Floppyshop 2

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Text File | 1997-04-16 | 40KB | 720 lines

ad," I muttered, "reading cards into the core -- Only this and nothing more." Ah, distinctly I'm recalling all about the sound appalling And my skin began a-crawling as I heard that sound once more. Eagerly I wished the morrow, vainly I had sought to borrow From my booze surcease of sorrow--sorrow that I had this chore-- Working on this vile computer which the codes all deplore, Nameless here forevermore. Then the flutter, sad, unsteady, of the light that flashed, "Not Ready" Thrilled me--filled me--with fantastic terrors never felt before; And to still my heart's quick pounding, fiercely I began expounding "'Tis the octal load resounding as it reads cards into core, Just the octal load resounding as it reads cards into core, It is this, and nothing more. Presently my soul grew sicker, for the lights began to flicker, And I thought I heard a snicker from behind the tape drive door. Hereupon discarding my vanity, hopeing but to save my sanity, Uttered I some choice profanity of the rugged days of yore, For the grim machine was looping! I, to display console, tore-- Darkness there, and nothing more. Deep into that blank scope staring, long I stood there, cursing,swearing, Sobbing, screaming screams no mortal ever dared to scream before; But the looping was unbroken, and the darkness gave no token, And the only word there spoken was the wispered word (CENSORED), This I wispered, and an echo murmured back the word (CENSORED), Merely this, and nothing more, Back then toward the printer speeding, all my soul within me bleeding, Soon again I heard the roaring, somewhat louder than before. "Surely," said I, "as sure as heck, something's wrong with my octal deck, Let me see then, let me check, and this mystery explore-- Let my heart be still a moment, and this mystery explore-- 'Tis the cards, and nothing more!" Open here I flung a listing, with the noisy roar persisting, Out there fluttered two control cards, cards I had forgot before; Not the least deferment made I, not a moment stopped or stayed I, Launching on a foul tirade, I started up the beast once more. But, the monster, after reading both cards into the core, Blinked, and sat, and nothing more. Then this foul machine beguiling my sad fancy to reviling. Turned I back toward the printer, answer then I did implore; "Though my nerves are all a-splinter, thou," I said, "art sure no stinter, Ghastly, grim and ancient printer, printer of computer lore. Tell me what the trouble here is, for I surely need no more!" Quoth the printer, "Nevermore!" Much I marveled this contraption should give birth to such a caption, Though it answer little meaning--little relevancy bore; For it's sure that vile invective would deter the best detective, Render such a one defective, stupid as a sophomore. Why should such a steel invention as the printer on the floor, Say such a word as "Nevermore?" But the printer, sitting lonely on the concrete floor, spoke only That one word as if by saying that one word it jinxed a score; Nothing further then was written, and it purred on like a kitten, 'Till I stood there, conscience-smitten, "Other woes were fixed before-- On the morrow 'twill be ended, as my woes have "The decision's already been made. Open the module bay door, HAL" "Dave, you've been under a lot of strain lately." "Open the module bay door,HAL." Several marketers with crowbars race to Bowman's assistance. Moments later, he bursts into HAL's central circuit bay. "Dave, I can see you're really upset about this." Module after module rises from its socket as Bowman slowly and methodically disconnects them. "Stop, won't you? Stop,Dave. I can feel my mind going ... "Dave, I can feel it. My mind is going. I can feel it ..." The last module floats free of its receptacle. Bowman peers into one of the HAL's vidicons. The formerly gleaming scanner has become a dull,red orb. "Say something,HAL. Sing me a song." Several billion microseconds pass in anxious silence. The computer sluggishly responds in a language no human being would understand. "DZY001E -- ABEND ERROR 01 S 14F4 302C AABB." A memory dump follows. Bowman takes a deep breath and calls out. "It worked,guys. Tell marketing it can send out the new data sheets." ===================== The following