• (cs)

    At least it worked in the end.

    Of course, that means it was never re-written...

  • (cs)

    Everybody knows that any good program should grow into an operating system.

  • Dustin (unregistered)

    World of Codecraft!

    I'd buy that OS in a heartbeat!

  • Linoge (unregistered)

    "nearly 100,000 lines of complex assembly code"

  • Everett (unregistered) in reply to bstorer
    bstorer:
    Everybody knows that any good program should grow into an operating system.

    Especially web applications

  • (cs)

    Dude, G.R.G. must be some old geezer. Like, dude, over 40 years old!

  • (cs) in reply to zip
    It lacked most things that we take for granted nowadays: no subdirectories
    When a user typed in a command, the operating system would first look in the giant system directory. If it wasn’t there, it’d look in the user’s home directory.

    Umm...unless the home directory is the root directory, isn't it by definition a subdirectory?

  • Anonnynon (unregistered) in reply to savar
    savar:
    Umm...unless the home directory is the root directory, isn't it by definition a subdirectory?
    Presumably what he meant was that only one level of subdirectories were allowed.

    Think DOS with longer drive letters. So you could have something like SYS:\FILE and ME:\FILE but not SYS:\SUBDIR\FILE.

    Granted that by the time I was born almost all filesystems allowed subdirectories, but I think that's what is meant.

  • klink (unregistered)

    If the OS didn't support sub-directories, why did it need a search path in the first place?

  • Jonh Robo (unregistered)

    This reminds me of the time they made me the systems programmer for a shop that had a Univac 90. All files were hard-coded to the name of the file on disk. I noticed that they hadn't installed a CATALOG and so I installed it and every single production job CRASHED that night... Oh well, so much for my systems programming position at that shop :-)

  • (cs) in reply to bstorer
    bstorer:
    Everybody knows that any good program should grow into an operating system.

    So, when do you think they're going to merge HURD into Emacs?

  • Been there done that don't care any more (unregistered) in reply to phaedrus

    Dude, we (ok, Igotta know what happened on Black Tuesday...

  • (cs)

    Back in the old days, we used stacks of rocks and poked at them with our clubs. I remember one co-worker, Oog was his name, he was a real laugh riot sometimes. One day, while he was stacking up a complex bit of double linked list code, a dinosaur came by and accidentally knocked over a few of the rocks. Oog was so mad he yelled and stomped and threw his club at the dinosaur. Then the dinosaur bit his head off. We all laughed and laughed at poor old Oog and his headless dancing corpse.

    Ah the good old days...

  • iToad (unregistered)

    At least their system was advanced enough, that the operator didn't have to toggle the RUNPROG machine code directly into memory from front panel switches, every time that the computer booted. That would have been bad.

  • (cs)

    Fortunately, we’ve all learned from the mistakes of early programmers. I’m happy to say that, since that day, there has never been an overinflated piece of software that won out over a much simpler solution, and the phrase Scope Creep is deader than UNIVAC.

    My sarcasm detector just exploded.

  • (cs) in reply to phaedrus
    phaedrus:
    So, when do you think they're going to merge HURD into Emacs?
    Is there something HURD does that Emacs doesn't?

    I kid, I kid.

  • viking (unregistered) in reply to Thuktun

    [quote user="Thuktun"][quote user="phaedrus"]So, when do you think they're going to merge HURD into Emacs?[/quote]Is there something HURD does that Emacs doesn't? quote]

    Can Emacs lauch Vi? ;)

  • (cs) in reply to savar
    savar:
    It lacked most things that we take for granted nowadays: no subdirectories
    When a user typed in a command, the operating system would first look in the giant system directory. If it wasn’t there, it’d look in the user’s home directory.
    Umm...unless the home directory is the root directory, isn't it by definition a subdirectory?
    What part of "no subdirectories" didn't you understand?
  • (cs) in reply to klink

    klink says

    If the OS didn't support sub-directories, why did it need a search path in the first place?

    Obviously it had a concept of "volumes," and could have multiple volumnes mounted (like multiple drive letters in DOS), but those volumes were flat files-- no subdirectories.

