Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site floyd.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!harpo!floyd!trb
From: trb@floyd.UUCP (Andy Tannenbaum)
Newsgroups: net.poems
Subject: Female hackers
Message-ID: <1925@floyd.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 19-Aug-83 09:17:20 EDT
Article-I.D.: floyd.1925
Posted: Fri Aug 19 09:17:20 1983
Date-Received: Fri, 19-Aug-83 17:36:01 EDT
Organization: Bell Labs, Whippany, NJ
Lines: 33

Lately, there has been some netnews discussion about whether one
should date a hacker of the oppposite sex (HOTOS) or whether,
pray tell, female hackers even exist.  In that spirit, I offer you
the following poem.

	Andy Tannenbaum   Bell Labs  Whippany, NJ   (201) 386-6491

----------------------------------------------------------------------

I had a hacker sweetie and we never used to quibble,
We'd zap cooties side by side while Hostess Twinkies we would nibble,
And of course I never meant her any mean forethought amalice,
But alas, she's left me now, my darling little Digitalice.

My little Digitalice, she would set my heart aflutter,
In our little hacker palace with the listings and the clutter,
She was small and she was fast, O her features were supernal,
How I miss the nights we spent together tracing through the kernel.

Playing horseshoes with the write lock rings we'd while away the hours
As the processor would cycle calculating Mersenne powers,
During filesaves in the corner we'd hear seeking disk drives whinny,
And we'd wince at BitGraph music, it was always rather tinny.

When I was pining for the snack machines her quarters I would grub,
I'd yell "Duck!" when spinning magtape reels came flying off the hub,
Her eyes would gleam like LEDs, at vicious tweaks and hacks so clever
On the VAX that we both loved, we thought it would be up forever.

I never thought I'd see it all come grinding to a halt,
I thought I, without exception, had it figured to a fault,
Until one day I laid in wait, an unforseen condition stumped me,
One of our pointers went astray, then I panicked and she dumped me.