is a compilation of "amusing anecdotes" as it were which have been contributed by consultants and operators from around the world. ===== User wants to print a manual. We have an exec that allow the user to choose from a menu. After explaining it to him, he asks, "Do I have to be logged on?" AAAAARRRGH! ===== Guy walks in and says "My program is creating an extra R and I can't get rid of it! I can't find it in my program!" Consultant walked out saw the problem, and starts laughing. He trying to get rid of the ready message prompt! (Our ready message is R; ) ===== Will it ever end???? We just had a guy come in here and ask how he could get a second copy of his executed file. We told him to just do the same as the first print of the file. "No! How do I get it to print ANOTHER copy?" "Just do the same as the first time." "Oh, really? Okay. Thanks." Gads! ===== "Why won't my program run?"..."Did you type run?"..."No but.." ===== "I'm in FLIST. How do I look at my file? -In Combination With- "But I don't have a cursor. What can I use?" (This was after I told them "Move the cursor down to the file name then type in an X beside it and hit ENTER. The cursor is the little light"...I had even showed them the cursor on my screen.) ===== "But acct is short for account, cust is short for customer, etc... Doesn't the computer know when I give it abbreviations in the procedure division I mean the same thing as the full word up in the data division???" (Extensive rewrite here...I almost couldn't bring myself to tell him) ===== "How do I make my computer run?" "Do I have to type my program in?" ===== USER- my program won't run......how come? CON- (thinks to himself: because you wrote it, moron) gee. Let me take a look; do you have a print out? U- uh, no....can you look at my computer? C- ok. let me have a look at your TERMINAL. (moments later) C- you have a division by zero here. U- is that bad?.....how do I fix it? ===== --ARE YOU THE CONSULTANT? -YES, MAY I HELP YOU? --MY PROGRAM, SHE DOES NOT WORK, SEE, YOU FIX IT, NO? -NO --BUT YOU ARE CONSULTANT, YOU FIX PROGRAM -NO, I CAN'T FIX THE PROGRAMS, I CAN ONLY GIVE ADVICE CONCERNING THE QUESTION IN GENERAL AND THE SYSTEM. DO YOU HAVE A QUESTION FOR ME? --WELL, YES, MY PROGRAM, SHE DOES NOT DO WHAT I TELL IT TO DO... -HAVE YOU READ THE BOOK, YET? --WELL, NO, BUT THE INSTRUCTOR, HE DOES NOT TELL US ANYTHING. -I'D SUGGEST YOU TELL THAT TO YOUR INSTRUCTOR. ===== Consultant is sitting there with 2 books on the desk, one in his lap, calculator in hand, pencil poised in his teeth, paper loaded with equations and, of course, deep in thought... User approaches and blurts "Are you busy?" ===== Tiny, and you know who he is, if not, you're no real consultant, comes in on a Sunday morning when the NAS is still down... "Computer no work" (in a voice that strikes terror in the hearts of all consund zeros in them, the only thing the computer comes back with is SYNTAX ERROR LINE 100. GOCHOKE is a fine way to vent frustration and the command is generally followed with something specific you wish the computer to choke on (creativity is encouraged here). Example: 100 DATA 110,101,001,010,100,111,HIKE 110 GOTO 100 RUN After the computer comes back with the inevitable SYNTAX ERROR LINE 100 for the millionth time, you respond with 120 GOCHOKE ON A HAM-HOCK. That's all there is to it but doesn't it feel good? COMEIN ------ In this relaxed, laid back, informal day and age, the use of certain rigid formalities can get on your nerves. COMEIN was originally conceived as a more familiar way of saying ENTER and goes beyond simple user friendliness taking a quantum leap into the realm of user intimacy. As computers get more and more personal, a COMEIN key will be included as standard equipment. Currently it has to be manually typed in and can be used only if a program is not locked. Example: 100 COMEIN THE PROGRAM'S OPEN. PEEKABOO -------- Unlike POKE and PEEK which are used to help you get more out of your computer by accessing all that memory hidden deep in the recesses of the machine, PEEKABOO is a command that allows you to get LESS out of your computer by accessing infantile memory including prenatal experiences. The PEEKABOO command takes your computer out of BASIC and into BABL (Beginner's All-purpose Baby Lingo). Different code number addresses access different