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* Unix witticisms
@ 2017-10-04  8:30 Wesley Parish
  2017-10-05  9:22 ` Don Hopkins
                   ` (3 more replies)
  0 siblings, 4 replies; 34+ messages in thread
From: Wesley Parish @ 2017-10-04  8:30 UTC (permalink / raw)


I've just visited Slashdot and found this little gem at the bottom of the page:
Unix is a Registered Bell of AT&T Trademark Laboratories. -- Donn Seeley

Unix seems to have garnered witticisms: Salus throws in a few on the front cover
of his book. Has anyone made a collection of them?

Wesley Parish

"I have supposed that he who buys a Method means to learn it." - Ferdinand Sor,
Method for Guitar

"A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on." -- Samuel Goldwyn


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* Unix witticisms
  2017-10-04  8:30 Unix witticisms Wesley Parish
@ 2017-10-05  9:22 ` Don Hopkins
  2017-10-05 14:26   ` Ron Natalie
  2017-10-05 10:43 ` Russell Page
                   ` (2 subsequent siblings)
  3 siblings, 1 reply; 34+ messages in thread
From: Don Hopkins @ 2017-10-05  9:22 UTC (permalink / raw)


Linux is only free if your time is worthless.

-Don

> On 4 Oct 2017, at 10:30, Wesley Parish <wes.parish at paradise.net.nz> wrote:
> 
> I've just visited Slashdot and found this little gem at the bottom of the page:
> Unix is a Registered Bell of AT&T Trademark Laboratories. -- Donn Seeley
> 
> Unix seems to have garnered witticisms: Salus throws in a few on the front cover
> of his book. Has anyone made a collection of them?
> 
> Wesley Parish
> 
> "I have supposed that he who buys a Method means to learn it." - Ferdinand Sor,
> Method for Guitar
> 
> "A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on." -- Samuel Goldwyn



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* Unix witticisms
  2017-10-04  8:30 Unix witticisms Wesley Parish
  2017-10-05  9:22 ` Don Hopkins
@ 2017-10-05 10:43 ` Russell Page
  2017-10-05 10:54   ` Steve Nickolas
  2017-10-05 22:38   ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey
  2017-10-05 10:53 ` Tom Ivar Helbekkmo
  2017-10-06 16:01 ` Dario Niedermann
  3 siblings, 2 replies; 34+ messages in thread
From: Russell Page @ 2017-10-05 10:43 UTC (permalink / raw)


I can't remember where, but I once saw "UNIX is a registered footnote of 
Bell Laboratories".


On 4/10/2017 7:30 PM, Wesley Parish wrote:
> I've just visited Slashdot and found this little gem at the bottom of the page:
> Unix is a Registered Bell of AT&T Trademark Laboratories. -- Donn Seeley
>
> Unix seems to have garnered witticisms: Salus throws in a few on the front cover
> of his book. Has anyone made a collection of them?
>
> Wesley Parish
>
> "I have supposed that he who buys a Method means to learn it." - Ferdinand Sor,
> Method for Guitar
>
> "A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on." -- Samuel Goldwyn
>
>

-- 
Russell Page
RussellPage at foxhat.net
+61 405 148 325



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* Unix witticisms
  2017-10-04  8:30 Unix witticisms Wesley Parish
  2017-10-05  9:22 ` Don Hopkins
  2017-10-05 10:43 ` Russell Page
@ 2017-10-05 10:53 ` Tom Ivar Helbekkmo
  2017-10-06 16:01 ` Dario Niedermann
  3 siblings, 0 replies; 34+ messages in thread
From: Tom Ivar Helbekkmo @ 2017-10-05 10:53 UTC (permalink / raw)


Wesley Parish <wes.parish at paradise.net.nz> writes:

> Unix is a Registered Bell of AT&T Trademark Laboratories. -- Donn Seeley

That reminds me of this one (I don't know where I picked it up, though):

"UNIX is a registered trade mark of AT&T.  AT&T is a modem test command."

-tih
-- 
Most people who graduate with CS degrees don't understand the significance
of Lisp.  Lisp is the most important idea in computer science.  --Alan Kay


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* Unix witticisms
  2017-10-05 10:43 ` Russell Page
@ 2017-10-05 10:54   ` Steve Nickolas
  2017-10-05 22:38   ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 34+ messages in thread
From: Steve Nickolas @ 2017-10-05 10:54 UTC (permalink / raw)


The one that comes to mind is "Unix is user-friendly; it's just picky 
about who its friends are."

-uso.


