[TUHS] EGREG

[TUHS] EGREG

[Norman Wilson]

Andrew Hume (dammit andrew):

  i have probed recently about the origins of the b\x1cEGREGb\x1d (its all greg cession's fault) error in Research Unix.
  alas, i recall nothing about this, and can't recall ever getting the message.

===

Your memory fails you, which is not unreasonable for stuff you
probably haven't thought about in more than 30 years:

/*
	SCSI Pass-Thru driver for the TD Systems UD? -- Andrew Hume
	Ninth Edition Unix
*/

[...]

scsiwrite(dev)
	dev_t dev;
{
	register count;
	register struct scsi *p = &scsi[minor(dev)];
	register struct mscmd *cmd = &p->junk->cmd.msg;
	unsigned char flag, bus_id;

	if(p->flag&NEXTWR)
		p->flag &= ~NEXTWR;
	else {
		u.u_error = EGREG;
		return;
	}

As I remember it, EGREG went into errno.h and libc out
of a desire to have some never-normally-used error to
be returned when debugging.  I forget just who was in
the UNIX Room conversation that created it; almost certainly
I was.  I thought andrew was as well; very likely one or
more of andrew td presotto.

I do remember being a bit annoyed at Andrew for putting it
in permanent use in the raw-SCSI driver (which was at the
time of interest mainly to Andrew for controlling an
early optical-disc jukebox, used by the original File
Motel backup system).

As to the origin of `It's all Greg's fault' as a meme,
that was already around and established when I arrived at
the Labs in mid-1984, though Greg himself had already
moved west.  Maybe Doug or Ken remembers how that started.

Andrew himself was responsible for or blamed by more than
one meme of the days.  The scsi driver spawned one, in fact:
the first attempt used a SCSI interface from Emulex, which
never worked quite right, and despite repeated phone calls
to Emulex Andrew could never get it figured out.  He tried
and tried, though, and his attempts spawned the catch
phrase `Time to call Emulex again!'

Norman Wilson
Toronto ON

Re: [TUHS] EGREG

[Larry McVoy]

On Sun, Jan 17, 2021 at 03:52:43PM -0500, Norman Wilson wrote:
> As to the origin of `It's all Greg's fault' as a meme,
> that was already around and established when I arrived at
> the Labs in mid-1984, though Greg himself had already
> moved west.  Maybe Doug or Ken remembers how that started.

I worked for Greg at SGI and loved that I got to do so.  This whole
EGREG thing is news to me and amusing, Greg was the sort to laugh
at himself.

I'm sure I've told this story but just in case.  Not long before he
died, the cancer came back, he called me up and wanted to come up
and hang out with me on my place in the Santa Cruz mountains.  I 
asked what was up and he was all "Kids these days with their shiney
frameworks and Javascript and $JUNK_HE_DIDNT_LIKE, I just want to
talk to someone who likes C and kernels."  I said fine, but you
have to run the excavator.  I had bought a used 12,000 pound Kubota
excavator, it's useful where I live, I have 15 acres, trust me, it
gets used a lot.

So he came up.  He was not in great shape, the only thing that he 
could "eat" was tiny chips of ice.  Actual food was baby formula,
or something a lot like it, that went into a tube that when to his
stomach.

While his was body failing, his mind was 100% there, Greg was the
same Greg that I had met more than 20 years earlier.  I met him right
as he got cancer the first time, got hired and Greg went away for 
6 months and came back looking a lot older.

So we talked, it was pretty much what you might imagine, talked about
kernels and problems we had hit and solved, it was pretty basic,
nothing fancy.  It was pleasant.

He is getting ready to leave and I said you have to run the excavator.
"I don't want to run the excavator."
"I don't care, you promised."

The excavator tends to live next to a pile of logs and I put all sorts
of people in it, Greg was perfect because he was sick and weak.  The
machine doesn't care, if you can move a joystick, you can run it.