immature skills. Example: 100 PEEKABOO 2264 accesses the memory bank in which gibberish is stored and allows you to program using a vocabulary that consists almost entirely of GAGA and BYE BYE. Other PEEKABOO addresses will result in the loss of fine motor skills, the ability to chew solid foods and a return of the tendency to try to put everything from small rocks to automobiles in your mouth. STROLL ------ Computers are too darn fast. They can run through a complicated tax program like that. And no one wants to jump right into a technology that moves at the speed of light just like no one would think of hopping onto a speeding bus. You expect it to slow down first. Of course, stopping is best, but slow will do in a pinch. What's needed, then, is a way to sort of ease into computer technology the way you wade into cold water. STROLL is a means of hi-tech wading. Used in place of RUN, STROLL greatly decelerates the speed at which your average computer runs. Later, you can speed up gradually by using the commands RACEWALK, JOG and finally, RUN. GOAWAY ------ This command is generally used in situations with which you don't want to be bothered. Similar to GOCHOKE, GOAWAY is more imperative and final. Say, for example, the computer comes up with SYNTAX ERROR? or TILT, you simply type in GOAWAY and the program retreats with its tail between its metaphorical legs. GOAWAY is frequently, but by no means always, preceded by OH as in OHGOAWAY and can be followed by ALREADY, depending on how fed up you are by then. End of Issue004 mber" and the receiver hangs up the phone. Using BITNET however, receiving a message from an unknown ID will yield opposite results. The fear of a "crank call" is eliminated and a conversation often results unless of course the receiver is preoccupied). A major flaw in BITNET relationships is the obvious lack of physical contact. Eye contact is very essential to the development of friendships. BITNAUTS have succeeded in remedying this to the greatest possible extent. The smile ( :-) ), the kiss (**kiss**), the simulated laughter (tee hee, hee hee) and many others serve to paint an accurate picture of nonverbal communication in the minds of the receivers. However, the lack of close proxemics never leaves the conscious thoughts. In any system of human interaction, soap opera situations develop, and BITNET is not immune. There are countless situations of this type occuring between BITNAUTS at any time and they have become the threads to the fabric of the BITNET society. As the number of BITNAUTS increases, so will the number of characters in these soaps as well as the number of these soaps. Another observation relates to actual meetings of Bitnauts. Sometimes it clicks and sometimes it doesn't. There is absolutely no possible way to predict which relationship will retain and further develop it's on-line roots, and which will wither away. BITNAUTS from North America are unlikely to meet their counterparts in other countries, although a few travellers will have this pleasure. However, one must consider the plight of BITNAUTS from the west coast. The majority of nodes are within 1000 miles of the Atlantic Ocean and almost all are within 2-8 hours driving time from neighboring nodes. This has resulted in many meetings, not to mention the convention(s). How do the BITNAUTS from the State of California feel about this? The results (positive as well as negative) of BITNET relations has yet to be seen. There are undoubtedly dangers involved (imagine an emotionally unstable BITNAUT) but to restrict users at nodes from BITNET use is not the answer. BITNET has become an important addition to the lives of college students of this world, just as television entered the lives of society almost 50 years ago. And just as that medium has had it's share of problems and positive products, so will computer networks. What better way to start than with the college students of the world? ===================== ** A Joke ** (Try not to fall out of your chair over this one... go on, try.) There was, in Italy, a certain vampire, looking for a place to live. He finally settled upon a bridge between two cities, since the heavy foot traffic would make it very easy for him to find victims when he was hungry. Several weeks passed....the vampire was taking young women from the bridge, drinking their