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* Unix witticisms
  2017-10-05  9:22 ` Don Hopkins
@ 2017-10-05 14:26   ` Ron Natalie
  2017-10-05 14:37     ` Dan Cross
                       ` (2 more replies)
  0 siblings, 3 replies; 34+ messages in thread
From: Ron Natalie @ 2017-10-05 14:26 UTC (permalink / raw)


At the 83 USENIX Sun handed out buttons that said the "The Joy of UNIX."
Peter Langston thought that was a bit conceited on Bill's part, so  he made
up buttons for the next show that read "The PSL of UNIX", "The DMR of UNIX,"
etc... and handed them out.    I still have the Joy of UNIX button, but I
lost my "Ron of UNIX" button shortly after the show.

The "is a  trademark of bell labs" generated lots of jokes over the year.
I have somewhere a button that says "Eunuchs are a hallmark of the Ottoman
Empire."    At one of the early UUGs someone tried to make "UNIX is a
Trademark of Bell Labs" pencils except the custom pencil place only allowed
18 letters or something so the pencils just ended up saying "UNIX is a
Trademark."     I'm not sure I've ever come across another Trademark that
the footnote status was as widely propagated as UNIX's.    AT&T's lawyers
even got up at one of the conferences (in a talk about licensing changes or
such) and thanked the community for defending the trademark.

There was a contest back on UNIX-WIZARDS in the day to generate new errno
codes.    My favorite was ELECTROLUX - Your code needs cleaning up.

A joke issue of the Computation Center at UT Austin's newsletter
(Universally Plexus at Autism) had an item about UNIX Pipes not permitted in
non-smoking areas.   I think that was also the source of the "Cannot fork--
Try again during lunch" quote.





^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* Unix witticisms
  2017-10-05 14:26   ` Ron Natalie
@ 2017-10-05 14:37     ` Dan Cross
  2017-10-05 15:33       ` Ron Natalie
  2017-10-05 14:48     ` Jon Steinhart
  2017-10-07  8:51     ` Russell Page
  2 siblings, 1 reply; 34+ messages in thread
From: Dan Cross @ 2017-10-05 14:37 UTC (permalink / raw)


On Thu, Oct 5, 2017 at 10:26 AM, Ron Natalie <ron at ronnatalie.com> wrote:
> At the 83 USENIX Sun handed out buttons that said the "The Joy of UNIX."
> Peter Langston thought that was a bit conceited on Bill's part, so  he made
> up buttons for the next show that read "The PSL of UNIX", "The DMR of UNIX,"
> etc... and handed them out.    I still have the Joy of UNIX button, but I
> lost my "Ron of UNIX" button shortly after the show.
>
> The "is a  trademark of bell labs" generated lots of jokes over the year.
> I have somewhere a button that says "Eunuchs are a hallmark of the Ottoman
> Empire."    At one of the early UUGs someone tried to make "UNIX is a
> Trademark of Bell Labs" pencils except the custom pencil place only allowed
> 18 letters or something so the pencils just ended up saying "UNIX is a
> Trademark."     I'm not sure I've ever come across another Trademark that
> the footnote status was as widely propagated as UNIX's.    AT&T's lawyers
> even got up at one of the conferences (in a talk about licensing changes or
> such) and thanked the community for defending the trademark.

A running gag throughout the Mel Brooks movie, "Spaceballs" is
recurring product spots for the film's promotional materials
("Spaceballs: the toiler paper" was my favorite:
https://i.pinimg.com/474x/c3/53/c3/c353c3a52c70a66b2d7cf456756a361c--movie-drinking-games-s-movies.jpg).
This sounds similar in both character and execution.

        - Dan C.


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* Unix witticisms
  2017-10-05 14:26   ` Ron Natalie
  2017-10-05 14:37     ` Dan Cross
@ 2017-10-05 14:48     ` Jon Steinhart
  2017-10-05 23:28       ` Robert Brockway
  2017-10-07  8:51     ` Russell Page
  2 siblings, 1 reply; 34+ messages in thread
From: Jon Steinhart @ 2017-10-05 14:48 UTC (permalink / raw)


Favorite bumper sticker: "Reach out and grep someone".


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* Unix witticisms
  2017-10-05 14:37     ` Dan Cross
@ 2017-10-05 15:33       ` Ron Natalie
  2017-10-05 17:11         ` [TUHS] " ron minnich
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 34+ messages in thread
From: Ron Natalie @ 2017-10-05 15:33 UTC (permalink / raw)




> A running gag throughout the Mel Brooks movie, "Spaceballs" is recurring product spots for the film's promotional materials

From IMDB:

In a 2013 television interview (shorty before receiving the AFI Lifetime Achievement Award), Mel Brooks stated that he personally obtained George Lucas' full permission to parody any and all things Star Wars-related but, on one condition, that absolutely no merchandise of any kind be produced from the film. This is the reason why all Yogurt and the Dinks do is merchandising (it is also why none of the merchandise seen in the film was ever mass produced or publicly sold in any way).



