Crashing the system by editing a file
-------------------------------------

This happened again on the ICL 4130 running KOS.

I was doing research on software portability, in which I had been
interested for some time. I had obtained a portable editor from a
postgraduate at the University of Essex, and had implemented it on KOS. It
worked in very limited memory (essential on KOS) but had advanced looping
and decision constructs which made it very powerful. A select group of
people (including me, of course) used it a lot.

KOS was simply a layer on top of the manufacturer's operating system; as
such, it had to deal with unexpected error returns from the system. I
general, these did not happen very much at all. For development purposes
(and KOS was being developed continually), any unexpected error would
cause KOS to stop scheduling its timeshared users, print the message
LOGICAL ERROR on the operator's console, and pause for operator input. A
simple command would allow it to continue, but of course the error had to
be investigated first.

My portable editor just occasionally caused a logical error. I tried my
best but could never find the fault. Then, one morning, I managed to cause
four logical errors within a few minutes. The system manager wasn't happy,
and he printed an octal dump of the entire KOS slave (we would call it a
virtual machine these days). This was on 11 inch by 8 inch paper, quite
thin, and a pile about a foot thick. He dumped it on my desk, with the
order "Fix it!"

I took the pile back to my college study bedroom, and left it on the floor
for several days. On the Saturday evening, I and several other postgrads
gathered in the college bar, and I had quite a lot to drink. At closing
time, I staggered back to my room, not at all sleepy. I assume I said to
myself, no doubt in a slurred voice: "Ah, fix the editor!"

Apparently, I did so. I have no more recollection of that night, but I
woke up the next morning to find paper all over the floor. On the top
sheet was written "Uninitialised variable in fourth word of VFILE control
block". And so it was.

--
Using UNIX since v6 (1975)...

Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
http://www.mirrorservice.org

On Fri, 8 Mar 2024, Bob Eager wrote:

> Crashing the system by editing a file
> -------------------------------------
>
> This happened again on the ICL 4130 running KOS.
>
> I was doing research on software portability, in which I had been
> interested for some time. I had obtained a portable editor from a
> postgraduate at the University of Essex, and had implemented it on KOS. It
> worked in very limited memory (essential on KOS) but had advanced looping
> and decision constructs which made it very powerful. A select group of
> people (including me, of course) used it a lot.
>
> KOS was simply a layer on top of the manufacturer's operating system; as
> such, it had to deal with unexpected error returns from the system. I
> general, these did not happen very much at all. For development purposes
> (and KOS was being developed continually), any unexpected error would
> cause KOS to stop scheduling its timeshared users, print the message
> LOGICAL ERROR on the operator's console, and pause for operator input. A
> simple command would allow it to continue, but of course the error had to
> be investigated first.
>
> My portable editor just occasionally caused a logical error. I tried my
> best but could never find the fault. Then, one morning, I managed to cause
> four logical errors within a few minutes. The system manager wasn't happy,
> and he printed an octal dump of the entire KOS slave (we would call it a
> virtual machine these days). This was on 11 inch by 8 inch paper, quite
> thin, and a pile about a foot thick. He dumped it on my desk, with the
> order "Fix it!"
>
> I took the pile back to my college study bedroom, and left it on the floor
> for several days. On the Saturday evening, I and several other postgrads
> gathered in the college bar, and I had quite a lot to drink. At closing
> time, I staggered back to my room, not at all sleepy. I assume I said to
> myself, no doubt in a slurred voice: "Ah, fix the editor!"
>
> Apparently, I did so. I have no more recollection of that night, but I
> woke up the next morning to find paper all over the floor. On the top
> sheet was written "Uninitialised variable in fourth word of VFILE control
> block". And so it was.