Greg being Greg, he refused to let me show him how it works.  It has
two forward/reverse joysticks that run the tracks, a 4 way joystick
that runs the dozer blade, and 2 4 way joysticks that run the two booms,
control rotation, and curl the bucket.  And there is a rocker switch on
the right hand joystick that controls the hydraulic thumb.  Greg wouldn't
let me show him anything, he just got on it and started playing.  If you
go through the pictures, I definitely got the concentration, I'm not sure
I captured how grumpy he was.  He was trying to pick up a heavy wet log
and it kept slipping out.  But at picture 7 and 8, big old Greg grin, 
he figured out how to curl the bucket under the log and that held.

http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/xtp+excavator/

That's the last time I saw Greg alive, sadly.  He was a gentle soul and
I miss him.

BTW, I told that story, and brought those pics, at his funeral.  That
story is so typical Greg all the way through.

Re: [TUHS] EGREG

[Rob Pike]

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I too miss Greg acutely.

The error message arose because of bugs blamed on Greg, arising from the
combination of Datakit code and mpx, both of which were responsible for
innumerable kernel crashes. So one day, needing a new error code for
debugging, EGREG was born. I remember Ken being the creator, but it might
have been Dennis. Ken's sense of humor is a better match, though. (Or mine,
but I'm not taking credit without corroboration.)

-rob


On Mon, Jan 18, 2021 at 8:15 AM Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com> wrote:

> On Sun, Jan 17, 2021 at 03:52:43PM -0500, Norman Wilson wrote:
> > As to the origin of `It's all Greg's fault' as a meme,
> > that was already around and established when I arrived at
> > the Labs in mid-1984, though Greg himself had already
> > moved west.  Maybe Doug or Ken remembers how that started.
>
> I worked for Greg at SGI and loved that I got to do so.  This whole
> EGREG thing is news to me and amusing, Greg was the sort to laugh
> at himself.
>
> I'm sure I've told this story but just in case.  Not long before he
> died, the cancer came back, he called me up and wanted to come up
> and hang out with me on my place in the Santa Cruz mountains.  I
> asked what was up and he was all "Kids these days with their shiney
> frameworks and Javascript and $JUNK_HE_DIDNT_LIKE, I just want to
> talk to someone who likes C and kernels."  I said fine, but you
> have to run the excavator.  I had bought a used 12,000 pound Kubota
> excavator, it's useful where I live, I have 15 acres, trust me, it
> gets used a lot.
>
> So he came up.  He was not in great shape, the only thing that he
> could "eat" was tiny chips of ice.  Actual food was baby formula,
> or something a lot like it, that went into a tube that when to his
> stomach.
>
> While his was body failing, his mind was 100% there, Greg was the
> same Greg that I had met more than 20 years earlier.  I met him right
> as he got cancer the first time, got hired and Greg went away for
> 6 months and came back looking a lot older.
>
> So we talked, it was pretty much what you might imagine, talked about
> kernels and problems we had hit and solved, it was pretty basic,
> nothing fancy.  It was pleasant.
>
> He is getting ready to leave and I said you have to run the excavator.
> "I don't want to run the excavator."
> "I don't care, you promised."
>
> The excavator tends to live next to a pile of logs and I put all sorts
> of people in it, Greg was perfect because he was sick and weak.  The
> machine doesn't care, if you can move a joystick, you can run it.
>
> Greg being Greg, he refused to let me show him how it works.  It has
> two forward/reverse joysticks that run the tracks, a 4 way joystick
> that runs the dozer blade, and 2 4 way joysticks that run the two booms,
> control rotation, and curl the bucket.  And there is a rocker switch on
> the right hand joystick that controls the hydraulic thumb.  Greg wouldn't
> let me show him anything, he just got on it and started playing.  If you
> go through the pictures, I definitely got the concentration, I'm not sure
> I captured how grumpy he was.  He was trying to pick up a heavy wet log
> and it kept slipping out.  But at picture 7 and 8, big old Greg grin,
> he figured out how to curl the bucket under the log and that held.
>
> http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/xtp+excavator/
>
> That's the last time I saw Greg alive, sadly.  He was a gentle soul and
> I miss him.
>
> BTW, I told that story, and brought those pics, at his funeral.  That
> story is so typical Greg all the way through.
>