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* [TUHS] Unix witticisms
  2017-10-05 15:33       ` Ron Natalie
@ 2017-10-05 17:11         ` ron minnich
  2017-10-05 19:06           ` A. P. Garcia
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 34+ messages in thread
From: ron minnich @ 2017-10-05 17:11 UTC (permalink / raw)


"System V, consider it sub-standard"

On Thu, Oct 5, 2017 at 8:34 AM Ron Natalie <ron at ronnatalie.com> wrote:

>
>
> > A running gag throughout the Mel Brooks movie, "Spaceballs" is recurring
> product spots for the film's promotional materials
>
> >From IMDB:
>
> In a 2013 television interview (shorty before receiving the AFI Lifetime
> Achievement Award), Mel Brooks stated that he personally obtained George
> Lucas' full permission to parody any and all things Star Wars-related but,
> on one condition, that absolutely no merchandise of any kind be produced
> from the film. This is the reason why all Yogurt and the Dinks do is
> merchandising (it is also why none of the merchandise seen in the film was
> ever mass produced or publicly sold in any way).
>
>
>
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* [TUHS] Unix witticisms
  2017-10-05 17:11         ` [TUHS] " ron minnich
@ 2017-10-05 19:06           ` A. P. Garcia
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 34+ messages in thread
From: A. P. Garcia @ 2017-10-05 19:06 UTC (permalink / raw)


My favorite has always been Henry Spencer's famous quote: "Those who
do not understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly."

On Thu, Oct 5, 2017 at 12:11 PM, ron minnich <rminnich at gmail.com> wrote:
> "System V, consider it sub-standard"
>
> On Thu, Oct 5, 2017 at 8:34 AM Ron Natalie <ron at ronnatalie.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> > A running gag throughout the Mel Brooks movie, "Spaceballs" is recurring
>> > product spots for the film's promotional materials
>>
>> >From IMDB:
>>
>> In a 2013 television interview (shorty before receiving the AFI Lifetime
>> Achievement Award), Mel Brooks stated that he personally obtained George
>> Lucas' full permission to parody any and all things Star Wars-related but,
>> on one condition, that absolutely no merchandise of any kind be produced
>> from the film. This is the reason why all Yogurt and the Dinks do is
>> merchandising (it is also why none of the merchandise seen in the film was
>> ever mass produced or publicly sold in any way).
>>
>>
>
>
>


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* Unix witticisms
  2017-10-05 10:43 ` Russell Page
  2017-10-05 10:54   ` Steve Nickolas
@ 2017-10-05 22:38   ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 34+ messages in thread
From: Greg 'groggy' Lehey @ 2017-10-05 22:38 UTC (permalink / raw)


On Thursday,  5 October 2017 at 21:43:36 +1100, Russell Page wrote:
> I can't remember where, but I once saw "UNIX is a registered footnote of
> Bell Laboratories".

My favourite was:

UNIX is a registered trade mark of AT&T
AT&T is a modem test command.

Greg
--
Sent from my desktop computer.
Finger grog at lemis.com for PGP public key.
See complete headers for address and phone numbers.
This message is digitally signed.  If your Microsoft mail program
reports problems, please read http://lemis.com/broken-MUA
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* Unix witticisms
  2017-10-05 14:48     ` Jon Steinhart
@ 2017-10-05 23:28       ` Robert Brockway
  2017-10-06  1:01         ` Steve Simon
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 34+ messages in thread
From: Robert Brockway @ 2017-10-05 23:28 UTC (permalink / raw)


On Thu, 5 Oct 2017, Jon Steinhart wrote:

> Favorite bumper sticker: "Reach out and grep someone".

Back at university a friend lost his keys.  He told a group of us in the 
caffeteria that he'd grepped the house for them.  It occured to me that he 
went around the house picking everything up and comparing it to a known 
set of keys.

Rob


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* Unix witticisms
  2017-10-05 23:28       ` Robert Brockway
@ 2017-10-06  1:01         ` Steve Simon
  2017-10-06  1:33           ` Bakul Shah
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 34+ messages in thread
From: Steve Simon @ 2017-10-06  1:01 UTC (permalink / raw)


I remember:

	"Version 7 was an improved on everything that preceeded it,
	and everything that followed".

We regarded Sys-V as rather, well, "untidy" at the time.

