The Unix Heritage Society mailing list
 help / color / mirror / Atom feed
* Re: [TUHS] Who said ...
@ 2021-09-01 14:16 Norman Wilson
  2021-09-01 14:23 ` arnold
                   ` (4 more replies)
  0 siblings, 5 replies; 20+ messages in thread
From: Norman Wilson @ 2021-09-01 14:16 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: tuhs

Clem Cole:

  I believe the line was:  *"running **DEC Diagnostics is like kicking a dead
  whale down the beach.*"
  As for who said it, I'm not sure, but I think it was someone like Rob
  Kolstad or Henry Spencer.

=====

The nearest I can remember encountering before was a somewhat
different quote, attributed to Steve Johnson:

Running TSO is like kicking a dead whale down the beach.

Since scj is on this list, maybe he can confirm that part.

I don't remember hearing it applied to diagnostics.  I can
imagine someone saying it, because DEC's hardware diags were
written by hardware people, not software people; they required
a somewhat arcane configuration language, one that made more
sense if you understood how the different pieces of hardware
connected together.

I learned to work with it and found it no less usable than,
say, the clunky verbose command languages of DEC's operating
systems; but I have always preferred to think in low levels.

DEC's diags were far from perfect, but they were a hell of a
lot better than the largely-nonexistent diags available for
modern Intel-architecture systems.  I am right now dealing
with a system that has an intermittent fault, that causes
the OS to crash in the middle of some device driver every
so often.  Other identical systems don't, so I don't think
it's software.  Were it a PDP-11 or a VAX I'd fire up the
diagnostics for a while, and have at least a chance of spotting
the problem; today, memtest is about the only such option,
and a solid week of running memtest didn't shake out anything
(reasonably enough, who says it's a memory problem?).

Give me XXDP, not just the Blue Screen of Death.

Norman Wilson
Toronto ON

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 20+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] Who said ...
  2021-09-01 14:16 [TUHS] Who said Norman Wilson
@ 2021-09-01 14:23 ` arnold
  2021-09-01 14:27 ` Clem Cole
                   ` (3 subsequent siblings)
  4 siblings, 0 replies; 20+ messages in thread
From: arnold @ 2021-09-01 14:23 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: tuhs, norman

norman@oclsc.org (Norman Wilson) wrote:

> The nearest I can remember encountering before was a somewhat
> different quote, attributed to Steve Johnson:
>
> Running TSO is like kicking a dead whale down the beach.
>
> Since scj is on this list, maybe he can confirm that part.

I thought it was DMR, but I could be wrong. Apologies to SCJ
if so.

Arnold

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 20+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] Who said ...
  2021-09-01 14:16 [TUHS] Who said Norman Wilson
  2021-09-01 14:23 ` arnold
@ 2021-09-01 14:27 ` Clem Cole
  2021-09-01 14:29 ` Henry Bent
                   ` (2 subsequent siblings)
  4 siblings, 0 replies; 20+ messages in thread
From: Clem Cole @ 2021-09-01 14:27 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Norman Wilson; +Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 642 bytes --]

On Wed, Sep 1, 2021 at 10:21 AM Norman Wilson <norman@oclsc.org> wrote:

> Running TSO is like kicking a dead whale down the beach.
>
I definitely stand corrected on that, now that I recall it was pot shot at
IBM, not DEC.

>
> Since scj is on this list, maybe he can confirm that part.
>
Very possible -- sound a little less like a Dennis quip than others from
those days.


>
> DEC's diags were far from perfect, but they were a hell of a
> lot better than the largely-nonexistent diags available for
> modern Intel-architecture systems.

I agree.


> Give me XXDP, not just the Blue Screen of Death.
>
Right.
ᐧ

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 2186 bytes --]

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 20+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] Who said ...
  2021-09-01 14:16 [TUHS] Who said Norman Wilson
  2021-09-01 14:23 ` arnold
  2021-09-01 14:27 ` Clem Cole
@ 2021-09-01 14:29 ` Henry Bent
  2021-09-01 14:32   ` Clem Cole
  2021-09-01 14:48 ` Chris Torek
  2021-09-01 16:00 ` Ron Natalie
  4 siblings, 1 reply; 20+ messages in thread
From: Henry Bent @ 2021-09-01 14:29 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Norman Wilson; +Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 704 bytes --]

On Wed, 1 Sept 2021 at 10:21, Norman Wilson <norman@oclsc.org> wrote:

