My Vintage Dream PC

[Richard Cranium]

Sorry, you retarded bastard, but being good at satisfying a woman is
not "womanizing" you stupid little twit.

So it is you that is the fucking dolt.

And what would old celibate Archie know about this topic?

Archie satisfies a woman by leaving her alone!

 

[Joe Pfeiffer]

One Linux editor, called joe is supposed to emulate WS, but I never
liked it as much. Some fast touch typist claimed using the letter
keys as arrow keys was faster, but this was before keyboards had real
arrow keys instead of using the ones in the number pad.

It is -- using the arrow keys requires moving your hand off the home row
and back.

 

[Charles Richmond]

[snip...] [snip...] [snip...]

The editor on the Data General Nova clone I worked on briefly while an
undergrad had an editor in which you had to explicitly

1) start editor, specifying file to edit.
2) load file to edit.
3) make modifications
4) save file

If you skipped step 2, and the only modifications you had to make were
to add some lines to the file, you learned about it next time you opened
the file.

When this happened less than a week before the term project was due, you
had just received a lesson in making backups.

I hope you had a paper listing so you could "fat finger" the code back
in. I think you should have claimed entrapment! ;-) IIRC, the old SOS
editor on the PDP-10 would keep the *previous* version of your edited
file using a ".BAK" extension. That would provide some measure of safety.

At a PPOE, I had spent half a day making changes to a FORTRAN program on
a Harris 800 system. Then I accidentally deleted the source file. (When
you delete using a wildcard in the filename, you can sometimes hurt
yourself.) I could get the back-up from the previous day, but then I
would lose half-a-day's work.

Fortunately, I had a saved copy of the output listing of the FORTRAN
program. I wrote a little utility to strip off the headers, trailers,
and line numbers, and used that to recover my source file.

Right now, I can think of at least *three* other cases of people losing
their source file because of injudicious editing or failing to save
often enough. I'll bet that there are a multitude of these types of
stories.

 

[Baron]

WordStar had a plain-ASCII mode, and it would happily work with files
larger than memory (being originally written for CP/M, which rarely
provided more than 64K total memory). Where you ran into problems was
if you grew a file to more than 1/3 of disk space, because it wanted
space for the file, a backup file, and a scratch file.

I continued to use it as an editor for years, partly because it had a
block select that let you select and operate on any arbitrary
rectangle of (fixed-pitch) text. That could be very handy when
manipulating data files or columnar material.

Dave

I agree. I used to carry a floppy with WS on it, around with me because
it would run from that floppy and enable you to edit files on the
system you were working with without having to install anything.

 

[jmfbahciv]

Well, what was the typical range?

I have no idea. There wasn't a "typical" range because the size
depended on what kinds of hardware was on the system and what
software features the customer chose during MONGEN.

Was your involvement with TOPS-10 more at the user level, rather than
internals?

It was at all levels.

/BAH

 

[jmfbahciv]

That is another one of your problems. You guess too much.

My guessed are eductated guesses.

/BAH

 

[jmfbahciv]

On Sat, 06 Jun 2009 11:14:57 -0700, StickThatInYourPipeAndSmokeIt




No guessing necessary when it comes to you, Archie. You are a
certified asshole!

Do you really like to waste your time writing the same post
again and again?

/BAH

 

[jmfbahciv]

The editor on the Data General Nova clone I worked on briefly while an
undergrad had an editor in which you had to explicitly

1) start editor, specifying file to edit.
2) load file to edit.
3) make modifications
4) save file

If you skipped step 2, and the only modifications you had to make were
to add some lines to the file, you learned about it next time you opened
the file.

When this happened less than a week before the term project was due, you
had just received a lesson in making backups.

On the -10, if you didn't use the CCL command TECO but typed
R TECO, you had to read the file in with a TECO command and
you had to finish the edit with a PWEF before ^C-ing out of
TECO. (I think that was the correct command.)

/BAH


/BAH

 

[jmfbahciv]

WordStar was also easy to patch. The company's president liked to write
memos with math expressions. I patched his secretary's copy of WS to
use function keys for various math expressions.

There was even a block of "zeros", named MORPAT, where you could jump,
patch a change, and return to the main program.

One Linux editor, called joe is supposed to emulate WS, but I never
liked it as much. Some fast touch typist claimed using the letter keys
as arrow keys was faster, but this was before keyboards had real arrow
keys instead of using the ones in the number pad.

