• Lars (unregistered)

    It's not necessarily a bad thing to compile a language down to another language. C++ started out that way.

    Extra text to avoid spam filter.

  • (cs) in reply to IdleEric
    IdleEric:
    I wonder what it's like to use GHOST in the shell?

    eh? eh? nudge nudge

    GHOST doesn't work in the Bourne Again shell...

    Speaking of acronyms... has anyone tried the Script Translator Future-proof Utility of a Generic Transactional Functional Object?

  • anonymous (unregistered) in reply to Andy
    Andy:
    Has nobody clicked on bedlam?
    You must be new here. I bet you don't even know how to read Remy's hidden text.
  • El Guaco (unregistered)

    It is fairly typical in academic & research circles to have "visionary" personalities who have grandiose ideas that they expect others to implement. When I read that Walter went on a vacation during crunch time, I was not surprised as I've seen this kind of behavior before.

    For me, the WTF moment was when all the conference attendees were on the same network and sharing their printers to boot! Anyone who left their conference machines unsecured on a public network deserved a lot worse than printed paper.

  • WCFaintBad (unregistered)
    trying to get the system to do whatever it was it was supposed to do

    The GHOST of Charles Dickens is disappointed that that was his only contribution to the story.

  • (cs) in reply to Andy
    Andy:
    Has nobody clicked on bedlam?
    Never mind that! Has nobody asked why there is a “
    ” after it?
  • Worf (unregistered) in reply to ¯\(°_o)/¯ I DUNNO LOL
    ¯\(°_o)/¯ I DUNNO LOL:
    PC LOAD LETTER? What the hell does that mean?

    In HP engineering speak, "PC" stood for "Paper Cartridge", or the paper tray that holds paper. The reason for the abbreviation is that it identified the part causing the error - namely, the paper tray was either empty, or contained different-sized paper (e.g., A4, legal, whatever).

    "Load letter" meant to load letter-sized paper into the paper tray.

    Of course, no one in HP's engineering wisdom thought that people would think "PC" stood for anything other than "Paper Cartridge" in this context.

  • (cs) in reply to El Guaco
    El Guaco:
    It is fairly typical in academic & research circles to have "visionary" personalities who have grandiose ideas that they expect others to implement. When I read that Walter went on a vacation during crunch time, I was not surprised as I've seen this kind of behavior before.

    For me, the WTF moment was when all the conference attendees were on the same network and sharing their printers to boot! Anyone who left their conference machines unsecured on a public network deserved a lot worse than printed paper.

    That vacation is an excellent time to update your resume...

  • (cs) in reply to Worf
    Worf:
    or the paper tray that holds paper.
    As opposed to the paper tray that holds chocolate? I'd love a printer like that!
  • (cs) in reply to Ryusui
    Ryusui:
    "scan the network for every printer or network drive and map it to the local machine"

    That seems like a terrifyingly unsafe thing to do. Today GHOST possesses all the printers; tomorrow it wipes all your data?

    sounds like a precursor to the birth of Skynet...

  • (cs) in reply to El Guaco
    El Guaco:
    For me, the WTF moment was when all the conference attendees were on the same network and sharing their printers to boot! Anyone who left their conference machines unsecured on a public network deserved a lot worse than printed paper.
    Bear in mind that these are fictional conference attendees.
  • JAiwo erg (unregistered)

    was it SPRIT or SPIRIT? (otherwise, an enjoyable red, thanks Remy)

  • anonymous (unregistered) in reply to nonpartisan
    nonpartisan:
    Worf:
    or the paper tray that holds paper.
    As opposed to the paper tray that holds chocolate? I'd love a printer like that!
    Sounds like you want one of these printers, then.
  • Nobody Important (unregistered) in reply to Chelloveck
    Chelloveck:
    faoileag:
    So we got a stern warning from the engineers running the lab in the first session: "Any accidentally started printjob over a couple of pages entails buying us a crate of beer".

    They usually got at least one per term.

    I was one of those students, either at that college or one like it. Back in the mid-80s I was taking a course in mainframe assembly programming. (Univac 1100 series. 36-bit words! No stack!) There was an assembler macro that was the spiritual equivalent of printf() which could be used to print debugging info. And by "print", I mean to the printer, of course.

    We had the luxury of dial-up modems (300 baud, baby!) so I'd write my programs in a text editor and upload them to the mainframe. [...]

    EXEC-8? FIELDATA? @ED,U?

    In my day (late 1970's), we didn't even have the luxury of an offline text editor (an Apple ][ cost about 1.5 years tuition) so we had to do it line-by-line. On DECWriters and UNIScopes on campus, or TI Silent 700s available for checkout for late night sessions at home.

    The computer center had a single (but very fast) line printer. I never did it myself, but I saw the result of a string of several formfeeds inadvertently sent to the printer: a fountain of paper, a good 3 feet high.

    Ah, the memories...

  • UniMatrix69 (unregistered) in reply to ¯\(°_o)/¯ I DUNNO LOL

    I wonder how many people reading this know what a TSR is/was? Good old days, thanks for making me feel every one of my 31 (mostly excellent) years in this industry

  • Lurker (unregistered)

    Many years ago (late 1960s) I was taught computer programming using FORTRAN IV on a IBM 360/44. Our teacher made the point of explaining about the ANSI forms control character and we were told never to use '1' (form feed) because of the danger of wasting paper (saving trees did not occur to anybody then...). Fast forward to later in the year when I was the only left doing some odd project. I was having some trouble debugging something and some kindly person at the computer facility added some extra WRITE statements (complete with form feed) into my card deck. Result was a mountain of paper output and an upset teacher complaining about the cost... It took some explaining to convince him that it was not my fault.

  • faoileag (unregistered) in reply to Nobody Important
    Nobody Important:
    faoileag:
    So we got a stern warning from the engineers running the lab in the first session: "Any accidentally started printjob over a couple of pages entails buying us a crate of beer"
    The computer center had a single (but very fast) line printer.
    Now it all comes back... yeah, a line printer was what was attached to our system as well, I just didn't remember the word when I wrote the post.

    Oh yeah, Fortran 77 (or whatever version it was) on a mainframe or midrange system... memories. Not exactly fond memories, but memories.

  • ¯\(°_o)/¯ I DUNNO LOL (unregistered) in reply to Worf
    dkf:
    It means that you should put some US Letter-size paper in the printer. Or press a button to tell the printer to just get on with it and use the paper it already has. Or change the stupid options in the source program/driver to get the paper size right in the first place. Depends really.
    Worf:
    In HP engineering speak, "PC" stood for "Paper Cartridge", or the paper tray that holds paper. The reason for the abbreviation is that it identified the part causing the error - namely, the paper tray was either empty, or contained different-sized paper (e.g., A4, legal, whatever).

    "Load letter" meant to load letter-sized paper into the paper tray.

    Of course, no one in HP's engineering wisdom thought that people would think "PC" stood for anything other than "Paper Cartridge" in this context.

    You've got a call on the other line from a mister Michael Bolton.

  • anonymous (unregistered)

    Good story. More like this, please.

  • (cs)

    Ninety-nine printers of GHOST on the net, Ninety-nine printers of GHOST. Shut one down, stop its abuse, Ninety-eight printers of GHOST on the net.

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