commander on his XT with 8-bit VGA, and noted that the game response was "very smooth, at least 60 frames per second with no flicker or pauses that I could find."
Studly-OS Offers Superior Compression
Although the operating system itself, due to incredibly tight and sexy coding, fits into less than 32k of RAM and 500k of disk space, we realized that most user's applications are reaching such gargantuan sizes that we decided to include an advanced disk-compression package with the product. 16:1 lossless compression!! Yes, the reason this mythical product was never released to the marketplace was because we bought it out. Lock, stock, and barrel. You can compress a compressed file as many times as you like until all programs are down to the theoretical minimum of 1k! Yet still not lose any data. Of course, with all your programs at 1k, uncompression may take a little longer. However, we feel the extra disk space is truly worth it. Most graphics files, including .JPGs and .GIFs, can be safely compressed down to less than 32 bytes, especially the nudes, which all look pretty much the same anyway. Pictures of Madonna can be packed as small as 1 byte.
Studly-OS Is Here, Now!
No Microsoft FUD. No promises of shipments "when it's ready". Studly-OS is ready and available for you to install NOW! What are you waiting for?
Studly-OS Is Bug-Free!
Others promise, but we deliver. We don't have to name our product 3.1 just to fool people into thinking that it is a tested system. Studly-OS is, and will always be, version 1.0! There will never be a need for an upgrade! And no, if you discover a bug, we don't send in the SWAT team to prove that you are an inconsiderate moron with the technical knowledge of a squashed gnat that can't even find his way out of the refrigerator. In fact, if you do find a bug, we are prepared to give you a $1 million prize, and an all-expenses paid tour to the fabulous Studly RESEARCH LABS in beautiful Barbados, where you will get to meet the Studly-OS design team and go for dinner and drinks! Then we will send out patches to everyone in the world free of charge.
Compare Studly-OS With Those "Other" Systems!
Feature Studly-OS! DOS/ OS/2 NT Unix
Windows
Nanokernel technology Yes! No No Hah! No
16:1 Lossless compress Yes! No No No No
Free Origin game Yes! No No Heh!! Hah!
(rewritten to actually
handle memory the way
sane people would)
Automatically finishes
important work for you Yes! No No No Work???
Free hyper-animator to
make Babylon 5 look
like Popeye cartoons Yes! No No No No
Ten million included
.GIFs, .WAVs and .WOWs Yes! No No No WOWs?
Automatically optimizes
application code Yes! No No Optimize? No! Makes you feel sexy Yes! HAH!!! No No Sex??? Tastes good with ice- cream and chips Yes! No No No Food??? Makes Bill Gates seem like a weenie Yes! Yes Yes Yes Yes Balances your checkbook Yes! No No No Money?? Washes your car Yes! No No No Automobiles? Improves self-esteem Yes! No No Worsens Suicide Makes you rich Yes! No No No sorry Supports SMP Yes! No Soon Yes Sometimes Requires SMP No No No Yes No Message-passing Yes! No Yes Yes Yes Message-losing No No No Yes core dumped Message-SENSING Yes! No No No guru Zen Yes! No No No flower Software support Great! Lame OK Where? Software?? Technical assistance None needed! No No No ARMM Documentation quality Great! Docs? OK Huh? grep General studliness Super! Ouch! So-so ICK! alt.angst RAM requirements 32k 640k 8 meg 16 meg How much??? Disk space required 500k 1 meg 30 meg 80 meg rm * OSes supported 24 1 3 3 Support? Price Free! $60 $99 $495 $0 < n < $oo
Here Are Some Real-Life Quotes Of People Who Have Used Studly-OS!
"I love it! It makes me want to eat!" - Rush Limbaugh
"Since it doesn't have the name Windows on it, it is an irrelevant platform."
"We will develop applications for Studly-OS if they sell two million copies in the first year, but they won't sell more than 25, no matter how many they actually sell." - Bill Gates
"Would you like fries with that?" - Bill Gates
"It's a beautiful day in the Studlyhood" - Fred Rogers
"Pull the other one!" - Patsy
"This is the most impressive operating system I have ever seen in my entire life. It makes everything else seem like damp kleenex. However, it will surely fail and become a dead operating system and fail and fail fail fail it must fail!!!! Because it doesn't have the power of Microsoft's marketing behind it."
"I'm sure I've used Studly-OS before" - Shirley MacLaine
"I will be introducing the new Studly-OS-compliant retroactive moderation specifications directly to the Net" - Dick Depew
"I'm sorry, but I happen to own the copyrights to the letters O and S. Please send me all your money right away." - James "Kibo" Parry
"Ack! Pft!" - Bill The Ceo
"StudlyOS sucks!!!1111 Y00 think itz c00l but your rong!!!!!11111 I Cant run it on my Am1ga so what yoos is it????/ My Am1ga beats yor peecee anyday!!!!!! !!!11111111 Peecee even with StudlyOS cant beet Amiga because Amiga rules!!!! Amiga iz better because it is Amiga!!!1111 Nothing else is Amiga!!!11111"
Notes:
HappyNet, Mondo Zeugma, and O and S are trademarks of Kibo. Windows is NOT a trademark of Microsoft. B1FF is a trademark of himself.