> Clem Cole:
>
>   I believe the line was:  *"running **DEC Diagnostics is like kicking a
> dead
>   whale down the beach.*"
>   As for who said it, I'm not sure, but I think it was someone like Rob
>   Kolstad or Henry Spencer.
>
> =====
>
> The nearest I can remember encountering before was a somewhat
> different quote, attributed to Steve Johnson:
>
> Running TSO is like kicking a dead whale down the beach.
>
> Since scj is on this list, maybe he can confirm that part.
>
>
Here's a Feb '85 net.unix thread that (eventually) attributes this to Steve:

https://groups.google.com/g/net.unix/c/jq4KtffXZuI/m/2aTQBUYPyRsJ

-Henry

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 1192 bytes --]

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 20+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] Who said ...
  2021-09-01 14:29 ` Henry Bent
@ 2021-09-01 14:32   ` Clem Cole
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 20+ messages in thread
From: Clem Cole @ 2021-09-01 14:32 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Henry Bent; +Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 308 bytes --]

On Wed, Sep 1, 2021 at 10:29 AM Henry Bent <henry.r.bent@gmail.com> wrote:

> Here's a Feb '85 net.unix thread that (eventually) attributes this to
> Steve:
>
> https://groups.google.com/g/net.unix/c/jq4KtffXZuI/m/2aTQBUYPyRsJ
>
Thank you Henry - I knew net.noise would be the place to look ;-)
ᐧ

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 1396 bytes --]

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 20+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] Who said ...
  2021-09-01 14:16 [TUHS] Who said Norman Wilson
                   ` (2 preceding siblings ...)
  2021-09-01 14:29 ` Henry Bent
@ 2021-09-01 14:48 ` Chris Torek
  2021-09-01 16:00 ` Ron Natalie
  4 siblings, 0 replies; 20+ messages in thread
From: Chris Torek @ 2021-09-01 14:48 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: tuhs

>DEC's diags were far from perfect, but they were a hell of a
>lot better than the largely-nonexistent diags available for
>modern Intel-architecture systems.  I am right now dealing
>with a system that has an intermittent fault, that causes
>the OS to crash in the middle of some device driver every
>so often.  Other identical systems don't, so I don't think
>it's software.

Could be the device itself, corrupting things.

Some problems are just hard to track down.  If you remember
the infamous UDA50/RA81 setup, the original Unix driver was
flaky somehow in that it would "lose" MSCP packets and hang.
I rewrote the thing from scratch to fix that problem.  But
then we got an Emulex board that had a ... different problem.

I hacked on our driver to find it.  The problem turned out
to be that the Emulex hardware (or firmware) would *drop*
16 of the 32 bits of a 32-bit field.  In each MSCP packet,
there was a single 32-bit field where you could store arbitrary
data to be reflected back to you in a reply.  The Unix driver
stored `struct buf *bp` there, if I remember right, and I
originally did as well.

Once I figured out this was being clobbered, I replaced it
with a small integer (index into "outstanding I/O table") with
check bytes.  I'd log the occurrence of corruption, recover the
useful data from the 16 bytes that had the right data, and we
would be on our merry way.  There was no obvious pattern here
though.

Two other sort of related war stories...

 * We had the carry-chain timing bug on our VAX 780 at one point.
   It most-consistently hit on the `extzv` instruction in the
   kernel exit() handler, but only about 1 out of every 10 to 100
   thousand occurrences.  So I wrote a user-land program that
   would spin doing that `extzv`.  If the user program crashed,
   the board-set installed in the backplane had the problem, and
   we'd have the DEC service guy cycle through them (in the usual
   "how many flat tires do we have today" dance).

 * The Ultrasparc II CPU had a similar timing bug, I think in the
   register forwarding logic.  The BSD/OS SPARC port had a three
   instruction sequence for setting up the right stack on a
   trap (interrupt, system call, etc)., and it would randomly
   crash with a bizarre value, that I eventually figured out
   was from putting the result that should have gone into one
   of the %l registers, into the %sp register instead.  It only
   happened after a pipeline flush for other purposes and I
   forget what I did to make it happen frequently enough to
   diagnose.

   (Re-ordering the three instructions fixed the problem.)

Tying back into ZFS etc., if that was on this mailing list: :-)

I had a bad DIMM in an Intel box a while back, that corrupted
data in the kernel buffer pool.  That one was scary, because,
while the memtest86 tests found it, who knows what data they
corrupted?

(This is why I want ECC, even in my home systems.)

Chris

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 20+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] Who said ...
  2021-09-01 14:16 [TUHS] Who said Norman Wilson
                   ` (3 preceding siblings ...)
  2021-09-01 14:48 ` Chris Torek
@ 2021-09-01 16:00 ` Ron Natalie
  4 siblings, 0 replies; 20+ messages in thread
From: Ron Natalie @ 2021-09-01 16:00 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Norman Wilson, tuhs

Mike Muuss made some comment about the diagnostics being able to run on 
a dead whale.


