Re: [TUHS] Any Good dmr Anecdotes?

Re: [TUHS] Any Good dmr Anecdotes?

[Larry McVoy]

I've told this story so much that my kids hear me start it and go "is that
the Unix guy?  Yeah, we've heard this".  And I think many of you have heard
it as well so you can hit delete, but for the newbies to the list here goes.

Decades ago I was a grad student at UWisc and pretty active on comp.arch
and comp.unix-wizards (I was not a wizard but I've lived through, and
written up, the process of restoring a Masscomp after having done some
variant of rm -rf / so a stupid wizard wanna be?)

From time to time, some Unix kernel thing would come up and I'd email
...!research!dmr and ask him how that worked.  

He *always* replied.  To me, a nobody.  All he cared was that the question
wasn't retarded (and I bet to him some of mine were but the questions showed
that I was thinking and that was good enough for him).  I remember a long
discussion about something, I think PIPEBUF but not sure, and at some point
he sent me his phone number and said "call me".  Email was too slow.

So yeah, one of the inventors of Unix was cool enough to take some young
nobody and educate him.  That's Dennis.

I've tried to pass some of that energy forward to my kids, telling them
that if you want to learn, smart people like that and they will help you.

Dennis was a humble man, a smart man, and a dude willing to pass on what
he knew.

I miss him and cherish the interactions I had with him.

Re: [TUHS] Any Good dmr Anecdotes?

[Jon Forrest]

In the early 1980s my girlfriend (now my wife) and I were visiting
Bell Lab's Murray Hill research facility where a friend of mine
worked. My friend had nothing to do with Unix, but I asked him
to take us by the area where the Unix work was being done.

What my wife still remembers to this day is when we saw Dennis
Ritchie sitting at a terminal, with about 7 guys surrounding him.
They were all giggling loudly at something on the screen. My wife
couldn't understand what could be so funny to cause all those guys to
react that way.

Jon Forrest

Re: [TUHS] Masscomp oops [was: Any Good dmr Anecdotes?]

[Mike Markowski]

On 06/29/2018 09:31 PM, Larry McVoy wrote:
> [...] (I was not a wizard but I've lived through, and
> written up, the process of restoring a Masscomp after having done some
> variant of rm -rf / so a stupid wizard wanna be?)

That reminds me of preparing a Masscomp to bring out in the field for 
radar data acquisition.  After some minor incident, I needed to run an 
fsck when a cute, slender gal came into the lab.  In my flustered state 
hoping to start a witty conversation I typed mkfs...  Unfortunately, no 
wizards around, let alone dmr, to save the day - which turned into a 
very late day.  On the plus side, I ended up marrying the girl.

Mike Markowski

Re: [TUHS] Any Good dmr Anecdotes?

[Steve Johnson]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1638 bytes --]

Another DMR memory.   We typically worked in the "Unix Room" up in
the attic, where there were a number of terminals and (at the time)
one phone line.  I remember overhearing Dennis talking on the phone
quite patiently with a guy from another location who wanted some
feature added to C or Unix (don't remember which).  Dennis explained
several time why the feature was difficult to implement, wouldn't
solve his problem, and could, in some cases, lock up the operating
system.   The guy on the other end kept arguing.   Finally Dennis
suggested that he arrange a meeting so we could better understand the
problem and get some other ideas on how to solve it.   "Oh, I
couldn't do that!  We have to make a decision by 5PM today!"   
Dennis sighed and said "You mean, this problem is so important and
urgent that you don't have time to think about it?"

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jon Forrest" <nobozo@gmail.com>
To:<tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
Cc:
Sent:Fri, 29 Jun 2018 18:45:25 -0700
Subject:Re: [TUHS] Any Good dmr Anecdotes?

 In the early 1980s my girlfriend (now my wife) and I were visiting
 Bell Lab's Murray Hill research facility where a friend of mine
 worked. My friend had nothing to do with Unix, but I asked him
 to take us by the area where the Unix work was being done.

 What my wife still remembers to this day is when we saw Dennis
 Ritchie sitting at a terminal, with about 7 guys surrounding him.
 They were all giggling loudly at something on the screen. My wife
 couldn't understand what could be so funny to cause all those guys to
 react that way.

 Jon Forrest


[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 2302 bytes --]

Re: [TUHS] Masscomp oops [was: Any Good dmr Anecdotes?]

[Mike Markowski]

On 06/30/2018 01:37 PM, Noel Chiappa wrote:
>      > From: Mike Markowski
> 
>      > a cute, slender gal came into the lab. ... I typed mkfs...  On the plus
>      > side, I ended up marrying the girl.
> 
> OK, so now I _have_ to hear the backstory - _when_ did you tell her what
> happened?  Then? (Maybe she noticed the look on your face once you realized
> what you'd done? :-) Later? Never? :-)
> 
>       Noel

Oh, she noticed.  There are those moments of mild annoyance: "Maaan!" 
and maybe even a desk slap.  Moments worthy of a 4 letter word, and then 
the times like that, the jaw dropping sock in the gut feeling.

I was an EE working on a radar system, she was a computer scientist 
doing coding.  She knew I did something bad by my reaction.  The lovely 
Ms. Hsi's response was something like, "That's what happens when you 
give an engineer root."  With a laugh, I might add.

Mike Markowski

Re: [TUHS] Masscomp oops [was: Any Good dmr Anecdotes?]

[Noel Chiappa]

    > From: Mike Markowski

    > a cute, slender gal came into the lab. ... I typed mkfs...  On the plus
    > side, I ended up marrying the girl.

OK, so now I _have_ to hear the backstory - _when_ did you tell her what
happened?  Then? (Maybe she noticed the look on your face once you realized
what you'd done? :-) Later? Never? :-)

     Noel