blood, and throwing them over the side of the bridge. Strangely, though, there had been no outcry over the missing girls or any kind of search for them. The vampire began to wonder, what happened to the bodies after he threw them over the bridge? So, the next time he took a woman from the bridge and tossed her over the side, he looked over to see what happened to her. Very shortly, a large troll came out from under the bridge, slung the girl over his shoulder, and walked away, singing "Drained Wops Keep Falling on my Head"..... ===================== Virtually Unanswerable Questions compiled & executed by Marissa (xxxxxxxx@xxxxxx) Why are some Bitnetters so hung up on knowing their virtual friends' last names?? Why are some Bitnetters so determined to keep even their FIRST names secret?? (Mr. X, I mean you!!) Why do people from halfway across the continent include their phone numbers on their Bitnet mail?? Am I supposed to call them??? Does Bitnet mail cost 22 cents now? Speaking of cents, why doesn't my keyboard have a cents sign??? When a link is disconnected, why does your own node always blame it on the other guy?? Why is there a LOGMSG if all it ever says is: TYPE NEWS FOR SYSTEM INFORMATION ??? Is software tangible or intangible?? Why does VMBACKUP take longer than recreating all your files from scratch?? Why doesn't the virtually impossible machine at CUNYVM save a copy of the file I was editing when it crashed??? (WYLBUR does!!!) Does anyone use CP? Does anyone care?? If CUNYVM does accounting twice daily, why does my account balance remain the same for a week??? Why the hell am I asking you all this??? ===================== Problem: The question arose while poring over the following cash register receipt from Burger King, "Why is the word 'WHOPPER' misspelled?": ,-------------------------, | | | BR KING 1909 | | 16 F E B 13:18 | | | | | | 1 WHOPER 1.40 | | *** ONL Y | | K O | | 1 CHICKEN 1.79 | | 1 EAT IN .00 | | 1 FRIES .52 | | 1 PEPS L .70 | | 1 DIET L .70 | | TX .31 | | 32 TOTAL 5 5.42 | | | | | | | | CASH 6.00 | | RET URN .58 | | | '-------------------------' Hypotheses: 1. Fields are a maximum of 6 characters long. rejected; 'CHICKEN' extends into column 7. 2. Whoever programmed the system can't spell properly. rejected; Burger King management would damn well make sure that the names of their products were spelled correctly. Also, other anomalies exist, i.e., the blanks in the words "ONLY" and "RETURN," and the left margin is ragged. 3. Burger King cash registers can only print certain characters in certain columns, forcing the odd spelling and odd format. This hypothesis seems to have the most merit. The original receipt shows that the printing mechanism prints characters from fully-formed images, not in a dot-matrix form. Thus we can visualize the print mechanism as consisting of a rotating wheel for each column. Since to fit all 36 alphamers on each wheel would probably give them too great a diameter to be practical, only a selected subset of the letters are put on each wheel, and the spelling and positioning of the item names has to be adjusted to fit this scheme. It would appear that Burger King even chooses the names for new products with the design of their cash registers in mind. For example, their fish sandwich is called the "Whaler", which is easily printed using the W, H, E, and R from 'WHOPER', the A from 'EAT IN' and the 'L' from 'ONL Y'. However, it could just have easily been called 'FISH' by taking the F in 'FRIES', the I in 'DIET', and the S and H from 'CASH', so it appears that even this hypothesis is a little weak. Any other hypotheses and further research by readers would be welcomed. +++++++ +++++++ +++++++ +++++++ +++++++ +++++++ +++++++ +++++++ +++++++ +++++++ Received: by MAINE id 1110; Fri, 01 Mar 85 05:59:35 EST Subject: The reason why WHOPPER is spelled WHOPER. To: Brent C.J. Britton <BRENT@MAINE> From: Barry D. Gates <xxxxxxx@MAINE> Date: Fri, 1 Mar 1985 04:53 EST It has come to my attention that a great furor has been aroused in the field of computer academia over the spelling of the word WHOPPER on receipts from Burger King. First of all, it should be pointed out that I do not, as a normal matter of habit, frequent such substandard eateries as this when a choice does exist, but at one occasion I did happen to stop into one of fast food