So who was the comedian?

[Jonathan Knight]

I seem to remember that there was a program called COMPIL that ran on
the Dec-10 I used. It was passed all the monitor commands that weren't
built in so that it was possible to type COPY FILE1 FILE2 and COMPIL
would run PIP to actually do the work.

There was a command MAKE which would start up TECO to create the file.
However if you typed "MAKE LOVE" you got the question "Not war?" before
TECO started up.

Similarly if you typed "GOTO HELL" (a MIC command) you got the answer
"Get stuffed".

So were these standard parts of TOPS-10 or something that the local
administrators had added?

Were DEC tolerant of humour like this or did it slip past QA before
anyone noticed?


Jon.

[Johnny Billquist]

Post by Jonathan Knight
I seem to remember that there was a program called COMPIL that ran on
the Dec-10 I used. It was passed all the monitor commands that weren't
built in so that it was possible to type COPY FILE1 FILE2 and COMPIL
would run PIP to actually do the work.
There was a command MAKE which would start up TECO to create the file.
However if you typed "MAKE LOVE" you got the question "Not war?" before
TECO started up.
Similarly if you typed "GOTO HELL" (a MIC command) you got the answer
"Get stuffed".
So were these standard parts of TOPS-10 or something that the local
administrators had added?
Were DEC tolerant of humour like this or did it slip past QA before
anyone noticed?

The "MAKE LOVE" was a pretty standard TECO feature on all DEC OSes...

This on RSX-11M+ V4.6, (which is the most current release) tested right now:

.tim
15:14:50 11-JUN-09
.set /host
Host=MIM RSX-11M-PLUS V4.6 BL87mP
.make love
Not war?
*

The "."-prompt is because I use my "own" CLI, and not one if the
standard ones...

It seems that DEC did "allow" some humor to seep through, even if it
often wasn't officially acknowledged. I know of a bunch of other "weird"
stuff in various systems as well.

Johnny

[Bill Pechter]

Post by Johnny Billquist

Post by Jonathan Knight
I seem to remember that there was a program called COMPIL that ran on
the Dec-10 I used. It was passed all the monitor commands that weren't
built in so that it was possible to type COPY FILE1 FILE2 and COMPIL
would run PIP to actually do the work.
There was a command MAKE which would start up TECO to create the file.
However if you typed "MAKE LOVE" you got the question "Not war?" before
TECO started up.
Similarly if you typed "GOTO HELL" (a MIC command) you got the answer
"Get stuffed".
So were these standard parts of TOPS-10 or something that the local
administrators had added?
Were DEC tolerant of humour like this or did it slip past QA before
anyone noticed?

The "MAKE LOVE" was a pretty standard TECO feature on all DEC OSes...
.tim
15:14:50 11-JUN-09
.set /host
Host=MIM RSX-11M-PLUS V4.6 BL87mP
.make love
Not war?
*
The "."-prompt is because I use my "own" CLI, and not one if the
standard ones...
It seems that DEC did "allow" some humor to seep through, even if it
often wasn't officially acknowledged. I know of a bunch of other "weird"
stuff in various systems as well.
Johnny
--
Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus
|| on a psychedelic trip
pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol

However, they did kill (as I was told at training) the SEX instruction in the
PDP11 making sign extend SXT (IIRC).

The multiplexer in the prints on the 11/34 did refer to the SEX Mux.

Bill

[John Everett]

Post by Johnny Billquist
It seems that DEC did "allow" some humor to seep through, even if it
often wasn't officially acknowledged. I know of a bunch of other "weird"
stuff in various systems as well.

On the subject of DEC and humor, here's a copy of an article I posted
on December 21, 1996, courtesy of the google groups search facility:

Some of the earliest PDP-10 manuals were written by an independent
contractor/consultant. As I recall he was about 6'4", thin, dark hair,
and
his first name might have been Bill. Anyone recall him? Anyway, he was
an
independant spirit who like to slip an occasional zinger into the
documentation. I always thought the following was among his best. It's
from
Appendix F "Processor Operation" in the DECsystem-10 Handbook (I
think).
Unfortunately the limits of 80 characters of fixed pitch font cannot
do
justice to the layout of the main text and "notes", but here goes:

Cleaning the Equipment

The exterior of all equipment in the DECsystem-10 should be cleaned at
least
weekly. Vacuum all outside surfaces including cabinet tops and, where
possible, underneath the cabinets. Pay special attention to air intake
gratings such as on top of the KI10 processor cabinets and on the
bottom
front of the KA10 cabinets.

