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From: larry@kitty.UUCP (Larry Lippman)
Newsgroups: net.rumor
Subject: Re: Computer Horror Stories
Message-ID: <875@kitty.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 14-Mar-86 22:59:25 EST
Article-I.D.: kitty.875
Posted: Fri Mar 14 22:59:25 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 18-Mar-86 01:53:23 EST
References: <14700001@hplabsb.UUCP> <6466@utzoo.UUCP> <753@abic.UUCP>
Organization: Recognition Research Corp., Clarence, NY
Lines: 43
Summary: Fun with IBSYS

In article <753@abic.UUCP>, jst@abic.UUCP (Shack Toms) writes:
> > And then there's the old trick of manipulating an IBM 029 keypunch so
> > that it punches cards which are all holes.  Great bookmarks; I still
> > have a few.
> 
> Its been 15 years since I tried this, but I think I remember that
> an all holes punched card will remain stable as it falls.

	Brings back fond memories when I was an EE undergrad during the
mid-60's.  The college I attended had a 7094 with a zillion tape drives
running IBSYS.  All submitted jobs (cards, of course) required a "job card"
as the first card in the deck.  Each job card had a three digit field which
contained the maximum number of cpu minutes that a job could run.  All
undergraduates were given job cards which were PREPUNCHED for 001 minutes.
With a little ingenuity, it was possible to take a piece of card chad and
glue the 0 punches shut.  Then, using a Wright hand punch, you could set
the card for any time you wanted.  System accounting was so poor, that this
practice was seldom discovered.  I knew a lot of fellow students who
printed out awfully impressive log and trig function tables this way...
	And then there was the ``$STOP'' card.  A card punched with these
five characters and inserted into an unsuspecting student's deck would
be recognized by IBSYS and halt the system - much to the displeasure of
the computer center.  Undergrads were never told about IBSYS JCL commands,
unless they got hold of an IBSYS manual... :-)
	And then there was the IBM 407 accounting machine which was located
in the student keypunch room to list program decks.  Being of the original
hacker generation, I was just FASCINATED by this 2-ton electromechanical beast.
I quickly discovered the wiring panel, and spent many a covert hour figuring
out what the 407 could be made to do.  One particularly fun thing to do
was wiring the "emitters", which could be used to print constant text strings
in each output line.  More than one unsuspecting person listed a deck and
had MY risque comments printed in cols 72 through 80.  Even more subtle was
to use the emitters on the 513 reproducer; this "added" text was never
dicovered until after the cards were actually listed.  After a year of this
nonsense by myself and others, the wiring panel doors were fitted with
locks...

==>  Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp., Clarence, New York        <==[
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