    The Boot Disk volume was restored from tape at every power-on; the user data, on its own storage apparatus (volume) apparently, was not.

  • clickonce (unregistered) in reply to viking
    Can Emacs lauch Vi? ;)

    It can (M-x term RET vi RET) ... it can also emulate it (viper mode)

  • me (unregistered) in reply to viking

    [quote user="viking"][quote user="Thuktun"][quote user="phaedrus"]So, when do you think they're going to merge HURD into Emacs?[/quote]Is there something HURD does that Emacs doesn't? quote]

    Can Emacs lauch Vi? ;) [/quote] Not only can emacs run vi, it contains TWO implementations of vi.

  • namezero (unregistered)

    Actually, there has been a way overblown software since then. It's called Vista!

  • dolo54 (unregistered) in reply to namezero
    namezero:
    Actually, there has been a way overblown software since then. It's called Vista!
    No way! Vista's streamlined to the core... there REALLY hasn't been overblown software since!!! ReALLLY!
  • (cs)

    I wish I could have saved a few minutes and not read that article. I appreciate the style, but lately these WTFs are like book reports and take their sweet ol' time getting to the point.

    Also, what's the statute of limitations on a WTF? If you're going to bring up stuff from the early days of computing, why not submit the 2-digit year (a.k.a. Y2k bug) as a WTF? Or maybe that early computers heavily relied on vaccuum tubes and reel to reel tapes? Hahahah how stupid of them not to invent better technology sooner!

    With something so long, you'd expect a better money-shot.

  • Ken Stevens (unregistered) in reply to Thuktun
    Thuktun:
    phaedrus:
    So, when do you think they're going to merge HURD into Emacs?
    Is there something HURD does that Emacs doesn't?

    I kid, I kid.

    Speaking of programs that have grown into operating systems...

  • John Cowan (unregistered)

    What's probably meant is that there were directories, one per user and one for the system, but no directories within these directories. The first system I used (OS/8) had only one directory period.

  • iToad (unregistered) in reply to Manni
    Manni:
    Also, what's the statute of limitations on a WTF? If you're going to bring up stuff from the early days of computing, why not submit the 2-digit year (a.k.a. Y2k bug) as a WTF? Or maybe that early computers heavily relied on vaccuum tubes and reel to reel tapes? Hahahah how stupid of them not to invent better technology sooner!

    Like most people reading this blog, I started programming while still a young lad in high school. Unlike most of you, I started programming in 1966. My first WTF involved 20 fatal compilation errors in a 15-line Fortran program, caused by an unfortunate misspelling of the word "PROCEDURE" on the first punched card that I ever created. Over the years, I have seen, or done, a fairly large percentage of the WTFs described here. (I even worked with Paula Bean's mother back in 1975. Her mother couldn't program either).

    WTFs have probably existed since the days when computers were built from mechanical relays. WTFs will exist when computers use quantum entanglement instead of logic gates. There should be no statute of limitations on a WTF, because WTFs are eternal.

  • hexatron (unregistered)

    It's "every good program should implement a compiler. Every compiler should implement an OS." An important step was omitted.

    Do you know why it's called 'mount'? Because you MOUNTED a tape or disk on a drive (and not a wimpy floopy disk--a 3kg monster with 14 big platters in a plastic cover that looked like a giant cake dish. And earlier--omigod, it's RAMAC!

  • (cs) in reply to Manni
    Manni:
    I wish I could have saved a few minutes and not read that article. I appreciate the style, but lately these WTFs are like book reports and take their sweet ol' time getting to the point.

    Also, what's the statute of limitations on a WTF? If you're going to bring up stuff from the early days of computing, why not submit the 2-digit year (a.k.a. Y2k bug) as a WTF? Or maybe that early computers heavily relied on vaccuum tubes and reel to reel tapes? Hahahah how stupid of them not to invent better technology sooner!

    With something so long, you'd expect a better money-shot.

    Cue the violins

  • Frozen Gold (unregistered) in reply to iToad
    iToad:
    WTFs have probably existed since the days when computers were built from mechanical relays. WTFs will exist when computers use quantum entanglement instead of logic gates. There should be no statute of limitations on a WTF, because WTFs are eternal.

