13 Aug
2020
13 Aug
'20
10:52 p.m.
On Thu, Aug 13, 2020 at 4:04 PM John Cowan <cowan(a)ccil.org> wrote:
On Thu, Aug 13, 2020 at 1:19 PM Henry Bent
<henry.r.bent(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Also, "IPL CMS" under VM!
But this reminded me: Does anyone remember a system of any sort where there
so this damn teeny tiny display would cycle
through a sequence of codes
IPL = Initial Program Load = boot(strap), by the way. It also has the
connotations of "toggle in".
that told you what the machine was doing; it came
with a book that told you
what each code meant. Something like "387" meant mounting /usr. Ugh; I just
found a page on ibm.com describing these "IPL codes."
were *two* corresponding sets of alphanumeric error
codes, one short and
meaningless like F32 and the other somewhat meaningful like POWER_LOW? I
made up this example, but I have a feeling I saw or read about such
a system. I can't pin it down with Dr. Google.
It wouldn't surprise me if a DEC system had something similar involving
random integers and more meaningful error strings. Maybe something like
RSTS/E or RSX?
I already know about plenty of systems that have *numbers* and alphabetics,
like <errno.h>, or just alphabetics and a
(localizable) text explanation,
like VMS, or just a number and a text explanation, like the BIOS errors.
A nifty thing about VMS is that one can type 'help/message' to get
contextual help on the last error message:
$ dir foo
%DIRECT-W-NOFILES, no files found
$ help/message
FNF, file not found
Facility: RMS, OpenVMS Record Management Services
Explanation: The specified file does not exist.
User Action: Check the file specification and verify that the device,
directory, file name, and file type are all specified
correctly. If a logical name is specified, verify the
current
equivalence assigned to the logical name. If the equivalence
is correct, verify that the correct volume is mounted on
the specified device and that the file was not inadvertently
deleted.
$
Such number-only error systems are still very common in things like "smart"
washing machines, where the cost and unreliability of
a non-tiny screen
simply isn't acceptable.
My smoke detector beeps three times quickly when it wants a new battery.
Yay.
- Dan C.