While writing a document for some in-house software, the spell-checker in FrameMaker flagged the word "superuser."
The best correction Frame could offer was "suppressor."
Kind of makes you think...
Glossary of Software Engineering Terms
All new
The software is not compatible with previous versions.
Advanced design
Upper management doesn't understand it.
Breakthrough
It nearly booted on the first try.
Capability maturity model
A method of determining to what extent the developer can reasonably be blamed
for the inevitable failure.
Cleanroom
A management technique that applies to horizontal interfaces what the mushroom
technique applies to vertical interfaces.
Compiler
A tool for adding an exciting amount of uncertainty to the size, speed and
correctness of a program.
Computer human interface
The means by which the program conditions the user into never trying all the
things that don't work.
Cost modelling
A means of convincing the customer to pay for whomever you need to keep
employed this year.
Customer
A primitive life form at the bottom of the food chain.
Debugger
A tool that substitutes afterthought for forethought.
Design
The activity of preparing for a design review.
Design review
A process for ensuring you know exactly what it is you won't build.
Design simplicity
It was developed on a shoe-string budget.
Documentary hypothesis
The discredited notion that software is the outcome of a systematic and
rational process of development, rather than the result of divine inspiration.
Documentation
A process for converting trees into entropy, usually applied to provide
busywork for the people whose employment cannot be justified by cost
modelling.
Domain
A class of applications where failure on one project gives you an advantage in
bidding on the next.
Enhancement
Breaking what you did right and getting paid for it. [see also: maintenance]
Exclusive
We're the only ones who have the documentation.
Field tested
Manufacturing doesn't have a test system.
Foolproof operation
All parameters are hard coded.
Formal verification
The construction of an incorrect proof isomorphic to an incorrect program.
Function point analysis
Cost modelling a program by what it won't do, rather than by how big it won't
be.
Futuristic
It only runs on the next-generation supercomputer.
Incremental implementation
Delivering several partial products each for the price of a complete one.
It's here at last
We've released a 26-week project in 48 weeks.
Maintenance
Fixing what you did wrong and getting paid for it. [see also: enhancement]
Maintenance free
It's impossible to fix.
Meets quality standards
It compiles without errors.
New
It comes in different colors from the previous version.
Performance proven
It works through beta test.
Programs
What software used to be, back when we knew how to write it.
Programmer
One who is too lacking in people skills to be a software engineer.
Project management
The art of always knowing how badly you're doing your work and how late you're
doing it.
Quality assurance
A way to ensure you never deliver shoddy goods accidentally.
Real time
An attribute applied to software that's even more expensive than can be
justified by cost modelling.
Requirements analysis
Determining what it is you can't do before failing to do it.
Requirements engineering
Convincing the customer to want what you think you can build.
Requirements review
Explaining what the customer won't get in language they don't understand.
Reuse
Using an existing product in a new context; especially as applied to
proposals, resumes, disclaimers and excuses.
Revolutionary
The disk drives go round and round.
Satisfaction Guaranteed
We'll send you another copy if it fails.
Software engineer
One who engineers others into writing the code for him/her.
Spiral model
A development model that allows you to fail in a small way several times over.
[see also: waterfall model]
State-of-the-art
What we could do with enough money.
State-of-the-practice
What we can do with the money you have.
Stock item
We shipped it once before, and we can do it again, probably.
Structured walkthrough
The process whereby the false assumptions of one member become shared by an
entire team.
Technology transition
Helping people replace old useless processes, methods and tools with new
useless processes, methods and tools.
Testing
A process for ensuring that the product will work in all circumstances that
anybody other than the user can imagine.
Total quality management
A way of teaching your managers five words of Japanese, without any risk that
they will acquire an equivalent amount of competence.
Unprecedented performance
Nothing ever ran this slow before.
User
A harmless drudge.
Waterfall model
A development model that allows you to fail in a big way just once.
Years of development
We finally got one to work.
The Programmer's Quick Guide To Languages
The proliferation of modern programming languages (all of which seem to have stolen countless features from one another) sometimes makes it difficult to remember what language you're currently using. This handy reference is offered as a public service to help programmers who find themselves in such a dilemma.
Which language is right for you?
In order to help you make a competent, uncomplicated choice concerning the competition between complex, incompatible computer compilers, we have composed this complete, compact, composite compendium comprising comparisons to compensate for the complaints and complements of their compromises. We hope you will find it comprehensible rather than compost.
Task: Shoot yourself in the foot.
370 JCL: You send your foot down to MIS and include a 400-page document explaining exactly how you want it to be shot. Three years later, your foot comes back deep-fried.
Access: You try to point the gun at your foot, but it shoots holes in all your Borland distribution diskettes instead.
Ada: After correctly packing your foot, you attempt to concurrently load the
gun, pull the trigger, scream, and shoot yourself in the foot. When you try,
however, you discover you can't because your foot is of the wrong type.
or
The United States Department of Defense kidnaps you, stands you up in front of a
firing squad, and tells the soldiers, "Shoot at his feet."
or
A fly lands on your foot. After filling out the appropriate forms, in
triplicate, you succeed in requisitioning an M-16 to deal with the fly. You
then proceed to shoot your foot off. The fly survives.
