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From: dplatt@coherent.com (Dave Platt)
Newsgroups: rec.humor,rec.humor.d,comp.misc
Subject: Re: Looking for Computer Folklore
Message-ID: <20373@coherent.com>
Date: 9 Feb 89 18:42:01 GMT
References: <7143@pyr.gatech.EDU> <532@geovision.UUCP> <4575@tekgvs.GVS.TEK.COM> <799@n8emr.UUCP> <6255@saturn.ucsc.edu>
Reply-To: dplatt@coherent.com (Dave Platt)
Followup-To: rec.humor
Organization: Coherent Thought Inc., Palo Alto CA
Lines: 49

Another subclass of computer folklore is the occasional barbed comment
that one can find when reading through source code.  Operating-system
programmers seem particularly prone to witty, shamefaced, or other
slightly-off-center comments in their code.

Some examples come to mind (some of the details may be incorrect;  it's
been a long time since I read any of this code):

1) DEC RSX-11M (???) operating system.  System fault handler module.  If
   a bus-check fault occurs (indicating possible hardware problems with
   some device on the bus), the O/S traps to a fault-handler routine
   that tries to identify the offending hardware and reset it.  If,
   while attempting to recover from a bus-check fault, a second such
   fault occurs, the system traps again... this time to a routine which
   simply masks off all processor interrupts and hangs in a tight loop.
   It's necessary to manually reset the machine to unhang it.

   The comment on the loop reads "The death of God left the angels in a
   strange position."

2) There are a couple of comments in the output-symbiont (print spooler)
   code in the old Xerox CP-V operating system.  At the top of a long
   block of convoluted and otherwise undocumented code, there appears a
   taunting

	"See if you can figure out what I'm doing here."

   Somewhat further on, there's a really dubious code-construct (I don't
   recall just what was being done), adorned with the comment

	"I'm ashamed of this"

3) In the synchronous-terminal (BISYNC) module in the CP-6 operating
   system's communications software, there's a routine that construct
   synchronous data blocks (the ones that start out with the characters
   "syn, syn, dle", and so forth).  The code comment reads

	"With a SYNC SYNC here...
	 and a SYNC SYNC there..."

   The module is labeled "EIE_IO".

4) A related module, which was responsible for driving the Unit Record
   Peripheral printer, was labelled "Y@URP".
-- 
Dave Platt    FIDONET:  Dave Platt on 1:204/444        VOICE: (415) 493-8805
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