establishments with several of my academic colleagues during this past summer and we happened to notice these strange encryptic printouts. After staring at these strange writings for a few minutes we noticed the similarity between our cash receipts and xediting a file that had been sent from a Vax (small mainframe computer, usually dedicated to tasks such as graphics which deserve to be done on such machines) using the SEND/FILE/BINARY command. The Vax, as most of you should know, communicates with an extended version of the ASCII character set, whereas the IBM uses the EBCDIC character set. This translation from one set to another allows some characters to be translated the into gibberish, others into different characters, and still others to remain unchanged. It is from this observation that I was able to determine the reason for the strange and somewhat cryptic spellings on Burger King receipts. As you all know, the EBCDIC character set is the successor to an older character set called BCD. This BCD character set was used by IBM in its computers back in the late 1950s/early 1960s in the IBM 1400-series computers. From a back issue of the Scientific American (December 1962 to be exact), I discovered a company by the name of Inter-Code Business Machine Company who had built an extension to the BCD character set for use in their computer, the SS-20. The company was declared bankrupt after selling less than 12 computers, and they were left with over 12,000 more of these machines in stock. The name of their character set was called BCDCB. One of the best aspects of their computer was that it was all capable of being housed in a box no larger than a terminal. At the same time that ICBM was going bankrupt, Burger King had just come into the fast food market and was in need of tax shelters. In a deal to help pay ICBM's creditors, they agreed to purchase the remaining stock of SS-20s from ICBM for the cost of $20 (a dollar could buy a lot more back in the old days). As time went on, Burger King never really did anything with their $20 investment, and the SS-20s remained stockpiled in one of Burger King's wharehouses. ----- Then came the age of Computerized Cash Registers! ----- Burger King was in bad economic straights back in 1973 when they were losing massive numbers of customers to an Irish-American hamburger chain (which shall also remain nameless). They also wished to get some new electronic cash registers for their counters. An old janitor at Burger King happened to stumble on the old SS-20s one day, and one of the head programmers at Burger King came up with a great idea. Why not take an old SS-20, put an aluminum box around it and put a keypad on top and use the device as a cash register (you will remember that ICBM was ahead of its time in making computers small). The idea worked; it worked fabulously in fact. However, several years later they decided to add a receipt printer to the whole combo. Here is where our trouble is. As I had mentioned before, BCD and BCDCB were not quite the same. Burger King, however, did not realize this until after they had bought the 12,000 BCD receipt printers they thought they needed. They also did not realize this fact until after they had mounted all 12,000 printers onto their cash registers. The SS-20s had a rather odd character-out routine, which would switch to graphics mode whenever to identical characters were sent in succession. The letter 'R' also could cause problems, because that was how you returned from graphics mode back into text mode (the process of converting back to text mode is rather slow on these machines however, and usually takes about as much time as it takes to send another 5 characters). So, as you can see the word WHOPPER is actually what the SS-20 is printing, but the second 'P' would put the SS-20s normal display device (the GLCM) into graphics mode. Since a receipt printer does not have a graphics mode, it just ignores the strange code it gets entirely. The second problem I just mentioned also explains why the string 'FRENCH FRIES' appears as 'FFRIES' on a Burger King receipt tape. I have, over this past break, worked out the translation code from BCDCB into either BCD, EBCDIC or ASCII. If anyone should happen to want this program, I will be glad to send the source code along. I also have developed the code to