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From: bprice@bmcg.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.micro.68k,net.arch,net.lang
Subject: Re: IEN 137: On Holy Wars and a Plea for Peace
Message-ID: <1350@bmcg.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 10-Sep-84 15:13:25 EDT
Article-I.D.: bmcg.1350
Posted: Mon Sep 10 15:13:25 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 16-Sep-84 10:37:20 EDT
References: loral.444 <491@turtlevax.UUCP> <1185@rti-sel.UUCP> <1136@hcrvax.UUCP> <1665@sun.uucp>, <1675@sun.uucRe: IEN 137: On
Lines: 37

Relay-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site dcdwest.UUCP
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Message-ID: <1350@bmcg.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 10-Sep-84 15:13:25 PDT

 Holy Wars and a Plea for Peace
Organization: Burroughs Corporation, San Diego
Lines: 28

Thank you, gnu, for posting IEN 137; and thank you, Danny Cohen, whereever you
are, for having written it.  

There is, however, one point of OTHER SLIGHTLY RELATED TOPICS (IF AT ALL) that
is disputeable.  To demonstrate that it is disputeable, I herewith dispute it:

>The  designers  of  the 1401 were probably ashamed to have address-0 and
>hid it from the users, pretending that the memory started at address-1.

Actually, the designers of the 1401 did something even worse than hiding it:
they used this global thing for a very local purpose.  The cell addressed by
the address zero was used as the row counter for the card reader!  I actually
used it, once, when I needed a '&' character in front of a copy of the card
image.  The '&' character in 000 was left upon completion of the read-card
instruction, and represented the value of the last row past the read brushes.
Using this effect follows the First Law of Hacking:  "Any phenomenon is an
interface."

Those same designers did a similar trick with address 100, but for the card
punch.  In this case, the value left was '9', the last row to pass the punch
die.

Ah! The joys of reminiscing!  But now, back to work.

--Bill Price
-- 
--Bill Price    uucp:   {decvax!ucbvax  philabs}!sdcsvax!bmcg!bprice
                arpa:?  sdcsvax!bmcg!bprice@nosc