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 20+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] Who said ...
  2021-09-01 20:04         ` ron minnich
@ 2021-09-01 21:47           ` Rob Pike
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 20+ messages in thread
From: Rob Pike @ 2021-09-01 21:47 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: ron minnich; +Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1393 bytes --]

I also remember, vividly, that it was scj's quote about TSO.

Having used TSO, I think he was being kind.

-rob


On Thu, Sep 2, 2021 at 6:05 AM ron minnich <rminnich@gmail.com> wrote:

> It's coming back slowly. It was in response to problems with a dh11. DEC
> engineer:"did you run diagnostics." Response: as quoted.
>
> The other one: DEC engineer: "dh11 can run at a megabit". Response: "in a
> good wind. "
>
> Same person, vague memory is Mike O'Dell? Is that name right?
>
> On Wed, Sep 1, 2021, 1:00 PM ron minnich <rminnich@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I first heard it at usenix 1980.
>>
>> On Wed, Sep 1, 2021, 10:52 AM Lawrence Stewart <stewart@serissa.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Or JCL “It’s as easy to read one file as it is to read 1000 files."
>>>
>>> On 2021, Sep 1, at 12:42 PM, Tom Lyon via TUHS <tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Another fun saying about TSO: "It may be slow, but it's hard to use."
>>>
>>> Not sure the origin.
>>>
>>> On Wed, Sep 1, 2021 at 9:10 AM Ron Natalie <ron@ronnatalie.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> >...
>>>> >       DEC Diagnositcs would run on a beached whale
>>>> >
>>>> >?
>>>> >
>>>> >Anyone remember and/or know?
>>>> >
>>>> I believe this was Mike Muuss and he used the term "dead whale" in
>>>> deference to the TSO comment.
>>>>
>>>> >
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> - Tom
>>>
>>>
>>>

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 3188 bytes --]

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 20+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] Who said ...
  2021-09-01 20:00       ` ron minnich
@ 2021-09-01 20:04         ` ron minnich
  2021-09-01 21:47           ` Rob Pike
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 20+ messages in thread
From: ron minnich @ 2021-09-01 20:04 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Lawrence Stewart; +Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1145 bytes --]

It's coming back slowly. It was in response to problems with a dh11. DEC
engineer:"did you run diagnostics." Response: as quoted.

The other one: DEC engineer: "dh11 can run at a megabit". Response: "in a
good wind. "

Same person, vague memory is Mike O'Dell? Is that name right?

On Wed, Sep 1, 2021, 1:00 PM ron minnich <rminnich@gmail.com> wrote:

> I first heard it at usenix 1980.
>
> On Wed, Sep 1, 2021, 10:52 AM Lawrence Stewart <stewart@serissa.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Or JCL “It’s as easy to read one file as it is to read 1000 files."
>>
>> On 2021, Sep 1, at 12:42 PM, Tom Lyon via TUHS <tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Another fun saying about TSO: "It may be slow, but it's hard to use."
>>
>> Not sure the origin.
>>
>> On Wed, Sep 1, 2021 at 9:10 AM Ron Natalie <ron@ronnatalie.com> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> >...
>>> >       DEC Diagnositcs would run on a beached whale
>>> >
>>> >?
>>> >
>>> >Anyone remember and/or know?
>>> >
>>> I believe this was Mike Muuss and he used the term "dead whale" in
>>> deference to the TSO comment.
>>>
>>> >
>>>
>>>
>>
>> --
>> - Tom
>>
>>
>>

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 2623 bytes --]

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 20+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] Who said ...
  2021-09-01 17:41     ` Lawrence Stewart
@ 2021-09-01 20:00       ` ron minnich
  2021-09-01 20:04         ` ron minnich
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 20+ messages in thread
From: ron minnich @ 2021-09-01 20:00 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Lawrence Stewart; +Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 742 bytes --]

I first heard it at usenix 1980.