APL: You shoot yourself in the foot, then spend all day figuring out how to do
it in fewer characters.
or
GN </ FT ^ BLT
or
You hear a gunshot, and there's a hole in your foot, but you don't remember
enough linear algebra to understand what the hell happened.
Assembler: You try to shoot yourself in the foot, only to discover you must
first invent the gun, the bullet, the trigger, and your foot.
or
You crash the OS and overwrite the root disk. The system administrator arrives
and shoots you in the foot. After a moment of contemplation, the administrator
shoots himself in the foot and then hops around the room rabidly shooting at
everyone in sight.
BASIC (interpreted): You shoot yourself in the foot with a water pistol. On large systems, continue until entire lower body is waterlogged.
BASIC (compiled): You shoot yourself in the foot with a BB using a SCUD missile launcher.
C: You shoot yourself in the foot and then no one else can figure out what you did.
C++: You accidentally create a dozen instances of yourself and shoot them all in the foot. Providing emergency medical assistance is impossible since you can't tell which are bitwise copies and which are just pointing at others and saying, "That's me, over there."
COBOL: Using a COLT 45 HANDGUN, AIM gun at LEG.FOOT, THEN place ARM.HAND.FINGER on HANDGUN.TRIGGER and SQUEEZE. THEN return HANDGUN to HOLSTER. CHECK whether shoelace needs to be re-tied.
Concurrent Euclid: You shoot yourself in somebody else's foot.
dBase: You buy a gun. Bullets are only available from another company and are promised to work so you buy them. Then you find out that the next version of the gun is the one that is scheduled to actually shoot bullets.
FORTH: Foot in yourself shoot.
FORTRAN: You shoot yourself in each toe, iteratively, until you run out of toes, then you read in the next foot and repeat. If you run out of bullets, you continue with the attempts to shoot yourself anyways because you have no exception handling capability.
HyperTalk: Put the first bullet of gun into foot left of leg of you. Answer the result.
LISP: You shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds...
Modula-2: You perform a shooting on what might currently be a foot with what
might currently be a bullet shot by what might currently be a gun.
or
After realizing that you can't actually accomplish anything in this language,
you shoot yourself in the head.
Motif: You spend days writing a UIL description of your foot, the bullet, its
trajectory, and the intricate scrollwork on the ivory handles of the
gun. When you finally get around to pulling the trigger, the gun jams.
Occam: You shoot both your feet with several guns at once.
ORCA/C: Byteworks keeps promising to supply good ammunition RSN!
Paradox: Not only can you shoot yourself in the foot, your users can, too.
Pascal: The compiler won't let you shoot yourself in the foot.
or
Same as Modula-2, except the bullet is not of the right type for the gun and
your hand is blown off.
or
You try to shoot yourself in the foot, but it tells you that your foot is the
wrong type and out of range to boot!
PL/I: After consuming all system resources including bullets, the data processing department doubles its size, acquires two new mainframes and drops the original on your foot.
Prolog (interpreted): Your program tries to shoot you in the foot, but you die of old age before the bullet leaves the gun.
Prolog (compiled): The facts are against you. You try to stop the gun from
shooting you in the foot, but it replies, "No."
or
You tell your program that you want to be shot in the foot. The program
figures out how to do it, but the syntax doesn't permit it to explain it to you.
Revelation: You are sure you will be able to shoot yourself in the foot, just as soon as you figure out what all those nifty little bullet-thingies are for.
Smalltalk, Actor: After playing with the graphics for three weeks the programming manager shoots you in the head.
SNOBOL: If you succeed, shoot yourself in the left foot. If you fail, shoot
yourself in the right foot.
or
Grab your foot with your hand and rewrite your hand to be a bullet.
Unix:
% ls
foot.c foot.h foot.o toe.c toe.o
% rm * .o
rm:.o no such file or directory
% ls
%
Visual Basic: You'll really only _appear_ to have shot yourself in the foot, but you'll have had so much fun doing it that you won't care.
If an OS Ran Your 'plane
If an OS Ran Your Airplane
DOS Airline: Everybody pushes the airplane until it glides, then they jump on and let the plane coast until it hits the ground again, then they push again, jump on again and so on.
DOS with QEMM Airline: The same thing but with more leg room to push.
Mac Airline: All the stewards, stewardesses, captains, baggage handlers, and ticket agents look the same, act the same, and talk the same. Every time you ask questions about details, you are told you don't need to know, don't want to know, and that everything will be done for you without you having to know, so just shut up.
OS/2 Airline: To board the plane, you have your ticket stamped ten different times by standing in ten different lines. Then you fill out a form showing where you want to sit and whether the plan should look and feel like an ocean liner, a passenger train, or a bus. If you succeed in getting on board the plane and the plane succeeds in getting off the ground, you have a wonderful trip...except for the times when the rudder and flaps get frozen in position, in which case you have time to say your prayers and get in crash position.
Windows Airline: The airport terminal is nice and colorful, with friendly stewards and stewardesses, easy access to the plane, and a completely uneventful takeoff...then, once in the air, the plane blows up without any warning whatsoever.
Win NT Airline: Everyone marches out on the runway, says the password in unison, and forms the outline of an airplane. Then they all sit down and make a whooshing sound like they're flying.