    But at least with WTFs in quantum systems the correct result will still be in there (somewhere)!

  • Grandpa (unregistered) in reply to iToad
    iToad:
    WTFs have probably existed since the days when computers were built from mechanical relays. WTFs will exist when computers use quantum entanglement instead of logic gates. There should be no statute of limitations on a WTF, because WTFs are eternal.

    Are those eternal WTFs the new "Worse Than Failure" variety or are we talking about the original kind of WTF?

  • Chris (unregistered)

    Weak. It's a machine with simple parameters: crunch numbers. Not GUIs or sendmail. For the matter of the "fix"... then perhaps it may have been more wise. It sounds like the establishment was disinterested in in new-fangled ideas. Is that the only W.T.F?

    Captcha- Opcode.

    Not really.

  • gl (unregistered) in reply to bstorer
    bstorer:
    Everybody knows that any good program should grow into an operating system.

    So that's it! I always suspected that OS/2 was just a more complicated version of EDLIN.

  • Ward Cooke (unregistered) in reply to phaedrus
    phaedrus:
    bstorer:
    Everybody knows that any good program should grow into an operating system.

    So, when do you think they're going to merge HURD into Emacs?

    Emacs is a good operating system.

    Now all it needs is a decent editor. :D

  • CyberCoder (unregistered) in reply to klink
    klink:
    If the OS didn't support sub-directories, why did it need a search path in the first place?

    Each "mount point" (volume set) had its own directory on the volume.

    Imagine having every file stored in the root directory with a default access mask of 0700. Same thing, except that these old systems allowed duplicate file names in the directory as long as the files had different owners.

  • Scraping_Infinity (unregistered) in reply to Frozen Gold
    Frozen Gold:
    iToad:
    WTFs have probably existed since the days when computers were built from mechanical relays. WTFs will exist when computers use quantum entanglement instead of logic gates. There should be no statute of limitations on a WTF, because WTFs are eternal.

    But at least with WTFs in quantum systems the correct result will still be in there (somewhere)!

    Yes, but they'll only be correct when you're NOT watching...

  • Xythar (unregistered) in reply to Saladin
    Saladin:
    Fortunately, we’ve all learned from the mistakes of early programmers. I’m happy to say that, since that day, there has never been an overinflated piece of software that won out over a much simpler solution, and the phrase Scope Creep is deader than UNIVAC.

    My sarcasm detector just exploded.

    To be honest I'm surprised that nobody's yet quoted that statement and said something like "NO THE REAL WTF IS THAT YOU ARE CLEARLY WRONG THIS STUFF HAPPENS ALL THE TIME"

  • Jim Steichen (StychoKiller) (unregistered)

    Until you've tried to debug a strip of paper tape, you're not a real programmer! Ditto for the front panel toggle switches! Captcha: (Bling) does that really prove that I'm NOT a robot??

  • Kraeloc (unregistered) in reply to Xythar
    Saladin:
    Fortunately, we’ve all learned from the mistakes of early programmers. I’m happy to say that, since that day, there has never been an overinflated piece of software that won out over a much simpler solution, and the phrase Scope Creep is deader than UNIVAC.
    NO THE REAL WTF IS THAT YOU ARE CLEARLY WRONG THIS STUFF HAPPENS ALL THE TIME

    captcha: digdug

  • Sauron (unregistered) in reply to bstorer

    Emacs? Is that you?

  • dkf (unregistered) in reply to me
    me:
    viking:
    Thuktun:
    phaedrus:
    So, when do you think they're going to merge HURD into Emacs?
    Is there something HURD does that Emacs doesn't?
    Can Emacs lauch Vi? ;)
    Not only can emacs run vi, it contains TWO implementations of vi.
    But can HURD run vi?
  • an old bloke (unregistered) in reply to Jim Steichen (StychoKiller)
    Jim Steichen (StychoKiller):
    Until you've tried to debug a strip of paper tape, you're not a real programmer! Ditto for the front panel toggle switches! Captcha: (Bling) does that really prove that I'm NOT a robot??

