[417] in Humor
HUMOR: More stuff
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Andrew A. Bennett)
Thu Aug 18 17:10:07 1994
To: humor@MIT.EDU
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 1994 17:01:17 EDT
From: "Andrew A. Bennett" <abennett@MIT.EDU>
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 1994 13:34:44 -0600 (MDT)
From: Espacionaute Spiff domine! <MATOSSIAN%ARIES@VAXF.Colorado.EDU>
...
Forwarded-by: dsayon@Corp.Megatest.COM (Doris Sayon)
In the beginning, God created the bit. And the bit was a zero; nothing.
On the first day, He toggled the 0 to 1, and the Universe was. (In those
days, bootstrap loaders were simple, and "active low" signals didn't yet
exist.)
On the second day, God's boss wanted a demo, and tried to read the bit.
This being volatile memory, the bit reverted to a 0. And the universe wasn't.
God learned the importance of backups and memory refresh, and spent the
rest of the day ( and his first all-nighter ) reconstructing the universe.
On the third day, the bit cried "Oh, Lord! If you exist, give me a sign!"
And God created rev 2.0 of the bit, even better than the original prototype.
Those in Universe Marketing immediately realized the the "new and
improved" wouldn't do justice to such a grand and glorious creation. And
so it was dubbed the Most Significant Bit, or the Sign bit. Many bits
followed, but only one was so honored.
On the fourth day, God created a simple ALU with 'add' and 'logical shift'
instructions. And the original bit discovered that by performing a
single shift instruction, it could become the Most Significant Bit.
And God realized the importance of computer security.
On the fifth day, God created the first mid-life kicker, rev 2.0 of
the ALU, with wonderful features, and said "Screw that add and shift
stuff. Go forth and multiply." And God saw that it was good.
On the sixth day, God got a bit overconfident, and invented pipelines,
register hazards, optimizing compilers, crosstalk, restartable
instructions, microinterrupts, race conditions, and propagation delays.
Historians have used this to convincingly argue that the sixth day must
have been a Monday.
On the seventh day, an engineering change introduced UNIX into the Universe,
and it hasn't worked right since.
and it hasn't worked right since.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
It's been a while now.. here goes...
For the geeks amongst us.... Though it is pretty good...
This is original, written in light of the AT&T-BSDI lawsuit, and the
recent trend with Sun towards System V and away from Good Ol' BSD.
- -------------------------------------------------------
"Berkeley California"
(Sung to the tune "Hotel California" by the Eagles)
In a dark dim machine room
Cool A/C in my hair
Warm smell of silicon
Rising up through the air
Up ahead in the distance
I saw a Solarian(tm) light
My kernel grew heavy, and my disk grew slim
I had to halt(8) for the night
The backup spun in the tape drive
I heard a terminal bell
And I was thinking to myself
This could be BSD or USL
Then they started a lawsuit
And they showed me the way
There were salesmen down the corridor
I thought I heard them say
Welcome to Berkeley California
Such a lovely place
Such a lovely place (backgrounded)
Such a lovely trace(1)
Plenty of jobs at Berkeley California
Any time of year
Any time of year (backgrounded)
You can find one here
You can find one here
Their code was definately twisted
But they've got the stock market trends
They've got a lot of pretty, pretty lawyers
That they call friends
How they dance in the courtroom
See BSDI sweat
Some sue to remember
Some sue to forget
So I called up Kernighan
Please bring me ctime(3)
He said
We haven't had that tm_year since 1969
And still those functions are calling from far away
Wake up Jobs in the middle of the night
Just to hear them say
Welcome to Berkeley California
Such a lovely Place
Such a lovely Place (backgrounded)
Such a lovely trace(1)
They're livin' it up suing Berkeley California
What a nice surprise
What a nice surprise (backgrounded)
Bring your alibies
Windows NT a dreaming
Pink OS on ice
And they said
We are all just prisoners here
Of a marketing device
And in the judges's chambers
They gathered for the feast
They diff(1)'d the source code listings
But they can't kill -9 the beast
Last thing I remember
I was restore(8)'ing | more(1)
I had to find the soft link back to the path I was before
sleep(3) said the pagedaemon
We are programmed to recv(2)
You can swap out any time you like
But you can never leave(1)
[ substitute whirring of disk and tape drives for guitar solo ]