Unix Airline: Everyone brings one piece of the plane with them when they come to the airport. They all go out on the runway and put the plane together piece by piece, arguing constantly about what kind of plane they're building.
Mach Airline: There is no airplane. The passengers gather and shout for an airplane, then wait and wait and wait and wait. A bunch of people come, each carrying one piece of the plane with them. These people all go out on the runway and put the plane together piece by piece, arguing constantly about what kind of plane they're building. The plane finally takes off, leaving the passengers on the ground waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting. After the plane lands, the pilot telephones the passengers at the departing airport to inform them that they have arrived.
Newton Airline: After buying your tickets 18 months in advance, you finally get to board the plane. Upon boarding the plane, you are asked for your name. After 4-6 times, the crew member recognizes your name and you are then allowed to take your seat. As you are getting ready to take your eat, the steward announces that you will have to repeat the boarding process because they are out of room and need to recount to make sure they can take more passengers.
Did you ever wonder what driving to the store would be like if operating systems ran your car?
MS-DOS: You get in the car and try to remember where you put your keys.
WINDOWS: You get in the car and drive to the store very slowly because attached to the back of your car is a freight train.
OS/2: After fueling up with 6000 gallons of gas, you get in the car and drive to the store with a motorcycle escort and a marching band in procession. Halfway there, the car blows up, killing everybody in town.
UNIX: You get in the car and type GREP STORE. After reaching speeds of 200 mph en route, you arrive at the barber shop.
Windows NT: You get in the car and write a letter that says, "go to the store". Then you get out of the car and mail the letter to your dashboard.
OS/400: An attendant locks you into the car, then drives you to the store where you get to watch everybody else buy filet mignon.
Taligent/Pink: You walk to the store with Ricardo Montalban, who tells you how wonderful it will be when he can fly you to the store in his Learjet.
S/36 SSP: You get in the car and drive to the store. Halfway there, you run out of gas. While walking the rest of the way, you are run over by kids on mopeds.
MacIntosh System 7: You get in the car to go to the store and the car drives you to church.
Define Your Terms For Software Releases
define Your Terms For Software Releases
Advanced User: A person who has managed to remove a computer from its
packing materials.
Power User: A person who has mastered the brightness and contrast controls
on any computer monitor.
American Made: Assembled in America from parts made abroad.
Alpha Test Version: Too buggy to be released to the paying public.
Beta Test Version: Still too buggy to be released.
Release Version: Alternate pronunciation of "Beta Test Version".
Sales Manager: Last week's new sales associate.
Consultant: A former sales associate who has mastered at least one tenth of
the dBase III Plus Manual.
Systems Integrator: A former consultant who understands the term
AUTOEXEC.BAT.
AUTOEXEC.BAT: A sturdy aluminum or wooden shaft used to coax AT hard disks
into performing properly.
Backup: The duplicate copy of crucial data that no one bothered to make;
used only in the abstract.
Clone: One of the many advanced-technology computers IBM is beginning to
wish it had built.
Convertible: Transformable from a second-rate computer to a first-rate
doorstop or paperweight. (Replaces the term "junior".)
Copy Protection: A clever method of preventing incompetent pirates from
stealing software and legitimate customers from using it.
Database Manager: A program that allows users to manipulate data in every
conceivable way except the absolutely essential way they conceive of the day
after entering 20 megabytes of raw data.
EMS: Emergency Medical Service; often summoned in cases of apoplexy induced
by attempts to understand extended, expanded, or enhanced memory specs.
Encryption: A powerful algorithmic encoding technique employed in the
creation of computer manuals.
FCC-Certified: Guaranteed not to interfere with radio or television
reception until you add the cable that is required to make it work.
Hard Disk: A device that allows users to delete vast quantities of data with
simple mnemonic commands.
Integrated Software: A single product that deftly performs hundreds of
functions that the user never needs and awkwardly performs the half-dozen he
uses constantly.
Laptop: Smaller and lighter than the average breadbox.
Multitasking: A clever method of simultaneously slowing down the multitude
of computer programs that insist on running too fast.
Network: An electronic means of allowing more than one person at a time to
corrupt, trash, and otherwise cause permanent damage to useful information.
Portable: Smaller and lighter than the average refrigerator.
Support: The mailing of advertising literature to customers who have
returned a registration card.
Transportability: Neither chained to a wall or attached to an alarm system.
Printer: An electromechnical paper shredding device.
Spreadsheet: A program that gives the user quick and easy access to a wide
variety of highly detailed reports based on highly inaccurate assumptions.
Thought Processor: An eletronic version of the intended outline procedure
that thinking people instantly abandon upon graduation from high school.
Upgraded: Didn't work the first time.
User Friendly: Supplied with a full color manual.
Very User Friendly: Supplied with a disk and audiotape so the user need not
bother with the full color manual.
Version 1.0: Buggier than Maine in June; eats data.
Version 1.1: Eats data only occasionally; upgrade is free, to avoid
litigation by disgruntled users of Version 1.0.
Version 2.0: The version originally planned as the first release, except for
a couple of data-eating bugs that just won't seem to go away; no free upgrades
or the company would go bankrupt.
Version 3.0: The revision in the works when the company goes bankrupt.