Caution

When cleaning, be careful not to change the position
of any switches as this could cause a software crash.
Also be very careful not to jar any disk or drum equip-
ment as serious head problems may result.
It is alright to use spray cleaner on exposed vertical
surfaces, but do not use it around switches, near intake
gratings, or near any other openings, because the "guck"
can cause severe problems if it gets inside the equipment.

(off to the side was the note)

The "alright" in this caution
applies to the sheet metal.
Whether the carcinogens that
come out of aerosol cans are
alright for your lungs is up to
you to decide. It has never
been shown that the presence
or absence of fingermarks or
other stains has any effect
whatever on the operation of
the system. And anyway, it is
probably much healthier to
get a little exercise using some-
thing like Spic and Span.

[Mike Ross]

On Thu, 11 Jun 2009 10:04:42 -0500, John Everett

Post by John Everett
(off to the side was the note)
The "alright" in this caution
applies to the sheet metal.
Whether the carcinogens that
come out of aerosol cans are
alright for your lungs is up to
you to decide. It has never
been shown that the presence
or absence of fingermarks or
other stains has any effect
whatever on the operation of
the system. And anyway, it is
probably much healthier to
get a little exercise using some-
thing like Spic and Span.

I have a certain fondness for the following, from an IBM manual pertaining to, I
believe, unit record equipment"

"All parts should go together without forcing. You must remember that the parts
you are reassembling were disassembled by you. Therefore, if you can't get them
together again, there must be a reason. By all means, do not use a hammer."

IBM also produced some (apparently intentional, and accurate) humour in the
following quote, from an internal memo on fanatical security procedures
pertaining to the FS project:

"...A programmer who gets authorization to learn about the addressing structure
has to demonstrate a separate 'need to know' to learn the instruction set. The
avowed aim of all this red tape is to prevent anyone from understanding the
whole system; this goal has certainly been achieved..."

Mike
--
http://www.corestore.org
'As I walk along these shores
I am the history within'

[Stan Barr]

Post by Johnny Billquist
The "MAKE LOVE" was a pretty standard TECO feature on all DEC OSes...
.tim
15:14:50 11-JUN-09
.set /host
Host=MIM RSX-11M-PLUS V4.6 BL87mP
.make love
Not war?
*

Also works with current FreeBSD port of TECO...

[David Powell]

Post by Stan Barr

Post by Johnny Billquist
The "MAKE LOVE" was a pretty standard TECO feature on all DEC OSes...
.tim
15:14:50 11-JUN-09
.set /host
Host=MIM RSX-11M-PLUS V4.6 BL87mP
.make love
Not war?
*

Also works with current FreeBSD port of TECO...

All of the ports to x86 stuff that I've seen are of TECO-11, where the
LOVE code is in the TECO.TEC macro, so it's likely to get in
automagically. I suspect that TECO-10 is similar to TECO-8, where the
code is in CCL and might get lost in a port, unless intentially
preserved.

Regards,

David P.

[Stan Barr]

On Sun, 14 Jun 2009 17:29:53 +0100, David Powell

Post by David Powell

Post by Stan Barr

Post by Johnny Billquist
The "MAKE LOVE" was a pretty standard TECO feature on all DEC OSes...
.tim
15:14:50 11-JUN-09
.set /host
Host=MIM RSX-11M-PLUS V4.6 BL87mP
.make love
Not war?
*

Also works with current FreeBSD port of TECO...

All of the ports to x86 stuff that I've seen are of TECO-11, where the
LOVE code is in the TECO.TEC macro, so it's likely to get in
automagically. I suspect that TECO-10 is similar to TECO-8, where the
code is in CCL and might get lost in a port, unless intentially
preserved.

I think I confused myself, and everyone else, by diving between machines
without resetting my brain-cells :-) "Make" in BSD unix invokes make
which runs the Makefiles which control compilation. "Make love" does
however respond "not war" and creates an empty file called love.
So the tradition continues...