-Steve



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* Unix witticisms
  2017-10-06  1:01         ` Steve Simon
@ 2017-10-06  1:33           ` Bakul Shah
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 34+ messages in thread
From: Bakul Shah @ 2017-10-06  1:33 UTC (permalink / raw)




> On Oct 5, 2017, at 6:01 PM, Steve Simon <steve at quintile.net> wrote:
> 
> I remember:
> 
> 	"Version 7 was an improved on everything that preceeded it,
> 	and everything that followed".

A variation of C.A.R.Hoare's quip in his 1973 paper "Hints on
Programming Language Design" 

  The more I ponder the principles of language design, and
  the techniques which put them into practice, the more is my
  amazement and admiration of ALGOL 60. Here is a language so
  far ahead of its time, that it was not only an improvement
  on its predecessors, but also on nearly all its successors.


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* Unix witticisms
  2017-10-04  8:30 Unix witticisms Wesley Parish
                   ` (2 preceding siblings ...)
  2017-10-05 10:53 ` Tom Ivar Helbekkmo
@ 2017-10-06 16:01 ` Dario Niedermann
  2017-10-06 16:48   ` George Michaelson
  3 siblings, 1 reply; 34+ messages in thread
From: Dario Niedermann @ 2017-10-06 16:01 UTC (permalink / raw)


Il 04/10/2017 alle 10:30, Wesley Parish ha scritto:

> Unix seems to have garnered witticisms: Salus throws in a few on the
> front cover of his book. Has anyone made a collection of them?

For a good start, I would suggest:

$ fortune -im unix

-- 
Dario Niedermann.                 Also on the Internet at:

gopher://darioniedermann.it/  <>  https://www.darioniedermann.it/


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* Unix witticisms
  2017-10-06 16:01 ` Dario Niedermann
@ 2017-10-06 16:48   ` George Michaelson
  2017-10-06 16:54     ` Warner Losh
  2017-10-07  2:33     ` Ron Natalie
  0 siblings, 2 replies; 34+ messages in thread
From: George Michaelson @ 2017-10-06 16:48 UTC (permalink / raw)


I loved the man page for the ching program had in BUGS: "it futhers
one to seek the great man"

On Fri, Oct 6, 2017 at 9:01 AM, Dario Niedermann
<dario at darioniedermann.it> wrote:
> Il 04/10/2017 alle 10:30, Wesley Parish ha scritto:
>
>> Unix seems to have garnered witticisms: Salus throws in a few on the
>> front cover of his book. Has anyone made a collection of them?
>
> For a good start, I would suggest:
>
> $ fortune -im unix
>
> --
> Dario Niedermann.                 Also on the Internet at:
>
> gopher://darioniedermann.it/  <>  https://www.darioniedermann.it/


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* Unix witticisms
  2017-10-06 16:48   ` George Michaelson
@ 2017-10-06 16:54     ` Warner Losh
  2017-10-06 22:25       ` Dave Horsfall
  2017-10-07  2:33     ` Ron Natalie
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 34+ messages in thread
From: Warner Losh @ 2017-10-06 16:54 UTC (permalink / raw)


On Fri, Oct 6, 2017 at 9:48 AM, George Michaelson <ggm at algebras.org> wrote:

> I loved the man page for the ching program had in BUGS: "it futhers
> one to seek the great man"


"You can tune a piano, but you can't tune a fish." -- tunefs(8)
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* Unix witticisms
  2017-10-06 16:54     ` Warner Losh
@ 2017-10-06 22:25       ` Dave Horsfall
  2017-10-06 22:58         ` jason-tuhs
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 34+ messages in thread
From: Dave Horsfall @ 2017-10-06 22:25 UTC (permalink / raw)


On Fri, 6 Oct 2017, Warner Losh wrote:

> "You can tune a piano, but you can't tune a fish." -- tunefs(8)

Wasn't it "tuna fish"?

-- 
Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU)  "Those who don't understand security will suffer."


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* Unix witticisms
  2017-10-06 22:25       ` Dave Horsfall
@ 2017-10-06 22:58         ` jason-tuhs
  2017-10-06 23:28           ` Dave Horsfall
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 34+ messages in thread
From: jason-tuhs @ 2017-10-06 22:58 UTC (permalink / raw)



>> "You can tune a piano, but you can't tune a fish." -- tunefs(8)

> Wasn't it "tuna fish"?