Videotex: A moribund electronic service offering people the privelege of
paying to read the weather on their television screens instead of having Willard
Scott read it to them free while they brush their teeth.
Warranty: Disclaimer.
Workstation: A computer or terminal slavishly linked to a mainframe that
does not offer game programs.
Computers Made Stupid
Computers Made Stupid
Dr. Computer Science answers computer questions:
Q: What are bits and bytes?
The Power User's Guide to Power Users
Power Users never read their software manuals; instead they get petty cash from their secretaries and use it to buy books which contain the phrase "Power User" on the cover. They then keep the receipt, to claim against tax.
Software manufacturers write their manuals badly, and in computerese, in order to con Power Users into buying the manual ("XYZ for the Power User!") a second time. This extra revenue compensates the manufacturers somewhat for all the people who pirate their software and then buy Power User Guides to replace the manuals they never had...
Power Users never read their "Power User's Guide to ..." books, for the same reason they didn't read the software manuals in the first place. They do however skim the first two chapters, in which they make copious annotations (e.g. underlining phrases like "to get a directory listing, type 'DIR C: <enter>'. Note do not type the word '<enter>', or the quotes.")
Power Users get their companies to buy them 130MHz 80586 PS/4s with 100MB RAM and 5-gigabyte optical drives, which they bring home:
Power Users scold their children for referring to their machines as personal computers. "It's NOT a PC, Jimmy, it's my Professional Workstation, No Intergalactic Space Zombies for you tonight! Now, go to your room!"
Power Users get an identically equipped PC at work, so they can do the work they would do at home, if only ten-year-old Jimmy would stop playing Intergalactic Space Zombies for five consecutive minutes. The money for this PC comes out of the Real Programmers' software tools budget for the next three years.
Having worked out their mortagage repayments for the next 100 years, and having failed consistently to beat ten-year old Jimmy at Intergalactic Space Zombies, Power Users never touch their computers again; at work, they keep themselves occupied in meetings, so nobody will see them staring blankly at their PC screen. Meanwhile, the Real Programmers who work for them struggle by with aging IBM PCs (the originals ones, with a grudgingly-added Tallgrass disk drives - yuck!)
Rather than read their "Real Users Guide to..." books, Power Users turn to their ten-year-old kids for technical advice ("yes, Jimmy, I understand that, but how do I get the directory on the _D_ drive?")
Power Users get frustrated when they press the 'Print Screen' key and nothing happens: they thump it a dozen times before realising they've left the printer off-line.
Power Users sneak their children in outside office hours to work out why their spreadsheet figures don't add up and the Chairman's end-ofquarter report is due tomorrow.
In a strange twist of human psychology, the ten-year-old children of Power Users think that when they grow up, they'll become Real Programmers and make shit loads of money writing a game better than Intergalactic Space Zombies. (Sadly, they end up chugging out accounting software for Power Users.)
Power Users could master any PC application, if only they could figure out how to start it ("Uhhhm, it must be on this menu somewhere..".)
Power Users attend innumerable Power User courses, where they get a set of loose-leaf binders of notes they never read (but whose titles in genuine imitation gold leaf look impressive beside the "Power User's Guide to..." books which now accumulate a thick layer of dust on the shelf). They also drink a lot, and commiserate with each other how their Real Programmer subordinates are a bunch of overpaid, long-haired layabouts who can't be coerced into wearing shirts and ties, never mind a suit; and of course to swap Power Techniques like how to format a 360k disk in a 1.2MB drive and thus get more than 360k of data onto it ("I'll have my secretary call IBM Technical Support about all the bad sector things I'm getting on this disk.")
Power Users carry a pocket calculator for working out the cell values in their Lotus spreadsheets ("Um, I guess I didn't get to the section on formulas yet in my 'Power Users Guide to Lotus 1-2-3'".)
Power Users think "Your computer is stoned" is part of the DOS copyright banner.
The ten-year-old children Power Users mischievously stick pieces of cheese into every crevice of their parent's mouse, not realising that this causes testicular problems later in life (for the MOUSE, twit!).
Power Users don't think that last joke was funny.
Power Users get their secretaries to call IBM Technical Support to fix their defective mouse, because they're too embarassed to asked any of their Real Programmer subordinates how to open it to remove the cheese.
When nobody is looking, Power Users pretend their mouse is a toy car, and race it around the desk.
Power Users keep a large box of tissues on their desk to wipe the saliva off the screen after playing Test Drive (BRRRRRM! BRRRRRM!)
Power Users can't figure out how to make their modems stop auto-answering, so they alway lunge on their phone when it rings in an effort to beat it. They're never fast enough, and spend the first 30 seconds of the conversation apologising, while the modem auto-ranges, and they earnestly promise that they'll have their secretary call IBM Technical Support to have the problem rectified.
Power Users panic when they lose those dumb keyboard templates that come with programs like Turd Perfect (which are too brain-dead to have a decent user interface). They invariably mix up the templates when switching between programs.
Power Users have problems with Windows, when they have two or more applications running, but room for only one keyboard template.
Power Users buy those dumb mice that have a nearly full ASCII keyboard built-in to them ("Swiss Army Mouse (tm)").
Power Users believe computer salesmen.