You would like DDT and EDDT.

/BAH

 

[Archimedes' Lever]

So...

Here, wussy, wussy, wussy, wussy...

Bwuahahahaha!

 

[Richard Cranium]

Here, wussy, wussy, wussy, wussy...

Bwuahahahaha!

Na - na - na Archie. He got you good that time. Deleting his post
won't make it go away. You spend enough time at the keyboard on
kiddie porn sites to know that. He even echoed my questions:

1. Explain your statement of celibacy (don't make yourself look like a
fool again by asking for a citation; you know that you said it - just
explain it)

2. Will you attempt the numerical puzzle? I'm becoming more and more
convinced that you are fully aware that you have very limited "outside
the box" intellectual abilities which often are a prerequisite to
solve these puzzles. You seem to be unwilling to take the risk of
failing in front of others - not a very good attribute for one who
professes to work in leading edge technology - if that's really true.

 

[Walter Bushell]

How big was the TOPS-10 monitor?

I'll take that answer in words, since bytes hadn't been invented back
then.

Don't know. It depended on what the customer needed.

/BAH[/QUOTE]

Is the size of the monitor the size on disk, the minimum resident
portion, the average resident portion or the maximum resident portion,
the time averaged resident portion or what?

The size on disk could be arbitrarily smaller than the resident portion
due to tables and so forth.

 

[Archimedes' Lever]

Ha ha - you lose again faggot.

Ha ha? Come back when your mental age is above that of a ten year old
retard. You have all the substance of a freshly laid turd.

 

[Walter Bushell]

I have no idea. There wasn't a "typical" range because the size
depended on what kinds of hardware was on the system and what
software features the customer chose during MONGEN.

It was at all levels.

/BAH

No offense (well, not much) it's surprising that you seem to have no
idea how big the monitor might be. Core was a precious resource in
those days. [1]

John

[1] I remember when IBM made a big deal over getting the price of core
down to $50,000 per megabyte. PDP-11 core cost about a dollar per
word.

Things have changed, when I was like in first grade television was a
marvel. I was the first kid on the block to have it. My parent's TV was
still the same until like two years after I graduated college when I
bought them a color TV, giant 19" over $350 in 1968 dollars.

 

[Peter Flass]

No different from opening Word or Crimson Editor without an initial
file, and having to save on exit. Crimson will leave the original as
.BAK if you want it to.

The VAX editor would input a file as FOO.TXT;12 and save it on exit as
FOO.TXT;13. Eventually you'd have to go in and clean all that up. I
suppose this was the birth of the VCS.

John

You could set the number of versions to keep. IIRC there was a system
default, a user default, a directory default, and a per-file setting,
with the most specific overriding the less-specific. Great system.

 

[Joe Pfeiffer]

[snip...] [snip...] [snip...]

The editor on the Data General Nova clone I worked on briefly while an
undergrad had an editor in which you had to explicitly

1) start editor, specifying file to edit.
2) load file to edit.
3) make modifications
4) save file

If you skipped step 2, and the only modifications you had to make were
to add some lines to the file, you learned about it next time you opened
the file.

When this happened less than a week before the term project was due, you
had just received a lesson in making backups.

I hope you had a paper listing so you could "fat finger" the code back
in. I think you should have claimed entrapment! ;-) IIRC, the old
SOS editor on the PDP-10 would keep the *previous* version of your
edited file using a ".BAK" extension. That would provide some measure
of safety.

Nope, but fortunately I was just putting some finishing touches on the
project, so I was able to turn in the old version (I don't remember
whether I had a hardcopy to turn in, or if I had a merciful professor).

At a PPOE, I had spent half a day making changes to a FORTRAN program
on a Harris 800 system. Then I accidentally deleted the source
file. (When you delete using a wildcard in the filename, you can
sometimes hurt yourself.) I could get the back-up from the previous
day, but then I would lose half-a-day's work.

How do you should yourself in foot in a Unix shell?
% rm * .o
rm: cannot remove `.o': No such file or directory

Fortunately, I had a saved copy of the output listing of the FORTRAN
program. I wrote a little utility to strip off the headers, trailers,
and line numbers, and used that to recover my source file.