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Re: [TUHS] EGREG

[Andrew Hume]

the evidence looks damning, but i still can’t recall.

i will, however, admit to this driver incorporating some code
my cat typed. i had left my (sam) editor open on the driver
and the cat trampled on the keyboard. unfortunately, it was centered
on a octal constant (setting some bits in a control register) and so went
undetected for a few days. darn kitty!

andrew

> On Jan 17, 2021, at 12:52 PM, Norman Wilson <norman@oclsc.org> wrote:
> 
> Andrew Hume (dammit andrew):
> 
>  i have probed recently about the origins of the b\x1cEGREGb\x1d (its all greg cession's fault) error in Research Unix.
>  alas, i recall nothing about this, and can't recall ever getting the message.
> 
> ===
> 
> Your memory fails you, which is not unreasonable for stuff you
> probably haven't thought about in more than 30 years:
> 
> /*
> 	SCSI Pass-Thru driver for the TD Systems UD? -- Andrew Hume
> 	Ninth Edition Unix
> */
> 
> [...]
> 
> scsiwrite(dev)
> 	dev_t dev;
> {
> 	register count;
> 	register struct scsi *p = &scsi[minor(dev)];
> 	register struct mscmd *cmd = &p->junk->cmd.msg;
> 	unsigned char flag, bus_id;
> 
> 	if(p->flag&NEXTWR)
> 		p->flag &= ~NEXTWR;
> 	else {
> 		u.u_error = EGREG;
> 		return;
> 	}
> 
> 
> Norman Wilson
> Toronto ON

Re: [TUHS] EGREG

[Andrew Hume]

yes. but that stems from another tale.

> On Jan 17, 2021, at 8:37 AM, ron minnich <rminnich@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> But this is you, right?
> "sys/games/lib/fortunes:I'm just andrew.  -andrew"
> 
> On Sun, Jan 17, 2021 at 7:19 AM Andrew Hume <andrew@humeweb.com> wrote:
>> 
>> i have probed recently about the origins of the “EGREG” (its all greg cession’s fault) error in Research Unix.
>> alas, i recall nothing about this, and can’t recall ever getting the message.
>> 
>> however, courtesy of Dave Presotto (i am fairly sure), there was an equivalent error
>> in Plan 9, where more or less randomly, if your user id was ‘andrew’, system calls would fail.
>> and yes, i did feel special; this was one of my lesser contributions to Plan 9.
>> this stopped after a while (several to many months, maybe).
>> 
>> andrew hume
>> 

Re: [TUHS] EGREG

[ron minnich]

But this is you, right?
"sys/games/lib/fortunes:I'm just andrew.  -andrew"

On Sun, Jan 17, 2021 at 7:19 AM Andrew Hume <andrew@humeweb.com> wrote:
>
> i have probed recently about the origins of the “EGREG” (its all greg cession’s fault) error in Research Unix.
> alas, i recall nothing about this, and can’t recall ever getting the message.
>
> however, courtesy of Dave Presotto (i am fairly sure), there was an equivalent error
> in Plan 9, where more or less randomly, if your user id was ‘andrew’, system calls would fail.
> and yes, i did feel special; this was one of my lesser contributions to Plan 9.
> this stopped after a while (several to many months, maybe).
>
> andrew hume
>

[TUHS] EGREG

[Andrew Hume]

i have probed recently about the origins of the “EGREG” (its all greg cession’s fault) error in Research Unix.
alas, i recall nothing about this, and can’t recall ever getting the message.

however, courtesy of Dave Presotto (i am fairly sure), there was an equivalent error
in Plan 9, where more or less randomly, if your user id was ‘andrew’, system calls would fail.
and yes, i did feel special; this was one of my lesser contributions to Plan 9.
this stopped after a while (several to many months, maybe).

andrew hume