Nope:

"You can tune a file system, but you can't tune a fish."

https://github.com/weiss/original-bsd/blob/master/sbin/tunefs/tunefs.8


Interestingly, in FreeBSD 6.0, they (apparently) decided that the 
contraction was lazy:

"You can tune a file system, but you cannot tune a fish."

https://svn0.us-west.freebsd.org/base/release/6.0.0/sbin/tunefs/tunefs.8


  -Jason



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* Unix witticisms
  2017-10-06 22:58         ` jason-tuhs
@ 2017-10-06 23:28           ` Dave Horsfall
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 34+ messages in thread
From: Dave Horsfall @ 2017-10-06 23:28 UTC (permalink / raw)


On Fri, 6 Oct 2017, jason-tuhs at shalott.net wrote:

>>> "You can tune a piano, but you can't tune a fish." -- tunefs(8)
>
>> Wasn't it "tuna fish"?
>
> Nope:
>
> "You can tune a file system, but you can't tune a fish."
>
> https://github.com/weiss/original-bsd/blob/master/sbin/tunefs/tunefs.8

Hmmm...  Looks like organic bit-rot on my part :-(

Then again: http://www.rhymes.net/rhyme/tunafish refers to 4.2 BSD 
tunefs(8).

-- 
Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU)  "Those who don't understand security will suffer."


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* Unix witticisms
  2017-10-06 16:48   ` George Michaelson
  2017-10-06 16:54     ` Warner Losh
@ 2017-10-07  2:33     ` Ron Natalie
  2017-10-07  2:40       ` George Michaelson
  2017-10-07 12:21       ` Don Hopkins
  1 sibling, 2 replies; 34+ messages in thread
From: Ron Natalie @ 2017-10-07  2:33 UTC (permalink / raw)


"Roff is the simplest of the run off programs but is utterly frozen " appeared in the V6 man pages.

This led to a whole slew (at least at JHU) comments in program documents about being "utterly frozen."
The large freshman "Models and Simulation" class used basic plus and a special command called "lnmns" was created to link the necessary files into the user's home dir.
Our docs said that "lnmns was the simplenst of the transcendental programs but is utterly frozen."

For those who know nroff/troff, we had fun in that our senior programmer "Michael John Muuss" wrote a macro package called tmac.jm which was invoked with nroff -mjm (his initials).
This lead to all kinds of jokes including calling lnmns "bill" after its programmers.

Many years later there was a proposal to rename the concept of freeware "Flugelware" after some guy named "Flugel" who alledgedly came up with the idea.
I suggested that we call the C compiler "Ritchie" after its creator.    I got an immediate reponse from dmr telling me to nip that idea in the bud.




^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* Unix witticisms
  2017-10-07  2:33     ` Ron Natalie
@ 2017-10-07  2:40       ` George Michaelson
  2017-10-07  2:48         ` Ron Natalie
  2017-10-07 12:21       ` Don Hopkins
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 34+ messages in thread
From: George Michaelson @ 2017-10-07  2:40 UTC (permalink / raw)


Mike Lesk told me, (so this is now officially apocryphal because its
friend-of-a-friend) that TBL had stuff in there, to specifically
address a faulty throw-back action in the linotronic output device,
and thats why troff/tbl output on more modern things like the wet
process benson varian printer we had, drew some of the lines out of
whack: it was adjusting for another typesetters mechanical positioning
faults.

I'd love to know if this is true. I did look under the hood at T/Roff
and it was indescribably weirder than I imagined. I thought the macros
were weird, then I discovered what the expanded to.

On Fri, Oct 6, 2017 at 7:33 PM, Ron Natalie <ron at ronnatalie.com> wrote:
> "Roff is the simplest of the run off programs but is utterly frozen " appeared in the V6 man pages.
>
> This led to a whole slew (at least at JHU) comments in program documents about being "utterly frozen."
> The large freshman "Models and Simulation" class used basic plus and a special command called "lnmns" was created to link the necessary files into the user's home dir.
> Our docs said that "lnmns was the simplenst of the transcendental programs but is utterly frozen."
>
> For those who know nroff/troff, we had fun in that our senior programmer "Michael John Muuss" wrote a macro package called tmac.jm which was invoked with nroff -mjm (his initials).
> This lead to all kinds of jokes including calling lnmns "bill" after its programmers.
>
> Many years later there was a proposal to rename the concept of freeware "Flugelware" after some guy named "Flugel" who alledgedly came up with the idea.
> I suggested that we call the C compiler "Ritchie" after its creator.    I got an immediate reponse from dmr telling me to nip that idea in the bud.
>
>


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* Unix witticisms
  2017-10-07  2:40       ` George Michaelson
@ 2017-10-07  2:48         ` Ron Natalie
  2017-10-07  2:55           ` George Michaelson
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 34+ messages in thread
From: Ron Natalie @ 2017-10-07  2:48 UTC (permalink / raw)



tbl was a real hack.    It wasn't so much designed for the troff CAT output as it was to drive nroff on a daisy wheel printer.      Oddly, decades after I thought everbody (including me as a last troff holdout) had abandoned it for more wisiwyg text formatters someone sends me a manual.    Tbl had a slight telltale glitch in that the vertical lines on the left and right side of the table almost always protruded one pixel too high.    "Did you use tbl|troff to generate this?" I asked.   Sure enough it was.