Right now, I can think of at least *three* other cases of people
losing their source file because of injudicious editing or failing to
save often enough. I'll bet that there are a multitude of these types
of stories.

I expect the world is divided into people it's happened to, and people
it hasn't happened to yet (like disk crashes).

 

[Richard Cranium]

On Sun, 7 Jun 2009 07:35:23 -0700 (PDT), [email protected] wrote:

<<<<<Snip>>>>>


Here's a new question for you Archie:

Why/how do you decide to use any one of your various nyms? You
responded to peterchoward69 using Archimedes' Lever and then responded
a second time to the same peterchoward69 message as Bart!. Certainly
you know that everyone recognizes that both identities are you, so why
use multiple names?

Please note that this is a serious question and this posting is devoid
of any derogatory comments. I expect you will be mature enough to
respond in kind. Thanks.

 

[Corbomite Carrie]

I expect you will be mature enough to
respond in kind. Thanks.

The retard that is Richard Cranium is ignored... and THAT IS 'in kind'.

You see, you fucking sub-human bastard, it is not the retarded "nice guy
wanna be" demeanor you claim to carry in this post that gets your ass in
the shit, fuckhead, it is all the other immature, retarded bastard posts
that you made prior to this one that negates any modicum of civility that
you thought you had coming to you. So go the **** away, boy.

You, Richard Cranium, you criminal, stalking, fucking Usenet retard,
YOU GOT NUTHIN' COMIN' you retarded bastard!

The only time you will get thanks is when you leave Usenet permanently.

 

[Rostyslaw J. Lewyckyj]

Most are about 2 years old; we just bought 4 more. And I said "about
20."

The best part, aside from the reliability that you question, is the
five spares down the hall. If any PC breaks, we just replace the box,
move the plug-in drives, and power back up. I did it in under 15
minutes, after I blew out my serial port doing something silly.

What kind of PC do you use? If it dies, how long will it take you to
get another machine and set it up, with all the apps and settings and
projects and mail and everything restored?

Well, I'm reading this in alt.folklore.computers, where the charter
is computer.folklore and supposedly that is supposed to mean
computers over 20 years old. I.e. reminiscing about what's wrong
with the new boxes and systems and programs. But Subject: topics do
tend to morph. e.g. this one is no longer about Vintage dream PC.
Actually [OT] almost any topic that's loosely polite and genteel
is acceptable. Just review the historical contents.
Anyway all that _my_ comments were pointing out is that your comments
about the flawless performance of your boxes is perhaps premature.
I generally agree, though, with the idea of redundancy to improve
reliability.
As to my specific situation,
I am now (re)tired. Currently am using a 1999 vintage Pentium III,
PC on an ASUS motherboard. It's on its' last legs. I'm shopping for
a replacement that might again last 8-10 or so years. A couple of
years ago, I lost all data on a 160 GB, not properly backed up disk
I also have some IOMEGA JAZZ drives and cassettes that I can't read.
(All! of them )
I'm happy for you, that what you have appears to have, and be, working
for you.

 

[Richard Cranium]

The retard that is Richard Cranium is ignored... and THAT IS 'in kind'.

You see, you fucking sub-human bastard, it is not the retarded "nice guy
wanna be" demeanor you claim to carry in this post that gets your ass in
the shit, fuckhead, it is all the other immature, retarded bastard posts
that you made prior to this one that negates any modicum of civility that
you thought you had coming to you. So go the **** away, boy.

You, Richard Cranium, you criminal, stalking, fucking Usenet retard,
YOU GOT NUTHIN' COMIN' you retarded bastard!

The only time you will get thanks is when you leave Usenet permanently.

Oh my. I didn't mean to get your dander up so high and so fast,
little boy. I am aware of the dangers of uncontrolled, elevated blood
pressure, especially on members of the black race, so I would never
purposely wish to cause you to react as you have done here. Just look
at all of the vulgar terms and phrases you uttered in such a short
reply. And you go to all this trouble just to avoid answering
anything about your prior claim of celibacy and your refusal to
attempt solving the number puzzle. You are so transparent Archie. I
almost feel bad pointing out this obvious ploy of yours. I want to go
take an Archie, but I'll be back soon to reply to what I am sure will
be more of your hysterical rantings. Until then, please remember:

You're ugly, your dick is small, and everybody fucked your mother.