[Rob Warnock]

Stan Barr <***@dsl.pipex.com> wrote:
+---------------
| David Powell <***@icuknet.co.uk> wrote:
| > Stan Barr <***@dsl.pipex.com> in alt.sys.pdp10 wrote:
| > >Also works with current FreeBSD port of TECO...
| >
| > All of the ports to x86 stuff that I've seen are of TECO-11, where the
| > LOVE code is in the TECO.TEC macro, so it's likely to get in
| > automagically. I suspect that TECO-10 is similar to TECO-8, where the
| > code is in CCL and might get lost in a port, unless intentially
| > preserved.
|
| I think I confused myself, and everyone else, by diving between machines
| without resetting my brain-cells :-) "Make" in BSD unix invokes make
| which runs the Makefiles which control compilation. "Make love" does
| however respond "not war" and creates an empty file called love.
| So the tradition continues...
+---------------

Not in FreeBSD, where "love" is just another filename:

$ make love
make: don't know how to make love. Stop
$

Nor in Linux:

$ make love
make: *** No rule to make target `love'. Stop.
$


-Rob

-----
Rob Warnock <***@rpw3.org>
627 26th Avenue <URL:http://rpw3.org/>
San Mateo, CA 94403 [phone]

[Stan Barr]

Post by Rob Warnock
+---------------
| > >Also works with current FreeBSD port of TECO...
| >
| > All of the ports to x86 stuff that I've seen are of TECO-11, where the
| > LOVE code is in the TECO.TEC macro, so it's likely to get in
| > automagically. I suspect that TECO-10 is similar to TECO-8, where the
| > code is in CCL and might get lost in a port, unless intentially
| > preserved.
|
| I think I confused myself, and everyone else, by diving between machines
| without resetting my brain-cells :-) "Make" in BSD unix invokes make
| which runs the Makefiles which control compilation. "Make love" does
| however respond "not war" and creates an empty file called love.
| So the tradition continues...
+---------------
$ make love
make: don't know how to make love. Stop
$
$ make love
make: *** No rule to make target `love'. Stop.
$
-Rob
-----
627 26th Avenue <URL:http://rpw3.org/>
San Mateo, CA 94403 [phone]

Interesting. Just tried it again:

$ make love
not war.
$

However, as you would expect:

$ make test
make: don't know how to make test. Stop
$

$ which make
/usr/bin/make
$

This is in FreeBSD 7.1 SPARC64 and 7.1 AMD64

Looks like someone put it in recently, perhaps.

[David Powell]

Post by Rob Warnock
+---------------
| > >Also works with current FreeBSD port of TECO...
| >
| > All of the ports to x86 stuff that I've seen are of TECO-11, where the
| > LOVE code is in the TECO.TEC macro, so it's likely to get in
| > automagically. I suspect that TECO-10 is similar to TECO-8, where the
| > code is in CCL and might get lost in a port, unless intentially
| > preserved.
|
| I think I confused myself, and everyone else, by diving between machines
| without resetting my brain-cells :-) "Make" in BSD unix invokes make
| which runs the Makefiles which control compilation. "Make love" does
| however respond "not war" and creates an empty file called love.
| So the tradition continues...
+---------------
$ make love
make: don't know how to make love. Stop
$
$ make love
make: *** No rule to make target `love'. Stop.
$

That's not what Stan wrote.

(using tecolinux0398)
$Make love
Not war?
*^C^C

$ make love
make: *** No rule etc etc

I don't know how BSD behaves, but case sensitivity in commands is
evil. Blame this instance on the *NIX guys who misappropriated "make"
for their own purposes.

Regards,

David P.