^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* Unix witticisms
  2017-10-07  2:48         ` Ron Natalie
@ 2017-10-07  2:55           ` George Michaelson
  2017-10-07  2:59             ` George Michaelson
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 34+ messages in thread
From: George Michaelson @ 2017-10-07  2:55 UTC (permalink / raw)


that may be what I am referring to. if you transpose horizontal and
vertical, this may be a hack, to get around a mispositioning logic.

-g

On Fri, Oct 6, 2017 at 7:48 PM, Ron Natalie <ron at ronnatalie.com> wrote:
>
> tbl was a real hack.    It wasn't so much designed for the troff CAT output as it was to drive nroff on a daisy wheel printer.      Oddly, decades after I thought everbody (including me as a last troff holdout) had abandoned it for more wisiwyg text formatters someone sends me a manual.    Tbl had a slight telltale glitch in that the vertical lines on the left and right side of the table almost always protruded one pixel too high.    "Did you use tbl|troff to generate this?" I asked.   Sure enough it was.
>
>


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* Unix witticisms
  2017-10-07  2:55           ` George Michaelson
@ 2017-10-07  2:59             ` George Michaelson
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 34+ messages in thread
From: George Michaelson @ 2017-10-07  2:59 UTC (permalink / raw)


My greatest hack of creation/origination was to combine EQN, TBL and
TROFF to make a phone directory with giant ellipsis around people
sharing offices and phone extensions, because the new PABX produced a
visually boring directory and I was asked to re-produce the handmade
version, after the typesetter who did it had retired. (this was a
university)

I didn't get remotely close to his hand-set product, but I did ok. I
did wind up doing horrendous cheats which morally feel like a GOTO.
Probably, somebody wiser could have done it more honestly. I only had
to make one, nobody cared after we did that one but it was a thing of
beauty. You've made me very happy recalling it.

These tools were arcane, but damn, it was fun making them work.

G

On Fri, Oct 6, 2017 at 7:55 PM, George Michaelson <ggm at algebras.org> wrote:
> that may be what I am referring to. if you transpose horizontal and
> vertical, this may be a hack, to get around a mispositioning logic.
>
> -g
>
> On Fri, Oct 6, 2017 at 7:48 PM, Ron Natalie <ron at ronnatalie.com> wrote:
>>
>> tbl was a real hack.    It wasn't so much designed for the troff CAT output as it was to drive nroff on a daisy wheel printer.      Oddly, decades after I thought everbody (including me as a last troff holdout) had abandoned it for more wisiwyg text formatters someone sends me a manual.    Tbl had a slight telltale glitch in that the vertical lines on the left and right side of the table almost always protruded one pixel too high.    "Did you use tbl|troff to generate this?" I asked.   Sure enough it was.
>>
>>


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* Unix witticisms
  2017-10-05 14:26   ` Ron Natalie
  2017-10-05 14:37     ` Dan Cross
  2017-10-05 14:48     ` Jon Steinhart
@ 2017-10-07  8:51     ` Russell Page
  2017-10-07 13:22       ` Don Hopkins
  2017-10-07 14:21       ` Steffen Nurpmeso
  2 siblings, 2 replies; 34+ messages in thread
From: Russell Page @ 2017-10-07  8:51 UTC (permalink / raw)


ENOTOBACCO - call would block on empty pipe.


On 6/10/2017 1:26 AM, Ron Natalie wrote:
> At the 83 USENIX Sun handed out buttons that said the "The Joy of UNIX."
> Peter Langston thought that was a bit conceited on Bill's part, so  he made
> up buttons for the next show that read "The PSL of UNIX", "The DMR of UNIX,"
> etc... and handed them out.    I still have the Joy of UNIX button, but I
> lost my "Ron of UNIX" button shortly after the show.
>
> The "is a  trademark of bell labs" generated lots of jokes over the year.
> I have somewhere a button that says "Eunuchs are a hallmark of the Ottoman
> Empire."    At one of the early UUGs someone tried to make "UNIX is a
> Trademark of Bell Labs" pencils except the custom pencil place only allowed
> 18 letters or something so the pencils just ended up saying "UNIX is a
> Trademark."     I'm not sure I've ever come across another Trademark that
> the footnote status was as widely propagated as UNIX's.    AT&T's lawyers
> even got up at one of the conferences (in a talk about licensing changes or
> such) and thanked the community for defending the trademark.
>
> There was a contest back on UNIX-WIZARDS in the day to generate new errno
> codes.    My favorite was ELECTROLUX - Your code needs cleaning up.
>
> A joke issue of the Computation Center at UT Austin's newsletter
> (Universally Plexus at Autism) had an item about UNIX Pipes not permitted in
> non-smoking areas.   I think that was also the source of the "Cannot fork--
> Try again during lunch" quote.
>
>
>
>
>