Thank you for sharing! =)

I never had an experience like that, but I do warn my students that when
they are up late happily hacking away, they will reach a point where they
start to destroy more than they create. I always found that point a good
stopping point for the late evening hacking session. ;)

On Fri, 08 Mar 2024 22:43:28 +0100, D wrote:

> On Fri, 8 Mar 2024, Bob Eager wrote:
>
>> Crashing the system by editing a file
>> -------------------------------------
>>
>> This happened again on the ICL 4130 running KOS.
>>
>> I was doing research on software portability, in which I had been
>> interested for some time. I had obtained a portable editor from a
>> postgraduate at the University of Essex, and had implemented it on KOS.
>> It worked in very limited memory (essential on KOS) but had advanced
>> looping and decision constructs which made it very powerful. A select
>> group of people (including me, of course) used it a lot.
>>
>> KOS was simply a layer on top of the manufacturer's operating system;
>> as such, it had to deal with unexpected error returns from the system.
>> I general, these did not happen very much at all. For development
>> purposes (and KOS was being developed continually), any unexpected
>> error would cause KOS to stop scheduling its timeshared users, print
>> the message LOGICAL ERROR on the operator's console, and pause for
>> operator input. A simple command would allow it to continue, but of
>> course the error had to be investigated first.
>>
>> My portable editor just occasionally caused a logical error. I tried my
>> best but could never find the fault. Then, one morning, I managed to
>> cause four logical errors within a few minutes. The system manager
>> wasn't happy,
>> and he printed an octal dump of the entire KOS slave (we would call it
>> a virtual machine these days). This was on 11 inch by 8 inch paper,
>> quite thin, and a pile about a foot thick. He dumped it on my desk,
>> with the order "Fix it!"
>>
>> I took the pile back to my college study bedroom, and left it on the
>> floor for several days. On the Saturday evening, I and several other
>> postgrads gathered in the college bar, and I had quite a lot to drink.
>> At closing time, I staggered back to my room, not at all sleepy. I
>> assume I said to myself, no doubt in a slurred voice: "Ah, fix the
>> editor!"
>>
>> Apparently, I did so. I have no more recollection of that night, but I
>> woke up the next morning to find paper all over the floor. On the top
>> sheet was written "Uninitialised variable in fourth word of VFILE
>> control block". And so it was.
>
> Thank you for sharing! =)
>
> I never had an experience like that, but I do warn my students that when
> they are up late happily hacking away, they will reach a point where
> they start to destroy more than they create. I always found that point a
> good stopping point for the late evening hacking session. ;)

At that point, I had no judgement!

--
Using UNIX since v6 (1975)...

Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
http://www.mirrorservice.org

Bob Eager wrote:
....
> At that point, I had no judgement!

i solved a lot of bugs the instant the door locked
behind me as i was leaving the lab. no way to get
back in until the next evening. it was great though
to be able to run the batch station overnight and to
have a terminal and printer to myself (and a few
others).

songbird

On 2024-03-09, songbird <songbird@anthive.com> wrote:

> Bob Eager wrote:
> ...
>> At that point, I had no judgement!
>
> i solved a lot of bugs the instant the door locked
> behind me as i was leaving the lab. no way to get
> back in until the next evening. it was great though
> to be able to run the batch station overnight and to
> have a terminal and printer to myself (and a few
> others).

Something like that happened to us just yesterday. It was
late in the day, and a cow orker was remoted into a customer's
machine. We were about to upload a different version of some
programs which we hoped would fix the problem, when the connection
went down. The customer's time zone was three hours ahead of us,
so there was no hope of getting back in.

--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | The Internet is like a big city:
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | it has plenty of bright lights and
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | excitement, but also dark alleys
/ \ if you read it the right way. | down which the unwary get mugged.

On 2024-03-08, D <nospam@example.net> wrote:

> On Fri, 8 Mar 2024, Bob Eager wrote:

<story snipped>

> I never had an experience like that, but I do warn my students that when
> they are up late happily hacking away, they will reach a point where they
> start to destroy more than they create. I always found that point a good
> stopping point for the late evening hacking session. ;)

I knew I had reached that point one night when I found myself staring at
a power switch with those O and | hieroglyphics, and seeing the | as a
pinched-off pipe that stopped electrons from flowing, and the O as an
open pipe through which power could freely flow.