Power Users will buy ANY program that makes wild promises on the box about increasing productivity. These boxes always look impressive on the bookshelf, beside the "Power User" books and course notes.
Power Users use MicroJerk ProjectMeister to schedule their wife's pregnancy, and get confused when they can't work out how to assign tasks and set milestones. They try to persuade the obstetrician to induce labour when she's late.
Power Users unreservedly believe their MicroJerk ProjectMeister when it says the project will be complete at 5pm on the last Friday in September next year, but eighteen months later, they won't believe the Real Programmer who says it'll be done "Real Soon Now (tm)".
Power Users believe the ads for 4GLs and Application Generator packages, and think that in two weeks they'll be able to fire all their Real Programmers. (Ha ha ha... remember "The Last One"?)
The Unix Hierarchy (The Eight Stages of Unix Knowledge)
Name Description and features
beginner - insecure with the concept of a terminal
- has yet to learn the basics of vi
- has not figured out how to get a directory
- still has trouble with typing <RETURN>
after each line of input
novice - knows that "ls" will produce a directory
- uses the editor, but calls it "vye"
- has heard of "C" but never used it
- has had his first bad experience with rm
- is wondering how to read his mail
- is wondering why the person next to him
seems to like Unix so very much.
user - uses vi and nroff, but inexpertly
- has heard of regular-expr.s but never seen one.
- has figured out that "-" precedes options
- has attempted to write a C program and has
decided to stick with pascal
- is wondering how to move a directory
- thinks that dbx is a brand of stereo component
- knows how to read his mail and is wondering
how to read the news
knowlegable - uses nroff with no trouble, and is beginning
user to learn tbl and eqn
- uses grep to search for fixed strings
- has figured out that mv(1) will move directories
- has learned that "help" doesn't help
- somebody has shown him how to write C programs
- once used sed to do some text substitution
- has seen dbx used but does not use it himself
- thinks that make is a only for wimps
expert - uses sed when necessary
- uses macro"s in vi, uses ex when neccesary
- posts news at every possible opportunity
- write csh scripts occasionally
- write C programs using vi and compiles with cc
- has figured out what "&&" and "||" are for
- thinks that human history started with "!h"
hacker - uses sed and awk with comfort
- uses undocumented features of vi
- write C code with "cat >" and compiles with "!cc"
- uses adb because he doesn't trust source debuggers
- can answer questions about the user environment
- writes his own nroff macros to supplement std.
ones
- write scripts for Bourne shell (/bin/sh)
- knows how to install bug fixes
guru - uses m4 and lex with comfort
- writes assembly code with "cat >"
- uses adb on the kernel while system is loaded
- customizes utilities by patching the source
- reads device driver source with his breakfast
- can answer any unix question after a little
thought
- uses make for anything that requires two or more
distinct commands to achieve
- has learned how to breach security but no longer
needs to try
wizard - writes device drivers with "cat >"
- fixes bugs by patching the binaries
- can answer any question before you ask
- writes his own troff macro packages
- is on first-name basis with Dennis, Bill, and Ken
Unix -- Reach out and grep someone.
E Pluribus Unix
The Gurus of Unix Meeting of Minds (GUMM) takes place Wednesday,
April 1, 2076 (check THAT in your perpetual calendar program), 14
feet above the ground directly in front of the Milpitas Gumps.
Members will grep each other by the hand (after intro), yacc a lot,
smoke filtered chroots in pipes, chown with forks, use the wc
(unless uuclean), fseek nice zombie processes, strip, and sleep, but
not, we hope, od. Three days will be devoted to discussion of the
ramifications of whodo. Two seconds have been allotted for a
complete rundown of all the user- friendly features of Unix.
Seminars include "Everything You Know is Wrong", led by Tom Kempson,
"Batman or Cat:man?" led by Richie Dennis "cc C? Si! Si!" led by
Kerwin Bernighan, and "Document Unix, Are You Kidding?" led by Jan
Yeats. No Reader Service No. is necessary because all GUGUs (Gurus
of Unix Group of Users) already know everything we could tell them.
-- Dr. Dobb's Journal, June "84
Making files is easy under the Unix operating system. Therefore,
users tend to create numerous files using large amounts of file
space. It has been said that the only standard thing about all Unix
systems is the message-of-the-day telling users to clean up their
files. -- System V.2 administrator's guide
Megabyte: (n.) more than you can comprehend and less than you'll
need. See: Unix.
Q: How many Unix gurus does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: One, but first he has to determine the correct path.
Q: How many Unix hacks does it take to change a light bulb?
A: As many as you want; they"re all virtual, anyway.
There are two major products that come out of Berkeley: LSD and
Unix. We don't believe this to be a coincidence.
-- Jeremy S. Anderson
Unix: (n., v.) a DOS which needs more memory than you have and run
more slowly than you can bear. To Unix: to grossly enlarge and slow
down out of all proportion, esp. by using C.
Unix was half a billion (500000000) seconds old on
Tue Nov 5 00:53:20 1985 GMT (measuring since the time(2) epoch).
-- (after) Andy Tannenbaum
Wombat's Laws of Computer Selection:
(1) If it doesn't run Unix, forget it.
(2) Any computer design over 10 years old is obsolete.