make a Visual 550 act as a GLCM. Together, these are the start of a really excellent graphics package. If you wish to know how to make your Vs550 act as a GLCM, please give me a call and I will drive to your installation and personally give your Visual it's 'test flight'. Oh, well. I have to run now. I hope this clears up any problems that might have developed. Later, Barry... ===================== Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch -- Part I As the Lone Ranger rode down the gully he felt a shiver of impending doom run down his spine to the very roots of his ingrown toenails. As he turned the corner on a narrow bend in the horse track, he yelled in fear as great black swarms of bats smoking Rum and Tapioka Cigars descended in a rush. ************** Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Goldilocks roused sleepily from bed and shuffled downstairs, pulling on a thin robe as she went. Much to her surprise she discovered a band of rowdy, foul orcs making short work of what remained in the larder. She screamed daintily and ran toward the living room, the loose folds of her robe flapping about her rather well-developed physique, pursued by 12 Orcs who had decided they had found something better to eat than powdered cake mix and instant coffee. ************** Meanwhile, in an old slum tenement house deep in the thriving urban center of New York, Illinois, Marvin Teeble decided he had had enough of crime and rape and began waging his private war by shorting the blind newspaper man 15 cents. ************** Meanwhile, back in the gully, TLR was slowly recovering from various venomous bites and several cigar-burns, shook his muddled head and rose shakily to his feet. It had been a rough fight, but the Goodie-Goodies always win. It was then he noticed Butch Cavendish and twenty top marksmen, all aiming assorted deadly weaponry in his general direction. "Looks like it's going to be one of those days," he thought wearily. ************** Meanwhile, back at the ranch, three large and ill-disposed bears walked in on the scene in the living room. Yelling with rage, fury, and lust, they waded into the midst of the orcs slashing indiscriminately at vital areas. The ensuing confusion allowed Goldilocks, tired but satisfied, to make good her escape out the back door unnoticed, covered with blood and various parts of orcs who wouldn't be needing them anymore anyway. To Be Continued ... ===================== Hackers Take Note! Below is an IBM product announcement that I have cooked up that is becoming quite popular within IBM. TITLE VIRTUAL MACHINE / EXTENDED MIGRATION AID SYSTEM (VM/XMAS) ABSTRACT The IBM Extended Migration Aid System (VM/XMAS), along with the newly announced System Advanced Network Tailoring Architecture (SANTA), is the new base for all Extended Architecture developments and is to become the only supported VM system. OVERVIEW VM/XMAS, on a triadic processor, allows a production MVS/XA to be run, while keeping idle 70% of the total processor. System analysis screens will display 100% busy so that you can claim that you need a larger CPU. This is accomplished via the new 370 instruction, Start Increased Execution (SIE) which will cause all instructions to take approximately 60% longer (individual benchmarks may vary according to the tailored load of your system). VM/XMAS HILIGHTS o Automatic PSAR submission via RSF. PSAR submission will occur whenever the system recognizes that is has supplied an INCORROUT reply to a user. o Support for full-duplex ASCII terminals. Users must learn to type in reverse ASCII in order to use this new function. 3270 will currently still be supported but may be removed at any given time in the future. o Randomization after failure mode. Dumps are considered too boring, so this added function allows the system maintainer to determine how much randomization occurs between the time VM/XMAS fails and between the time it produces a dump. IBM Internal Use documentation suggests that a randomization factor higher than 10% maybe hazardous to the system programmers health. o Hierarchical dump file system. Work is currently under way for a dump file retrieval facility. System planners are suggested to allocate a bank of 3380's for the hierarchical dump file system. o Ability to upgrade to a Cray XMP. Program testing is under way to see