On Wed, Sep 1, 2021, 10:52 AM Lawrence Stewart <stewart@serissa.com> wrote:

> Or JCL “It’s as easy to read one file as it is to read 1000 files."
>
> On 2021, Sep 1, at 12:42 PM, Tom Lyon via TUHS <tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
> wrote:
>
> Another fun saying about TSO: "It may be slow, but it's hard to use."
>
> Not sure the origin.
>
> On Wed, Sep 1, 2021 at 9:10 AM Ron Natalie <ron@ronnatalie.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> >...
>> >       DEC Diagnositcs would run on a beached whale
>> >
>> >?
>> >
>> >Anyone remember and/or know?
>> >
>> I believe this was Mike Muuss and he used the term "dead whale" in
>> deference to the TSO comment.
>>
>> >
>>
>>
>
> --
> - Tom
>
>
>

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 1826 bytes --]

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 20+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] Who said ...
  2021-09-01 16:42   ` Tom Lyon via TUHS
@ 2021-09-01 17:41     ` Lawrence Stewart
  2021-09-01 20:00       ` ron minnich
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 20+ messages in thread
From: Lawrence Stewart @ 2021-09-01 17:41 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Tom Lyon; +Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 635 bytes --]

Or JCL “It’s as easy to read one file as it is to read 1000 files."

> On 2021, Sep 1, at 12:42 PM, Tom Lyon via TUHS <tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org> wrote:
> 
> Another fun saying about TSO: "It may be slow, but it's hard to use."
> 
> Not sure the origin.
> 
> On Wed, Sep 1, 2021 at 9:10 AM Ron Natalie <ron@ronnatalie.com <mailto:ron@ronnatalie.com>> wrote:
> 
> 
> >...
> >       DEC Diagnositcs would run on a beached whale
> >
> >?
> >
> >Anyone remember and/or know?
> >
> I believe this was Mike Muuss and he used the term "dead whale" in 
> deference to the TSO comment.
> 
> >
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> - Tom


[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 1844 bytes --]

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 20+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] Who said ...
  2021-09-01 16:10 ` Ron Natalie
@ 2021-09-01 16:42   ` Tom Lyon via TUHS
  2021-09-01 17:41     ` Lawrence Stewart
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 20+ messages in thread
From: Tom Lyon via TUHS @ 2021-09-01 16:42 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Ron Natalie; +Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 402 bytes --]

Another fun saying about TSO: "It may be slow, but it's hard to use."

Not sure the origin.

On Wed, Sep 1, 2021 at 9:10 AM Ron Natalie <ron@ronnatalie.com> wrote:

>
>
> >...
> >       DEC Diagnositcs would run on a beached whale
> >
> >?
> >
> >Anyone remember and/or know?
> >
> I believe this was Mike Muuss and he used the term "dead whale" in
> deference to the TSO comment.
>
> >
>
>

-- 
- Tom

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 1048 bytes --]

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 20+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] Who said ...
  2021-09-01 13:30 arnold
  2021-09-01 13:48 ` Clem Cole
@ 2021-09-01 16:10 ` Ron Natalie
  2021-09-01 16:42   ` Tom Lyon via TUHS
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 20+ messages in thread
From: Ron Natalie @ 2021-09-01 16:10 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Aharon Robbins, tuhs



>...
>	DEC Diagnositcs would run on a beached whale
>
>?
>
>Anyone remember and/or know?
>
I believe this was Mike Muuss and he used the term "dead whale" in 
deference to the TSO comment.

>


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 20+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] Who said ...
  2021-09-01 14:26   ` Henry Bent
@ 2021-09-01 15:08     ` Andrew Hume
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 20+ messages in thread
From: Andrew Hume @ 2021-09-01 15:08 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Henry Bent; +Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society

of course, the dead whale joke just reminds me of that epic scene from “The Boys” tv show.
never mind.

andrew



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 20+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] Who said ...
  2021-09-01 13:48 ` Clem Cole
  2021-09-01 13:55   ` John Cowan
  2021-09-01 13:57   ` arnold
@ 2021-09-01 14:26   ` Henry Bent
  2021-09-01 15:08     ` Andrew Hume
  2 siblings, 1 reply; 20+ messages in thread
From: Henry Bent @ 2021-09-01 14:26 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Clem Cole; +Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 982 bytes --]

On Wed, 1 Sept 2021 at 09:49, Clem Cole <clemc@ccc.com> wrote:

> I believe the line was:  *"running **DEC Diagnostics is like kicking a
> dead whale down the beach.*"
> As for who said it, I'm not sure, but I think it was someone like Rob
> Kolstad or Henry Spencer.
>
> I suspect a grep of some type on some extremely old net.noise archives of
> the late 1970s/early 1980s might find it.
>

This was the earliest reference I could easily find, from
comp.unix.questions in Jan '87, but the author says it's an old joke.  It's
the last post in the thread:
https://groups.google.com/g/comp.unix.questions/c/fFtkBC3TcLc/m/QphFGT7BAfsJ