(3) Anything made by IBM is junk. (See number 2)
(4) The minimum acceptable CPU power for a single user is a
VAX/780 with a floating point accelerator.
(5) Any computer with a mouse is worthless.
-- Rich Kulawiec
You mean I can put stuff past column 72? WOW! Unix is great!
Unix is an operating system well known throughout the computer
industry. It takes a user three years to learn his way around
the system and another ten to learn a sizable portion of the
commands. No user has been known to understand the entire
operating system at once and this is generally thought to be
impossible.
No one who wasn't on drugs ever called Unix user-friendly. It
has been regarded as "a REAL operating system, unlike MS-DOS or
the Macintosh systems, which are for ANAL-RETENTIVE DWEEBS!" The
person(s) who regarded Unix this way wish to remain anonymous in
the event that "some JERK might lob me over the head with his PC,
which is about all it's good for!"
Users of Unix are staunch supporters of the system although on
average they understand less than half of it. Their strong support
for the system is thought to be based upon an underlying fear that
by the time they learn a new system they will be too old to have
their mid-life crisis.
Xenix, Minix, Xinu, and other variations upon the Unix theme, were
created by people who thought they knew a lot about Unix
but didn't know enough to get it right. Consequently they saw Unix
as "wrong" and set about making their own versions which were "right."
All of these new versions are still considered "wrong," however, as
new "right" versions appear almost daily.
Following is a list of some of the new versions -- or flavors, as
people who eat Unix for breakfast lunch and dinner and the not-so-occasional
midnight snack are fond of calling them -- of Unix.
Beatnix - This is an underground version of Unix. Users of this version are known to wear dark sunglasses and goatees and work mostly at night. Users "hang out" in dark rooms with real or simulated brick walls for their sessions and use a command set little known to users of other Unix versions. Beatnix users employ command aliasing to a high degree so they can customize the command set and maintain individuality. Alias files are modified daily to include updates in the "hip" command-set. Beatnix has developed a unique user interface in which the user snaps his fingers to execute a command. Beatnix users consider their version of Unix to be "cool" and all other versions to be "square."
Beatrix - This is a child's version of Unix written by an AI system modeling Beatrix Potter. On graphics-based systems it has a graphic interface consisting of Prompt-er Rabbit jumping through the System Garden of the nasty Farmer Superuser. The user searches for Mischief applications or good Food Processes and executes them until Farmer Superuser threatens to squash his cute little Process with his Boot. The the user has to Find the correct Path to Home and his parent process before he gets Logged Off. On non-graphics-based systems the user is presented a story in which he decides the action.
Qinix - This version of Unix is for game-players. It is closely modeled on the arcade game Qix. The user must cd around a particular area of the filesystem before he can access it. He has to watch for system processes and his process is killed if he runs into one. A user is allowed three logins per day. A user is given filespace according to the amount of the filesystem he has covered, but must start over when he covers more than 75% of the system. He is awarded bonus disk quotas, however.
Hendrix - This is a highly graphical system using psychedelic colors to give the user VI-sions which are stored into a file. A user of this system performs better under the influence of just about anything. Typically users must be gifted with a great degree of string manipulation ability.
Pick-up-stix - This version does not use a filesystem hierarchy. Instead it dumps the filesystem in a heap. Two users take turns extracting files from the heap, and the user who extracts the most files without disturbing the heap structure gets to use the system.
Trix - This version has a much-improved user interface over Unix. Traditionalists call it "sugar-coated." The user may only work in one directory per day and must process all files in the directory before he finishes his session. Files come in four types -- or flavors -- and file integrity lasts only a short time. The files become "soggy" or "mushy" after that. A large directory will often turn the system "pink" during a long session.
Fish-stix - This version of Unix relies heavily on pre-processing and makes great use of lemon-juice, although the reason for this is unknown.
Top 100 things you don't want the sysadmin to say
100. Uh-oh.....
99. AAARGH!!
98. What the hell!?
97. Go get your backup tape. (You _do_ have a backup tape?)
96. That's SOOOOO bizarre.
95. Wow!! Look at this.....
94. Hey!! The suns don't do this.
93. Terminated??!
92. What software license?
91. Well, it's doing _something_.....
90. Wow....that seemed _fast_.....
89. I got a better job at Lockheed...
88. Management says...
87. Sorry, the new equipment didn't get budgetted.
86. What do you mean that wasn't a copy?
85. It didn't do that a minute ago...
84. Where's the GUI on this thing?
83. Damn, and I just bought that soda...
82. Where's the DIR command?
81. The drive ate the tape but that's OK, I brought my screwdriver.
80. I cleaned up the root partition and now there's LOTS of free space.
79. What's this "any" key I'm supposed to press?
78. Do you smell something?
77. What's that grinding sound?
76. I have never seen it do *that* before...
75. I think it should not be doing that...
74. I remember the last time I saw it do that...
73. You might as well all go home early today ...
72. My leave starts tomorrow.
71. Ooops.
70. Hmm, maybe if I do this...
69. ``Why is my "rm *.o" taking so long?''
68. Hmmm, curious...
67. Well, _my_ files were backed up.
66. What do you mean you needed that directory?
65. What do you mean /home was on that disk? I umounted it!
64. Do you really need your home directory to do any work?
63. Oracle will be down until 8pm, but you can come back in and finish your
work when it comes up tonight.