-- 
Russell Page
RussellPage at foxhat.net
+61 405 148 325



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* Unix witticisms
  2017-10-07  2:33     ` Ron Natalie
  2017-10-07  2:40       ` George Michaelson
@ 2017-10-07 12:21       ` Don Hopkins
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 34+ messages in thread
From: Don Hopkins @ 2017-10-07 12:21 UTC (permalink / raw)


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We used to use “rms” as a verb, to log in to somebody else’s account with a well known password, as in “I rms’ed into the box and rebooted it.”

-Don


> On 7 Oct 2017, at 04:33, Ron Natalie <ron at ronnatalie.com> wrote:
> 
> "Roff is the simplest of the run off programs but is utterly frozen " appeared in the V6 man pages.
> 
> This led to a whole slew (at least at JHU) comments in program documents about being "utterly frozen."
> The large freshman "Models and Simulation" class used basic plus and a special command called "lnmns" was created to link the necessary files into the user's home dir.
> Our docs said that "lnmns was the simplenst of the transcendental programs but is utterly frozen."
> 
> For those who know nroff/troff, we had fun in that our senior programmer "Michael John Muuss" wrote a macro package called tmac.jm which was invoked with nroff -mjm (his initials).
> This lead to all kinds of jokes including calling lnmns "bill" after its programmers.
> 
> Many years later there was a proposal to rename the concept of freeware "Flugelware" after some guy named "Flugel" who alledgedly came up with the idea.
> I suggested that we call the C compiler "Ritchie" after its creator.    I got an immediate reponse from dmr telling me to nip that idea in the bud.
> 
> 



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* Unix witticisms
  2017-10-07  8:51     ` Russell Page
@ 2017-10-07 13:22       ` Don Hopkins
  2017-10-07 13:30         ` Ron Natalie
  2017-10-07 14:12         ` Larry McVoy
  2017-10-07 14:21       ` Steffen Nurpmeso
  1 sibling, 2 replies; 34+ messages in thread
From: Don Hopkins @ 2017-10-07 13:22 UTC (permalink / raw)


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> On 7 Oct 2017, at 10:51, Russell Page <RussellPage at foxhat.net> wrote:
> 
> ENOTOBACCO - call would block on empty pipe.

That’s at AT&T System V error code. The corresponding BSD error code is ENOWEED.

-Don



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* Unix witticisms
  2017-10-07 13:22       ` Don Hopkins
@ 2017-10-07 13:30         ` Ron Natalie
  2017-10-07 13:34           ` Don Hopkins
  2017-10-07 14:12         ` Larry McVoy
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 34+ messages in thread
From: Ron Natalie @ 2017-10-07 13:30 UTC (permalink / raw)


While not quite a UNIX witticism, we did have a USENIX fun and game.    When I was playing university administrator at Rutgers, I had a student who decided that in order to get a good job he needed to go to USENIX and hang out with all the high powered hackers there.    He convinced some professor to actually fund his attendance, but he wanted to make a good impression.    He got on a rather popular (non-UNIX) mailing list and asked what people wore to the conference.    He thought that he'd actually have to wear a suit.   I pointed out that it was really casual.     Then Erik Fair got a hold of him and told him, yes, you wear shorts and a t-shirt, and sandals, and they had to be Birkenstocks.   So off goes this kid in the dead of winter in New Jersey looking for Birkenstocks.    I think he finally found them.

He went out to the show and had a pretty good time hanging out.    A week after we got back he comes in sporting a new haircut.    I made a polite inquiry about what was up, but he didn't catch my drift.   My then girlfriend bluntly asked him why he had a homosexual (not the word she used) haircut.    He said that all the hackers we hung out with at the conference had that hairstyle.   I had to point out to him that they were all gay.

Never did find out what happened to that kid after graduation.



