Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!strawberry.cis.ohio-state.edu!pollack
From: pollack@strawberry.cis.ohio-state.edu (Jordan B Pollack)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript
Subject: Fear and Loathing in Reverse Polish
Message-ID: <75025@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu>
Date: 18 Dec 89 05:48:20 GMT
Sender: news@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu
Reply-To: pollack@cis.ohio-state.edu
Distribution: comp
Lines: 33


I seem to have innocently started a discussion which is getting deeper
and deeper into Postscript cracker technology, such as ROM monitors,
Superexec mode, the SNOOP command, and error-handling Trojan horses!
(Its going to take me some time to figure out the lingo; The last
trap-door I opened was APL/360 "I-beams".) After discovering that the
guy who wrote the TV Typewriter Cookbook is into deep reverse (polish)
engineering, I'm sure that Captain Crunch himself will soon join the fray!

Two good points were made alone the way: 

1) Modern Laser printers (other than NeXT's) contain good computing
cycles which are just often sitting idle and could be harnessed for
useful things like computing PI, or 300dpi Mandelbrot displays;
Hopefully the interrupt structure is well-documented!

2) If a company screws up the boundary between its trade secret and
trade public, it can create all sorts of depravity, rather than
useful economic activity at the fringes of its business. 


The question for today is: Do I need to get as depraved as Lancaster
to figure out how to a) hook an NTX to a Sparcstation via a SCSI
interface (which I'm told is only for hard-disks) or b) Turn on/off
Diablo 630 mode (for retrograde PC programs) via software (without
burning EEproms)?

Jordan
-=-
Jordan Pollack				Laboratory for AI Research
CIS Dept/OSU				
2036 Neil Ave				email: pollack@cis.ohio-state.edu
Columbus, OH 43210			Fax/Phone: (614) 292-4890