62. I didn't think anybody would be doing any work at 2am, so I killed your
job.
61. Yes, I chowned all the files to belong to pvcs. Is that a problem to
you?
60. We're standardizing on AIX.
59. Wonder what *this* command does?
58. What did you say your (l)user name was...? ;-)
57. You did _what_ to the floppy???
56. Sorry, we deleted that package last week...
55. NO! Not _that_ button!
54. Uh huh......"nu -k $USER".. no problem....sure thing...
53. Sorry, we deleted that package last week...
52. NO! Not _that_ button!
51. Uh huh......"nu -k $USER".. no problem....sure thing...
50. [looks at workstation] "Say, what version of Dos is this running?"
49. Oops! (said in a quiet, almost surprised voice)
48. YEEEHA!!! What a CRASH!!!
47. What do you mean that could take down the whole network?
46. What's this switch for anyways...?
45. Tell me again what that '-r' option to rm does
44. Say, What does "Superblock Error" mean, anyhow?
43. If I knew it wasn't going to work, I would have tested it sooner.
42. Was that YOUR directory?
41. System coming down in 0 min....
40. The backup procedure works fine, but the restore is tricky!
39. Hey Fred, did you save that posting about restoring filesystems
with vi and a toothpick? More importantly, did you print it out?
38. OH, BOTHER! (as they scrabble at the keyboard for ^c).
37. The sprinkler system isn't supposed to leak is it?
36. It is only a minor upgrade, the system should be back up in
a few hours. ( This is said on a monday afternoon.)
35. I think we can plug just one more thing in to this outlet strip
with out triping the breaker.
34. What is all this I here about static charges destroying computers?
33. I found this rabbit program that is supposed to test system performance
and I have it running now.
32. Ummm... Didn't you say you turned it off?
31. The network's down, but we're working on it. Come back after diner.
(Usually said at 2200 the night before thesis deadline... )
30. Ooops. Save your work, everyone. FAST!
29. Boy, it's a lot easier when you know what you're doing.
28. I hate it when that happens.
27. And what does it mean 'rm: .o: No such file or directory'?
26. Why did it say '/bin/rm: not found'?
25. Nobody was using that file /vmunix, were they?
24. You can do this patch with the system up...
23. What happens to a Hard Disk when you drop it?
22. The only copy of Norton Utilities was on THAT disk???
21. Well, I've got a backup, but the only copy of the restore program was
on THAT disk....
20. What do mean by "fired"?
19. hey, what does mkfs do?
18. where did you say those backup tapes were kept?
17. ...and if we just swap these two disc controllers like _this_...
16. don't do that, it'll crash the sys........ SHIT
15. what's this hash prompt on my terminal mean?
14. dd if=/dev/null of=/vmunix
13. find /usr2 -name nethack -exec rm -f {};
12. now it's funny you should ask that, because I don't know either
11. Any more trouble from you and your account gets moved to the 750
10. Ooohh, lovely, it runs SVR4
9. SMIT makes it all so much easier......
8. Can you get VMS for this Sparc thingy?
5. I don't care what he says, I'm _NOT_ having it on _my_ network
4. We don't support that. We _won't_ support that.
3. ...and after I patched the microcode...
2. You've got TECO. What more do you want?
Many important theological questions are answered if we think of God as a Computer Programmer: Q: Does God control everything that happens in my life? A: He could, if he used the debugger, but it's tedious to step through all those variables. Q: Why does God allow evil to happen? A: God thought he eliminated evil in one of the earlier versions. Q: What causes God to intervene in earthly affairs? A: If a critical error occurs, the system pages him automatically and he logs on from home to try to bring it up. Otherwise things can wait until tomorrow. Q: Did God really create the world in seven days? A: He did it in six days and nights while living on cola and candy bars. On the seventh day he went home and found out his girlfriend had left him. Q: How come the Age of Miracles Ended? A: That was the development phase of the project, now we are in the maintenance phase. Q: Who is Satan? A: Satan is a MIS director who takes credit for more powers than he actually possesses, so people who aren't programmers are scared of him. God thinks of him as irritating but irrelevant. Q: What is the role of sinners? A: Sinners are the people who find new an imaginative ways to mess up the system when God has made it idiot-proof. Q: Where will I go after I die? A: Onto a DAT tape. Q: Will I be reincarnated? A: Not unless there is a special need to recreate you. And searching those tar files is a major hassle, so if there is a request for you, God will just say that the tape has been lost. Q: Am I unique and special in the universe? A: There are over 10,000 major university and corporate sites running exact duplicates of you in the present release version. Q: What is the purpose of the universe? A: God created it because he values elegance and simplicity, but then the users and managers demanded he tack all this senseless stuff onto it and now everything is more complicated and expensive than ever. Q: If I pray to God, will he listen? A: You can waste his time telling him what to do, or you can just get off his back and let him program. Q: What is the one true religion? A: All systems have their advantages and disadvantages, so just pick the one that best suits your needs and don't let anyone put you down. Q: How can I protect myself from evil? A: Change your password every month and don't make it a name, a common word, or a date like your birthday. Q: Some people claim they hear the voice of God. Is this true? A: They are much more likely to receive email.