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* Unix witticisms
  2017-10-07 13:30         ` Ron Natalie
@ 2017-10-07 13:34           ` Don Hopkins
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 34+ messages in thread
From: Don Hopkins @ 2017-10-07 13:34 UTC (permalink / raw)


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> Never did find out what happened to that kid after graduation.
> 

He was last seen going up to John Draper’s hotel room for back exercises. c(-;

-Don



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* Unix witticisms
  2017-10-07 13:22       ` Don Hopkins
  2017-10-07 13:30         ` Ron Natalie
@ 2017-10-07 14:12         ` Larry McVoy
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 34+ messages in thread
From: Larry McVoy @ 2017-10-07 14:12 UTC (permalink / raw)


On Sat, Oct 07, 2017 at 03:22:42PM +0200, Don Hopkins wrote:
> 
> > On 7 Oct 2017, at 10:51, Russell Page <RussellPage at foxhat.net> wrote:
> > 
> > ENOTOBACCO - call would block on empty pipe.
> 
> That???s at AT&T System V error code. The corresponding BSD error code is ENOWEED.
> 
> -Don

Annnnnnnd, that's the thread, noone can top that!  ROTFL.

--lm


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* Unix witticisms
  2017-10-07  8:51     ` Russell Page
  2017-10-07 13:22       ` Don Hopkins
@ 2017-10-07 14:21       ` Steffen Nurpmeso
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 34+ messages in thread
From: Steffen Nurpmeso @ 2017-10-07 14:21 UTC (permalink / raw)


Russell Page <RussellPage at foxhat.net> wrote:
 |On 6/10/2017 1:26 AM, Ron Natalie wrote:
 ...
 |> There was a contest back on UNIX-WIZARDS in the day to generate new errno
 |> codes.    My favorite was ELECTROLUX - Your code needs cleaning up.
 |>
 |> A joke issue of the Computation Center at UT Austin's newsletter
 |> (Universally Plexus at Autism) had an item about UNIX Pipes not permitted \
 |> in
 |> non-smoking areas.   I think that was also the source of the "Cannot \
 |> fork--
 |> Try again during lunch" quote.
 ...
 |ENOTOBACCO - call would block on empty pipe.

You know, i liked that so much when i have heard this first that
the BSD Mail i maintain uses the following as a catch-all error:

  ?0!0/NONE[#/var/spool/mail/steffen]? echo \
      $^ERR-1000: $^ERRNAME-1000: $^ERRDOC-1000
  255: NOTOBACCO: Snorkeling on empty pipe

--steffen
|
|Der Kragenbaer,                The moon bear,
|der holt sich munter           he cheerfully and one by one
|einen nach dem anderen runter  wa.ks himself off
|(By Robert Gernhardt)


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* Unix witticisms
@ 2017-10-07 14:17 Noel Chiappa
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 34+ messages in thread
From: Noel Chiappa @ 2017-10-07 14:17 UTC (permalink / raw)


    > From: Larry McVoy

    > Annnnnnnd, that's the thread, noone can top that! 

"EMACS - Editor too big"

	Noel


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

end of thread, other threads:[~2017-10-07 14:21 UTC | newest]

Thread overview: 34+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed)
-- links below jump to the message on this page --
2017-10-04  8:30 Unix witticisms Wesley Parish
2017-10-05  9:22 ` Don Hopkins
2017-10-05 14:26   ` Ron Natalie
2017-10-05 14:37     ` Dan Cross
2017-10-05 15:33       ` Ron Natalie
2017-10-05 17:11         ` [TUHS] " ron minnich
2017-10-05 19:06           ` A. P. Garcia
2017-10-05 14:48     ` Jon Steinhart
2017-10-05 23:28       ` Robert Brockway
2017-10-06  1:01         ` Steve Simon
2017-10-06  1:33           ` Bakul Shah
2017-10-07  8:51     ` Russell Page
2017-10-07 13:22       ` Don Hopkins
2017-10-07 13:30         ` Ron Natalie
2017-10-07 13:34           ` Don Hopkins
2017-10-07 14:12         ` Larry McVoy
2017-10-07 14:21       ` Steffen Nurpmeso
2017-10-05 10:43 ` Russell Page
2017-10-05 10:54   ` Steve Nickolas
2017-10-05 22:38   ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey
2017-10-05 10:53 ` Tom Ivar Helbekkmo
2017-10-06 16:01 ` Dario Niedermann
2017-10-06 16:48   ` George Michaelson
2017-10-06 16:54     ` Warner Losh
2017-10-06 22:25       ` Dave Horsfall
2017-10-06 22:58         ` jason-tuhs
2017-10-06 23:28           ` Dave Horsfall
2017-10-07  2:33     ` Ron Natalie
2017-10-07  2:40       ` George Michaelson
2017-10-07  2:48         ` Ron Natalie
2017-10-07  2:55           ` George Michaelson
2017-10-07  2:59             ` George Michaelson
2017-10-07 12:21       ` Don Hopkins
2017-10-07 14:17 Noel Chiappa

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