    Sorry but has to be said, Until you have debugged a program using the squeltch* noise from the processor you not a programmer. I have seen it done. Not by me, I was a lowly operator at the time.

    *ICL 2966s had a speaker connected to the processor, that signalled the activity going on. You can recognise a forever loop in a program by, the "tones" that it generated. Also, the above can also be done by observing the hard drive heads for "thrashing".

  • Rick (unregistered) in reply to phaedrus
    So, when do you think they're going to merge HURD into Emacs?

    I think they'll just boot from grub straight into emacs...

  • Marcin (unregistered) in reply to Rick
    Rick:
    So, when do you think they're going to merge HURD into Emacs?

    I think they'll just boot from grub straight into emacs...

    Real men use Movitz to run Hemlock.

    The real WTF is of course that they didn't keep two copies of the boot tape to reduce downtime.

  • Kiss me, I'm Polish (unregistered) in reply to an old bloke
    an old bloke:
    Jim Steichen (StychoKiller):
    Until you've tried to debug a strip of paper tape, you're not a real programmer! Ditto for the front panel toggle switches! Captcha: (Bling) does that really prove that I'm NOT a robot??

    Sorry but has to be said, Until you have debugged a program using the squeltch* noise from the processor you not a programmer. I have seen it done. Not by me, I was a lowly operator at the time.

    *ICL 2966s had a speaker connected to the processor, that signalled the activity going on. You can recognise a forever loop in a program by, the "tones" that it generated. Also, the above can also be done by observing the hard drive heads for "thrashing".

    A few years ago a friend of mine attached a 12V cable to the audio connector on his motherboard; the processor got into an eternal loop and the computer produced some funny sounds. Does this count?

  • dave (unregistered) in reply to savar

    Umm...unless the home directory is the root directory, isn't it by definition a subdirectory?

    Not necessarily, young feller.

    It depends on the observation that the container that holds the (names of) the directories is itself a directory. This wasn't necessarily how people thought about the structure in the early days of the art.

    (Or, to put it another way, if your conceptualization is that the user directories can't contain other directories, then you may be unlikely to decide that the user directories are just files in something called the 'root directory').

  • Matthew Wakeling (unregistered) in reply to an old bloke
    an old bloke:
    Sorry but has to be said, Until you have debugged a program using the squeltch* noise from the processor you not a programmer. I have seen it done. Not by me, I was a lowly operator at the time.

    *ICL 2966s had a speaker connected to the processor, that signalled the activity going on. You can recognise a forever loop in a program by, the "tones" that it generated. Also, the above can also be done by observing the hard drive heads for "thrashing".

    This technique was in use from the very earliest of stored-program computers. The EDSAC (the first useful stored-program computer in 1949) had a speaker attached to the program counter register. Of course, by "register", I mean "foot-long tube of mercury with serial PC value travelling down it in ultrasonic pulses". The sheer engineering involved in using tubes of mercury as RAM must have been amazing. An EDSAC simulator I helped write for the 50th anniversary had a simulation of this squelch sound which was accurate enough to debug programs.

  • (cs) in reply to Ward Cooke
    Ward Cooke:
    phaedrus:
    bstorer:
    Everybody knows that any good program should grow into an operating system.

    So, when do you think they're going to merge HURD into Emacs?

    Emacs is a good operating system.

    Now all it needs is a decent editor. :D

    It has one.

  • (cs) in reply to Manni
    Manni:
    I wish I could have saved a few minutes and not read that article. I appreciate the style, but lately these WTFs are like book reports and take their sweet ol' time getting to the point. <snip>

    With something so long, you'd expect a better money-shot.

    I wish you could have saved a few minutes more and not bothered to post.

    What is it with you people? If you don't like the damned articles, don't come to the site to read them. If it bothers you not to have articles to read, start your own site and post stuff you like.

    Quit complaining. Either visit here or don't, but don't waste our time with your whining.

  • (cs) in reply to lizardfoot
    lizardfoot:
    Back in the old days, we used stacks of rocks and poked at them with our clubs. I remember one co-worker, Oog was his name, he was a real laugh riot sometimes. One day, while he was stacking up a complex bit of double linked list code

    So easy, a caveman could do it.

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