RSCS.  Sigh.  Remote Spooling Communications Subsystem.

I suppose I could praise it for its elegant layering of abstractions ... just send a virtual card deck to the virtual card reader on the virtual machine being used by your correspondent.

Or I could curse it for its absurdity - really, a virtual card deck?   80 character EBCDIC records.

An amazing concept.


On Wed, Oct 2, 2024 at 4:43 PM Dan Cross <crossd@gmail.com> wrote:
On Wed, Oct 2, 2024 at 2:27 AM <arnold@skeeve.com> wrote:
> Rik Farrow <rik@rikfarrow.com> wrote:
> > And my comment about seeing code produced by programmers while doing sales
> > support dates from 1990. This isn't something new,
>
> Also true. In the late 80s I was a sysadmin at Emory U. We had a
> Vax connected to BITNET with funky hardware and UREP, the Unix RSCS
> Emulation Program, from the University of Pennsylvania. Every time
> I had to dive into that code, I felt like I needed a shower afterwards. :-)

Uh oh, lest the UPenn alumni among us get angry (high, Ron!) I feel I
must point out that UREP wasn't from the University of Pennsylvania,
but rather, from The Pennsylvania State University (yes, "The" is part
of the name). UPenn (upenn.edu) is an Ivy in Philly; Penn State
(psu.edu) is a state school in University Park, which is next to State
College (really, that's the name of the town) with satellite campuses
scattered around the state.

        - Dan C.