[Stan Barr]

Post by Rob Warnock
+---------------
| > >Also works with current FreeBSD port of TECO...
| >
| > All of the ports to x86 stuff that I've seen are of TECO-11, where the
| > LOVE code is in the TECO.TEC macro, so it's likely to get in
| > automagically. I suspect that TECO-10 is similar to TECO-8, where the
| > code is in CCL and might get lost in a port, unless intentially
| > preserved.
|
| I think I confused myself, and everyone else, by diving between machines
| without resetting my brain-cells :-) "Make" in BSD unix invokes make
| which runs the Makefiles which control compilation. "Make love" does
| however respond "not war" and creates an empty file called love.
| So the tradition continues...
+---------------
$ make love
make: don't know how to make love. Stop
$
$ make love
make: *** No rule to make target `love'. Stop.
$
-Rob
-----
627 26th Avenue <URL:http://rpw3.org/>
San Mateo, CA 94403 [phone]

Interesting. Just tried it again:

$ make love
not war.
$

However, as you would expect:

$ make test
make: don't know how to make test. Stop
$

$ which make
/usr/bin/make
$

This is in FreeBSD 7.1 SPARC64 and 7.1 AMD64

Looks like someone put it in recently, perhaps.

[Pat Farrell]

Post by Jonathan Knight
I seem to remember that there was a program called COMPIL that ran on
the Dec-10 I used. It was passed all the monitor commands that weren't
built in so that it was possible to type COPY FILE1 FILE2 and COMPIL
would run PIP to actually do the work.

Altho on tops-20 it would have been
copy dest=source

Post by Jonathan Knight
There was a command MAKE which would start up TECO to create the file.
However if you typed "MAKE LOVE" you got the question "Not war?" before
TECO started up.

I remember seeing this in 1970 or so, on KA-10s
I'm sure it was a DEC joker, rather than a site specific hack

[Rich Alderson]

Post by Pat Farrell

Post by Jonathan Knight
I seem to remember that there was a program called COMPIL that ran on
the Dec-10 I used. It was passed all the monitor commands that weren't
built in so that it was possible to type COPY FILE1 FILE2 and COMPIL
would run PIP to actually do the work.

Altho on tops-20 it would have been
copy dest=source

Not on any version of TOPS-20 (3A, 4, 5.1/5.4, 6.0, 6.1, 7.0, or 7.1) that
I ever used. The syntax for the COPY command is

copy (FROM) tty.cmd.2 (TO) another.file.1

where the guide words are typed out by the COMND% JSYS if the command
completion character (ESC, ASCII 033) is used.

The (FROM) specification can be a comma-separated list of file names.

copy tty.cmd, login.cmd, comand.cmd (TO) concatenated.file

[Pat Farrell]

Post by Pat Farrell

Post by Jonathan Knight
I seem to remember that there was a program called COMPIL that ran on
the Dec-10 I used. It was passed all the monitor commands that weren't
built in so that it was possible to type COPY FILE1 FILE2 and COMPIL
would run PIP to actually do the work.

Altho on tops-20 it would have been

Braino, I meant tops-10 used = and left assignment from right,
Tops-20 use guide words and left to right

[Jonathan Knight]

Post by Pat Farrell
Braino, I meant tops-10 used = and left assignment from right,
Tops-20 use guide words and left to right

I seem to remember that you could use the left arrow symbol from the ASR
33 Teletype instead of an equals in PIP which made the direction of the
copy for explicit.

Jon.

[jmfbahciv]

Post by Jonathan Knight

Post by Pat Farrell
Braino, I meant tops-10 used = and left assignment from right,
Tops-20 use guide words and left to right

I seem to remember that you could use the left arrow symbol from the ASR
33 Teletype instead of an equals in PIP which made the direction of the
copy for explicit.

Yep. It was very useful for training newbies.

/BAH

[jmfbahciv]

Post by Rich Alderson

Post by Pat Farrell

Post by Jonathan Knight
I seem to remember that there was a program called COMPIL that ran on
the Dec-10 I used. It was passed all the monitor commands that weren't
built in so that it was possible to type COPY FILE1 FILE2 and COMPIL
would run PIP to actually do the work.

Altho on tops-20 it would have been
copy dest=source

Not on any version of TOPS-20 (3A, 4, 5.1/5.4, 6.0, 6.1, 7.0, or 7.1) that
I ever used.

Right. TOPS-20 did not invoke PIP.

Post by Rich Alderson
The syntax for the COPY command is
copy (FROM) tty.cmd.2 (TO) another.file.1
where the guide words are typed out by the COMND% JSYS if the command
completion character (ESC, ASCII 033) is used.
The (FROM) specification can be a comma-separated list of file names.
copy tty.cmd, login.cmd, comand.cmd (TO) concatenated.file

A lot of people new to DEC machines had trouble remembering which
way the copy went. So I always told them that the backarrow showed
the direction of the copy: destination<-source.

