July 2022 - COFF - www.tuhs.org

by Dave Horsfall

I did get SPITBOL to work past its expiry date on OS/360 :-) It was dubbed as the "Superzap of the year" by one of my CompSci lecturers (Dr. G.McMahon, UNSW). The first couple of time-bombs were easy to find, but not so the rest (long story). Probably belongs over on COFF now... -- Dave

2 years, 4 months

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Awk, not Kaw?

by Stuff Received

As I was (re)reading Bentley's "More Programming Pearls", I saw the following in Sect. 2.6, Further Reading: "Aho, Kernighan, and Weinberger designed and built the original Awk language in 1977. (Whatever you do, don't permute the initials of their last names!)" The exclamation mark seems to indicate a background story. Anyone know it? N.

2 years, 4 months

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Systemd Creator Lands At Microsoft

by Tomasz Rola

Well, what the title says. Some folks here wandered what the future may be. I suppose destroying Linux, or making it irrelevant. What would happened, if systemd development went in two ways, one gnu-licenced and the other commercial? https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Systemd-Creator-Microso… -- Regards, Tomasz Rola -- ** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature. ** ** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home ** ** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened... ** ** ** ** Tomasz Rola mailto:tomasz_rola@bigfoot.com **

2 years, 5 months

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Safelights (was: "9 skills our grandkids won't have")

by Greg 'groggy' Lehey

On Friday, 1 July 2022 at 17:57:35 -0700, Adam Thornton wrote: > On Jul 1, 2022, at 5:08 PM, Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog(a)lemis.com> wrote: >> On Friday, 1 July 2022 at 20:12:44 +0200, Harald Arnesen wrote: >>> Except that we didn't use red light in our darkrooms at all, at least >>> not from the 1970s and on. ... >> >> Correct. I started darkroom work in 1964, and from the beginning we >> used amber safelights. I don't think red safelights have been used >> since long before that. > > When I learned film photography in the mid 1980s the darkroom had > red lights. Of course it was a very old darkroom in a middle school, > so I'm sure that _adequate_ darkrooms had better equipment. Hmm. Any idea how old the equipment is? I suppose you wouldn't expect people to replace existing, functional equipment without good reason. Greg -- Sent from my desktop computer. Finger grog(a)lemis.com for PGP public key. See complete headers for address and phone numbers. This message is digitally signed. If your Microsoft mail program reports problems, please read http://lemis.com/broken-MUA.php

2 years, 5 months

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Re: Safelights (was: "9 skills our grandkids won't have")

by Dennis Boone

> The youngsters these days wouldn't know what we're talking about, of > course... Not about most of it. Bet they do get dodging and burning, though. The terms are used in image editing programs. De

2 years, 5 months

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Re: "9 skills our grandkids won't have" - Is this a TUHS topic

by Dennis Boone

> > Except that we didn't use red light in our darkrooms at all, at > > least not from the 1970s and on. ... > Correct. I started darkroom work in 1964, and from the beginning we > used amber safelights. I don't think red safelights have been used > since long before that. Another thing that the film industry > continually gets wrong. It really isn't true that red filters quit being used. Some materials are not sensitive to the broader spectrum of an amber light, making it feasible to use one. The broader spectrum is probably easier for many people to work under. Some manufacturers recommend amber safelights on the strength of improved working conditions even for materials where an amber safelight is marginal. But some materials _are_ sensitive to parts of the amber, or even to the whole visible spectrum, and other types of filter (or even no light at all) must be used. A quick perusal of B&H stock indicates that lots of red safelights are still offered. De

2 years, 5 months

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Re: "9 skills our grandkids won't have" - Is this a TUHS topic?

by Greg 'groggy' Lehey

[Redirecting to COFF] On Friday, 1 July 2022 at 16:05:30 +0300, Ori Idan wrote: > On Thu, Jun 30, 2022 at 7:38 PM Paul Winalski <paul.winalski(a)gmail.com> > wrote: > >> >> o why a memory access violation is reported as "segmentation fault" or >> "bus error", and the difference between the two >> >> o why CTRL/D is used to end a shell command line session > > I am not sure I know that, I'd be happy to know. It's the ASCII control character EOT (end of transmission). >> o why CTRL/S and CTRL/Q are used for flow control in a shell command >> line session >> > Also would be happy to know. Also ASCII control characters: XON (^S) and XOFF (^Q). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C0_and_C1_control_codes#Device_control tells me: DC1 and DC3 (known also as XON and XOFF respectively in this usage) originated as the "start and stop remote paper-tape-reader" functions in ASCII Telex networks. This teleprinter usage became the de facto standard for software flow control.[13] Greg -- Sent from my desktop computer. Finger grog(a)lemis.com for PGP public key. See complete headers for address and phone numbers. This message is digitally signed. If your Microsoft mail program reports problems, please read http://lemis.com/broken-MUA.php

2 years, 5 months

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Re: "9 skills our grandkids won't have" - Is this a TUHS topic?

by Greg 'groggy' Lehey

[Redirected to COFF] On Friday, 1 July 2022 at 20:12:44 +0200, Harald Arnesen wrote: > Tomasz Rola [01/07/2022 02.41]: > > I recall reading about some movie, whose fans >> were unable to understand why a protagonist took film (celuloid) to >> some "red room". They suggested it was for making photos sharper. > > Except that we didn't use red light in our darkrooms at all, at least > not from the 1970s and on. ... Correct. I started darkroom work in 1964, and from the beginning we used amber safelights. I don't think red safelights have been used since long before that. Another thing that the film industry continually gets wrong. Greg -- Sent from my desktop computer. Finger grog(a)lemis.com for PGP public key. See complete headers for address and phone numbers. This message is digitally signed. If your Microsoft mail program reports problems, please read http://lemis.com/broken-MUA.php

2 years, 5 months

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Re: "9 skills our grandkids won't have" - Is this a TUHS topic?

by Greg 'groggy' Lehey

[Redirected to COFF] On Thursday, 30 June 2022 at 15:18:50 -0700, Rik Schneider wrote: > Using a cheap pocket AM radio as an improvised signal probe. Heh. It's only been 5 years since I bought a "transistor" radio for almost exactly that purpose, to track down damage to an electric fence. It didn't work :-( Greg -- Sent from my desktop computer. Finger grog(a)lemis.com for PGP public key. See complete headers for address and phone numbers. This message is digitally signed. If your Microsoft mail program reports problems, please read http://lemis.com/broken-MUA.php

2 years, 5 months

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