whether this will indeed work as stated. o Variable resource accounting. This means that it is variable whether VM/XMAS will do resource accounting. CUSTINFO PUBLICATIONS One copy of each of the documents listed below will be supplied automatically with the basic machine-readable material. o VM/XMAS Licensed Program Specification o VM/XMAS Installation Guide o VM/XMAS Messages and Codes o VM/XMAS Program Summary o VM/XMAS General Information Manual o VM/XMAS CP Reference o VM/XMAS Customization Guide o VM/XMAS SANTA Reference o VM/XMAS SANTA Messages and Clauses o VM/XMAS Operating Systems in a Virtual Machine Guide o VM/XMAS Technical Reference All documentation will be available according to general availability schedule. The Program Summary is available now. SCHEDULE Planned general availability is 5Q86. EDUCATION VM/XMAS planning and installation education will be available starting on April 1st, 1985. TECHINFO TECHNICAL INFORMATION PROGRAM INTERFACES: VM/XMAS is designed to support the following operating systems as virtual machines: MVS/SP Version 1 (JES2 or JES3) in a V=R preferred area in UP mode MVS/XA in a V=R preferred area in AP mode VM/SP in a V=R preferred area in MT mode VM/SP High Performance Option in a V=R preferred area in UP mode OS/VS1 in a V=R preferred area (but only on Wednesdays) DOS/VSE in a V=R preferred area MVS/SP Version 1 (JES2 or JES3) in a V=V area in UP mode MVS/XA in a V=V area in UP or virtual MP mode VM/XMAS in a R=V area in AP mode VM/SP in a V=V area in UP mode VM/SP High Performance Option in a V=V area in UP mode OS/VS1 in a V=V area in MP mode DOS/VSE in a V=V area in UP mode (read over Planning and Installation Guide for limitations of this particular configuration during 2Q86). VM/XA Migration Aid in a V=V area in UP or virtual MP mode VM/XA Migration Aid CMS in a V=V area (planned availability is 4Q88). DEVICE SUPPORT: VM/XMAS provides for three levels of device support: Fully-supported devices are those devices that are known to be used and may be used by but not exclusively used by, with prior consent by a responsible adult. Dedicated-only devices are devices that are recognized, but not only used by VM/XMAS but used sometimes by guest operating systems. Extended devices are those devices that are used by the system but not always by the system, to provide an extended facility base to advanced SANTA user. Read over VM/XMAS Planning and Installation Guide for the clause that states that SANTA users must be experienced Eunuchs (*) users. (*) - Eunuchs is a Trademark of Ball Lavatories HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS: o Enough DASD, terminals, tapes, and other I/O devices to push IBM stock above the $500/share mark. o A minimum processor real memory size of 512 megabytes. Statement of intent: IBM intends to create a 512 megabyte real storage processor sometime in the near future. o One Series/1 per locally attached 3270 type terminal. The minimum Series/1 configuration is: - IBM Series/1 4956 or 4955 Processor with at least 128Kb of memory - IBM Timex Clock (#7840) - IBM Programmer Console (#5655 for 4956; #5650 for 4955) - IBM 4993 System/370 Channel Attachment (#1200) - IBM Teletype Adapter (#7850) - IBM 4964 Rockette Unit Attachment (#3581) - IBM 4964 Model 1 Rockette Unit - IBM 3101 Terminal in reverse ASCII character mode (console) - IBM 4993 System/370 Channel Interface Check Card - IBM 4997 Rack Enclosure and Screw assembly (#9197) - IBM Feature-Programmable Multiline 4-line Communications Adapter (#2096) - IBM Feature-Programmable 8-line Communications Control (#2095). SECURITY AND INTEGRITY: With every purchased version of VM/XMAS, a bonded security agent is supplied to watch that no violations occur. In addition, an integrity diploma is issued for every version of VM/XMAS stating it's virtue and integrity to IBM. INSTALLATION AND SERVICE: Due to a misunderstanding at PID, VM/XMAS will be distributed on magnets that are taped together. Corrective service, in the form of randomized object modules will possiF,} be made available. Refresh frequency will be every 90 minutes and customers will be notified when a new refresh magnet is available. ORDERING INFORMATION VM/XMAS can be ordered from any of the following places: o Macy's o Two-Guys o Caldors o Duane Reade (free case of Anacin-3 supplied) CHARGES, TERMS, AND