Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!husc6!m2c!jjmhome!smds!rh
From: rh@smds.UUCP (Richard Harter)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Sorting
Summary: Are you ever in luck!
Message-ID: <250@smds.UUCP>
Date: 20 Nov 90 07:39:14 GMT
References: <11628@alice.att.com>
Organization: SMDS Inc., Concord, MA
Lines: 42

In article <11628@alice.att.com>, dmr@alice.att.com (Dennis Ritchie) writes:
> This group has turned into a sewer, as bad as talk.origins
> (even the people I might politically agree with are acting dumb).

	.... Snicker ....

> But I do have a serious question.  I've got a boxcar with 10,000 8-mm tapes,
> each containing 10,000,000 100-byte binary records
> without any substructure.  I need to get these records sorted.
> Can someone quote me a cost and expected delivery time?

> This is just the start of a burgeoning business; next week
> I expect a full trainload of 100 such boxcars.
> What will this cost and how long will it take your company
> to handle it?

> Since I understand that this will run into big bucks, I trust
> your company can give a brief account of its technical approach
> before I write the purchase orders.

Are you ever in luck!  Trust me, I've got the answer to your problem.
My cousin Sid, who is a part time sales executive for the Digicomputronics
division of Nocturnal Aviation and Screen Door Corporation will be in
touch with you very shortly.

As you may know Digicomputronics holds the patent on the inverted-Q-list
linear boxcar sort algorithm.  Sid will be with you shortly.  All you
will need to do is to sign a non-disclosure agreement and give Sid a 
certified non-refundable check for $10,000 and you will be in business.

[If you don't have the ten G's handy, get him drunk (easy to do) and
offer him a bottle of Chiva Regal.]

Oh, by the way.  You do have a computer with 2*100 bytes of fast mnemory
and ten thousand tape drives, don't you?


-- 
Richard Harter, Software Maintenance and Development Systems, Inc.
Net address: jjmhome!smds!rh Phone: 508-369-7398 
US Mail: SMDS Inc., PO Box 555, Concord MA 01742
This sentence no verb.  This sentence short.  This signature done.