Then the backarrow disappeared :-(. I still mourn that.

/BAH

[Bob, K1BC]

Post by Pat Farrell

Post by Jonathan Knight
There was a command MAKE which would start up TECO to create the file.
However if you typed "MAKE LOVE" you got the question "Not war?" before
TECO started up.

I remember seeing this in 1970 or so, on KA-10s
I'm sure it was a DEC joker, rather than a site specific hack

That hack was in the original version of the COMPIL source
that I received from Stanford. People at DEC were aware of
it, and I was never instructed to remove it. So it stayed.

/Rcc

[jmfbahciv]

Post by Bob, K1BC

Post by Pat Farrell

Post by Jonathan Knight
There was a command MAKE which would start up TECO to create the file.
However if you typed "MAKE LOVE" you got the question "Not war?" before
TECO started up.

I remember seeing this in 1970 or so, on KA-10s
I'm sure it was a DEC joker, rather than a site specific hack

That hack was in the original version of the COMPIL source
that I received from Stanford. People at DEC were aware of
it, and I was never instructed to remove it. So it stayed.

I'd always thought that Pete Conklin had put it in. Another
Tape Prep myth has been demolished.

/BAH

[Stan Barr]

On Thu, 11 Jun 2009 12:48:09 +0100, Jonathan Knight

Post by Jonathan Knight
There was a command MAKE which would start up TECO to create the file.
However if you typed "MAKE LOVE" you got the question "Not war?" before
TECO started up.
Similarly if you typed "GOTO HELL" (a MIC command) you got the answer
"Get stuffed".
So were these standard parts of TOPS-10 or something that the local
administrators had added?
Were DEC tolerant of humour like this or did it slip past QA before
anyone noticed?

Having _just_ (yesterday) got Tops-10 running*, I just _had_ to try those.
Cool!

Tops-10 is quite a steep learning curve for someone like me with very
little mainframe experience, but I'm getting there. I've managed to
create a new user for myself, and I can LOGIN remotely from the FreeBSD
box.

* Under simh, of course.

[Rich Alderson]

Post by Stan Barr
Having _just_ (yesterday) got Tops-10 running*, I just _had_ to try those.
Cool!

Congratulations!

Post by Stan Barr
Tops-10 is quite a steep learning curve for someone like me with very
little mainframe experience, but I'm getting there. I've managed to
create a new user for myself, and I can LOGIN remotely from the FreeBSD
box.

We'll all answer any questions you have, I'm sure. (At length, with numerous
sidebars, and perhaps some disparaging remarks, but we'll answer. :-)

[Stan Barr]

On 11 Jun 2009 15:49:31 -0400, Rich Alderson

Post by Rich Alderson

Post by Stan Barr
Having _just_ (yesterday) got Tops-10 running*, I just _had_ to try those.
Cool!

Congratulations!

Post by Stan Barr
Tops-10 is quite a steep learning curve for someone like me with very
little mainframe experience, but I'm getting there. I've managed to
create a new user for myself, and I can LOGIN remotely from the FreeBSD
box.

We'll all answer any questions you have, I'm sure. (At length, with numerous
sidebars, and perhaps some disparaging remarks, but we'll answer. :-)

Thanks! I'm sure there _will_ be questions :-)

[jmfbahciv]

Post by Stan Barr
On Thu, 11 Jun 2009 12:48:09 +0100, Jonathan Knight

Post by Jonathan Knight
There was a command MAKE which would start up TECO to create the file.
However if you typed "MAKE LOVE" you got the question "Not war?" before
TECO started up.
Similarly if you typed "GOTO HELL" (a MIC command) you got the answer
"Get stuffed".
So were these standard parts of TOPS-10 or something that the local
administrators had added?
Were DEC tolerant of humour like this or did it slip past QA before
anyone noticed?

Having _just_ (yesterday) got Tops-10 running*, I just _had_ to try those.
Cool!
Tops-10 is quite a steep learning curve for someone like me with very
little mainframe experience, but I'm getting there. I've managed to
create a new user for myself, and I can LOGIN remotely from the FreeBSD
box.
* Under simh, of course.