That's the thing about hieroglyphics - they replace words that only
English speakers can understand with symbols that nobody can understand.
At least everyone is equal then...

--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | The Internet is like a big city:
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | it has plenty of bright lights and
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | excitement, but also dark alleys
/ \ if you read it the right way. | down which the unwary get mugged.

On 2024-03-09, Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> wrote:
>
> That's the thing about hieroglyphics - they replace words that only
> English speakers can understand with symbols that nobody can understand.
> At least everyone is equal then...

I mean, I guess... but I think there are still uses for the
"hieroglyphics". Take road signs in Europe; they are largely symbolic.
Putting them in text would be pretty impractical, as someone who drove
in from another country with a different language (and there are of
course _many_ of those in Europe) would likely not be able to understand
them.

There are some differences in the symbols from country to country, but
by and large they are standardized, and everyone learns them when
learning to drive.

Niklas
--
Please, if you want to solicit transoceanic transport for the purposes of
buggery, TAKE IT OUT OF THE MONASTERY!
-- Bill Cole

On Sat, 09 Mar 2024 17:39:19 GMT
Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> wrote:

> On 2024-03-08, D <nospam@example.net> wrote:
>
> > On Fri, 8 Mar 2024, Bob Eager wrote:
>
> <story snipped>
>
> > I never had an experience like that, but I do warn my students that
> > when they are up late happily hacking away, they will reach a point
> > where they start to destroy more than they create. I always found that
> > point a good stopping point for the late evening hacking session. ;)
>
> I knew I had reached that point one night when I found myself staring at
> a power switch with those O and | hieroglyphics, and seeing the | as a
> pinched-off pipe that stopped electrons from flowing, and the O as an
> open pipe through which power could freely flow.

Nice.

Mine was a Monday morning that I should almost certainly have taken
off. I'd spent the entire weekend from Friday night to Monday morning at a
biker's party (at one point I'd driven somebody's Triumph through a bonfire
at his invitation) and was just a touch jaded while trying to pretend to
work. From somewhere an errant thought invaded my mind that all this
electronics and logic was just a smokescreen and really those little black
plastic packages contained (mostly) tamed daemons that sometimes just did
whatever they felt like.

The entire day was spent fighting bizarre bugs and failures in
things that had been working perfectly for months.

It was all due to fatigue etc. ... wasn't it ?

--
Steve O'Hara-Smith
Odds and Ends at http://www.sohara.org/
For forms of government let fools contest
Whate're is best administered is best - Alexander Pope

On Sat, 9 Mar 2024, Charlie Gibbs wrote:

> On 2024-03-08, D <nospam@example.net> wrote:
>
>> On Fri, 8 Mar 2024, Bob Eager wrote:
>
> <story snipped>
>
>> I never had an experience like that, but I do warn my students that when
>> they are up late happily hacking away, they will reach a point where they
>> start to destroy more than they create. I always found that point a good
>> stopping point for the late evening hacking session. ;)
>
> I knew I had reached that point one night when I found myself staring at
> a power switch with those O and | hieroglyphics, and seeing the | as a
> pinched-off pipe that stopped electrons from flowing, and the O as an
> open pipe through which power could freely flow.
>
> That's the thing about hieroglyphics - they replace words that only
> English speakers can understand with symbols that nobody can understand.
> At least everyone is equal then...
>
>

Amen! ;)

On 2024-03-09, Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> wrote:

> On Sat, 09 Mar 2024 17:39:19 GMT
> Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> wrote:
>
>> On 2024-03-08, D <nospam@example.net> wrote:
>>
>>> On Fri, 8 Mar 2024, Bob Eager wrote:
>>
>> <story snipped>
>>
>>> I never had an experience like that, but I do warn my students that
>>> when they are up late happily hacking away, they will reach a point
>>> where they start to destroy more than they create. I always found that
>>> point a good stopping point for the late evening hacking session. ;)
>>
>> I knew I had reached that point one night when I found myself staring at
>> a power switch with those O and | hieroglyphics, and seeing the | as a
>> pinched-off pipe that stopped electrons from flowing, and the O as an
>> open pipe through which power could freely flow.
>
> Nice.
>
> Mine was a Monday morning that I should almost certainly have taken
> off. I'd spent the entire weekend from Friday night to Monday morning at a
> biker's party (at one point I'd driven somebody's Triumph through a bonfire
> at his invitation) and was just a touch jaded while trying to pretend to
> work. From somewhere an errant thought invaded my mind that all this
> electronics and logic was just a smokescreen and really those little black
> plastic packages contained (mostly) tamed daemons that sometimes just did
> whatever they felt like.

I like that one. And let me guess - they breathe magic smoke, which is why
a machine stops working when you let the smoke out. :-)

> The entire day was spent fighting bizarre bugs and failures in
> things that had been working perfectly for months.
>
> It was all due to fatigue etc. ... wasn't it ?

Yep, sometimes it's hard to know when to quit - especially when
you have a customer breathing down your neck. :-p

--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | The Internet is like a big city:
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | it has plenty of bright lights and
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | excitement, but also dark alleys
/ \ if you read it the right way. | down which the unwary get mugged.

On 2024-03-09, Niklas Karlsson <nikke.karlsson@gmail.com> wrote:

> On 2024-03-09, Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> wrote:
>
>> That's the thing about hieroglyphics - they replace words that only
>> English speakers can understand with symbols that nobody can understand.
>> At least everyone is equal then...
>
> I mean, I guess... but I think there are still uses for the
> "hieroglyphics". Take road signs in Europe; they are largely symbolic.
> Putting them in text would be pretty impractical, as someone who drove
> in from another country with a different language (and there are of
> course _many_ of those in Europe) would likely not be able to understand
> them.

Some of them have enough intrinsic meaning that you can figure them
out from scratch, but many designers make the mistake of thinking
that _every_ symbol they come up with is intrinsically meaningful.

Consider the lawn mower I once saw. Its throttle was marked with
drawings of a rabbit and a turtle. How well would this go over in
a culture that didn't have the fable of the tortoise and the hare?

> There are some differences in the symbols from country to country,
> but by and large they are standardized, and everyone learns them
> when learning to drive.

I think the best thing is to treat these symbols as a separate
language that's distinct from any other. Everybody has to learn
it (which fortunately isn't difficult), and it remains constant
across all environments regardless of native language.

A hardware analog is the IEC 60320 connector on the power supply
of most modern computers (as well as many other appliances).
A computer manufacturer can build a device with a standard power
connector (typically C13) and sell it anywhere in the world. All
you need to power it is an appropriate cord (a.k.a. "appliance
coupler") which on one end has a C14 connector, and on the other
end whatever connector mates with the power outlets in use in
your particular country.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEC_60320

--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | The Internet is like a big city:
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | it has plenty of bright lights and
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | excitement, but also dark alleys
/ \ if you read it the right way. | down which the unwary get mugged.

On Sun, 10 Mar 2024 18:16:24 GMT
Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> wrote:

> I like that one. And let me guess - they breathe magic smoke, which is
> why a machine stops working when you let the smoke out. :-)

I didn't get to that. There's a demon by each pin in the chip, some
of them have a switch in their hands and are listening, the others have a
wire poked .. well you know ..., are sensitive and scream at different
pitches. The ones with switches pay attention to what chord is being
screamed.

The magic smoke is probably bongs, it's not good to let the demons
get too stoned which is why there shouldn't be enough to leak out.

The aftermath of biker parties tends to leave a 60s tinge.

--
Steve O'Hara-Smith
Odds and Ends at http://www.sohara.org/
For forms of government let fools contest
Whate're is best administered is best - Alexander Pope