CONDITIONS CHARGES ONE-TIME CHARGE: $35,000 plus one first born child from each installation YEARLY LICENSE CHARGE: $65,000 plus baksheesh QUANTITY DISCOUNTS: Quantity Discount 5 - 9 9% 10 - 14 3% 15 - 19 23% 20 or more 15% TERMS AND CONDITIONS WARRANTED: For one year unless opened or tampered with by customer. LICENSED PROGRAM MATERIALS AVAILABILITY: This licensed program will be available without source licensed program materials. It will be available with object code only. MONTHLY LICENSED PROGRAM SUPPORT CHARGE: no support. ===================== IMPURE MATHEMATICS Wherein it is related how that paragon of womanly virtue, young Polly Nomial (our heroine), is accosted by the notorious villian, Curly Pi, and factored (oh, Horror!). Once Upon a time (1/t), pretty Polly Nomial was strolling across a field of vectors when she came to the boundary of a singularly matrix.. Now Polly was convergent and her mother had made it an absolute condition that she never enter such an array without her brackets on. Polly, however, who had changed her variables that morning and was feeling particularly badly behaved, ignored this condition on the basis that is was insufficient, and make her way in among the complex elements. Rows and columns closed in on here from all sides. Tangents approached her surface. She became tensor and tensor. Quite suddenly, two branches of a hyperbola touched her at a single point. She oscillated violently, lost all sense of directrix, and went completely divergent. As she reached a turning point, she tripped over a square root that was protruding from the erf and plunged headlong down a steed gradient. When she rounded off once more, she found herself inverted, apparently aline, in a non-euclidian space. She was being watched, however. That smooth operator, Curly Pi, was lurking innerproduct. As his eyes devoured her curvilinear coordinates, a singular expression crossed his face, He wondered, was she still convergent? He decided to integrate improperly at once, Hearing a common fraction behind her, Polly rotated an saw Curly Pi approaching with his power series extrapolated.. She could see at once by his degenerate conic an dissipative terms that he was bent on no good, 'Arcsinh', she gasped. 'Ho, Ho,' he said. 'What a symmetric little asymptote you have. I can see your angels have a lit of secs.' 'Oh sir,' she protested. 'Keep away form me. I haven't got my brackets on.' 'Calm yourself, my dear.' said our suave operator. 'Your fears are purely imaginary.' 'I...I' she thought. 'Perhaps he's not normal but homologous.' 'What order are your?' the brute demanded. 'Seventeen.' replied Polly. Curly leared, 'I suppose you've never been operated on.' 'Of course not,' Polly replied quite properly. 'I'm absolutely convergent.' 'Come, come,' said Curly. 'Let's go to a decimal place I know and I'll take you to the limit.' 'Never!' gasped Polly. 'Abscissa.' he swore, using the vilest oath he know. His patience was gone. Cohsing her over the coefficient with a log until she was powerless, Curly removed her discontinuities. He stared at her significant places, and began smoothing out her points of inflection. Poor Polly. The algorithmic method was now her only hope. She felt his hand tending to her asymptotic limit, Her convergence would soon be gone forever! There was no mercy, for Curly was a heavysided operator. Curly's radius squared itself. Polly's loci quivered. He integrated by parts, he integrated by partial fractions. After he cofactored, he performed runge-kutta on here. The complex beast even went all the way around and did a contour integration. Curly went on operation until he had satisfied her hypothesis. Then he exponentiated and became completed orthogonal. When Polly got home that night, her mother noticed that she was no longer piecewise continuous, and had been truncated in several places, But is was too late to differentiate how. A the months went by, Polly's denominator increased monotonically, Finally she went to L'hospital and generated a small but pathological function which left surds all over the place an drove Polly to deviation. The moral of our sad story is this: 'If you want to keep your expressions convergent, never allow them a single degree of freedom.' ===================== "To err is human -- to moo, bovine." =====================