There is a cheat sheet booklet (I don't know where mine is packed or
I'd give you the order number) which has all the info you need
for typing commands. IIRC, it's called "TOPS-10 Commands".

/BAH

[Stan Barr]

Post by jmfbahciv
There is a cheat sheet booklet (I don't know where mine is packed or
I'd give you the order number) which has all the info you need
for typing commands. IIRC, it's called "TOPS-10 Commands".

I've dowloaded a lot of docs, I think that is one of them.

Some thing such as REACT and TECO are famailiar to me from RSTS/E
which helps a bit.

[jmfbahciv]

Post by Stan Barr

Post by jmfbahciv
There is a cheat sheet booklet (I don't know where mine is packed or
I'd give you the order number) which has all the info you need
for typing commands. IIRC, it's called "TOPS-10 Commands".

I've dowloaded a lot of docs, I think that is one of them.
Some thing such as REACT and TECO are famailiar to me from RSTS/E
which helps a bit.

My style of meeting a new system is to see what files are on it.

DIR *.*[*,*,*,*,*,*,*]

is one way to do this.

If you want it to go to a file which you can look at with an
editor type

DIR FOO.DIR=*.*[*,*,*,*,*,*,*]

It will create a file FOO.DIR in the directory you're logged into.
It's probably a good idea to make one of these and print it since
you're just beginning with the system.

If you want to look at the contents of any of them, you can
do the following without any chance of damaging the system
or shooting yourself in the foot:

R TECO
ERfile.ext[directory]$$

/BAH

[jmfbahciv]

Post by jmfbahciv

Post by Stan Barr

Post by jmfbahciv
There is a cheat sheet booklet (I don't know where mine is packed or
I'd give you the order number) which has all the info you need
for typing commands. IIRC, it's called "TOPS-10 Commands".

I've dowloaded a lot of docs, I think that is one of them.
Some thing such as REACT and TECO are famailiar to me from RSTS/E
which helps a bit.

My style of meeting a new system is to see what files are on it.
DIR *.*[*,*,*,*,*,*,*]
is one way to do this.
If you want it to go to a file which you can look at with an
editor type
DIR FOO.DIR=*.*[*,*,*,*,*,*,*]
It will create a file FOO.DIR in the directory you're logged into.
It's probably a good idea to make one of these and print it since
you're just beginning with the system.

If you are going to make a listing, I'd do the following DIRECT
command:

DIR FOO.DIR=*.*[*,*,*,*,*,*,*]/CHE

which will give a checksum for each file. In the future, if
you think a file got trashed, you can compare the checksums.

Post by jmfbahciv
If you want to look at the contents of any of them, you can
do the following without any chance of damaging the system
R TECO
ERfile.ext[directory]$$

Another interesting thing you can do is

R SYSDPY

although you may have to play with your TTY settings to get it to
display correctly. It gives a live snapshot of what is running
on the system with updates every n seconds (which is settable but
I don't recall how).

/BAH

[jmfbahciv]

Post by Jonathan Knight
I seem to remember that there was a program called COMPIL that ran on
the Dec-10 I used. It was passed all the monitor commands that weren't
built in so that it was possible to type COPY FILE1 FILE2 and COMPIL
would run PIP to actually do the work.
There was a command MAKE which would start up TECO to create the file.
However if you typed "MAKE LOVE" you got the question "Not war?" before
TECO started up.
Similarly if you typed "GOTO HELL" (a MIC command) you got the answer
"Get stuffed".
So were these standard parts of TOPS-10 or something that the local
administrators had added?

The TECO response was there when I typed it in 1969. When I started
working at DEC in 1971, I was told that Pete Conklin put that in.

The MIC command was there when we got the software. I don't know
who put that in.

Post by Jonathan Knight
Were DEC tolerant of humour like this or did it slip past QA before
anyone noticed?

DEC was very tolerant until they started hiring "professional" <sniff>
editors. Then all humor stopped and we had to put it in the comments
of the code.

My favorite was the chemical picture of DDT in the margins of the
DDT manual.

/BAH