-Henry


> ᐧ
> ᐧ
>
> On Wed, Sep 1, 2021 at 9:31 AM <arnold@skeeve.com> wrote:
>
>> ...
>>         DEC Diagnositcs would run on a beached whale
>>
>> ?
>>
>> Anyone remember and/or know?
>>
>> (It seems to apply to other manufacturer's diagnostics as well, even
>> today.)
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Arnold
>>
>

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 2983 bytes --]

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 20+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] Who said ...
  2021-09-01 13:57   ` arnold
@ 2021-09-01 14:11     ` Clem Cole
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 20+ messages in thread
From: Clem Cole @ 2021-09-01 14:11 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Aharon Robbins; +Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 183 bytes --]

On Wed, Sep 1, 2021 at 9:57 AM <arnold@skeeve.com> wrote:

> It was DMR who said
>
>         Using TSO is like kicking a dead whale along a beach.
>
It is quite possible.
ᐧ

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 956 bytes --]

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 20+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] Who said ...
  2021-09-01 13:48 ` Clem Cole
  2021-09-01 13:55   ` John Cowan
@ 2021-09-01 13:57   ` arnold
  2021-09-01 14:11     ` Clem Cole
  2021-09-01 14:26   ` Henry Bent
  2 siblings, 1 reply; 20+ messages in thread
From: arnold @ 2021-09-01 13:57 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: clemc, arnold; +Cc: tuhs

It was DMR who said

	Using TSO is like kicking a dead whale along a beach.

My orginal quote about the diagnostics is correct, I'm pretty sure.

Thanks,

Arnold

Clem Cole <clemc@ccc.com> wrote:

> I believe the line was:  *"running **DEC Diagnostics is like kicking a dead
> whale down the beach.*"
> As for who said it, I'm not sure, but I think it was someone like Rob
> Kolstad or Henry Spencer.
>
> I suspect a grep of some type on some extremely old net.noise archives of
> the late 1970s/early 1980s might find it.
>
> ᐧ
> ᐧ
>
> On Wed, Sep 1, 2021 at 9:31 AM <arnold@skeeve.com> wrote:
>
> > ...
> >         DEC Diagnositcs would run on a beached whale
> >
> > ?
> >
> > Anyone remember and/or know?
> >
> > (It seems to apply to other manufacturer's diagnostics as well, even
> > today.)
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Arnold
> >

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 20+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] Who said ...
  2021-09-01 13:48 ` Clem Cole
@ 2021-09-01 13:55   ` John Cowan
  2021-09-01 13:57   ` arnold
  2021-09-01 14:26   ` Henry Bent
  2 siblings, 0 replies; 20+ messages in thread
From: John Cowan @ 2021-09-01 13:55 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Clem Cole; +Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 860 bytes --]

I heard this from my boss in the form "Mainframe programming is like moving
a dead whale along the beach by kicking it" around 1985.

On Wed, Sep 1, 2021 at 9:49 AM Clem Cole <clemc@ccc.com> wrote:

> I believe the line was:  *"running **DEC Diagnostics is like kicking a
> dead whale down the beach.*"
> As for who said it, I'm not sure, but I think it was someone like Rob
> Kolstad or Henry Spencer.
>
> I suspect a grep of some type on some extremely old net.noise archives of
> the late 1970s/early 1980s might find it.
>
> ᐧ
> ᐧ
>
> On Wed, Sep 1, 2021 at 9:31 AM <arnold@skeeve.com> wrote:
>
>> ...
>>         DEC Diagnositcs would run on a beached whale
>>
>> ?
>>
>> Anyone remember and/or know?
>>
>> (It seems to apply to other manufacturer's diagnostics as well, even
>> today.)
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Arnold
>>
>

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 2891 bytes --]

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 20+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] Who said ...
  2021-09-01 13:30 arnold
@ 2021-09-01 13:48 ` Clem Cole
  2021-09-01 13:55   ` John Cowan
                     ` (2 more replies)
  2021-09-01 16:10 ` Ron Natalie
  1 sibling, 3 replies; 20+ messages in thread
From: Clem Cole @ 2021-09-01 13:48 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Aharon Robbins; +Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 617 bytes --]

I believe the line was:  *"running **DEC Diagnostics is like kicking a dead
whale down the beach.*"
As for who said it, I'm not sure, but I think it was someone like Rob
Kolstad or Henry Spencer.

I suspect a grep of some type on some extremely old net.noise archives of
the late 1970s/early 1980s might find it.

ᐧ
ᐧ

On Wed, Sep 1, 2021 at 9:31 AM <arnold@skeeve.com> wrote:

> ...
>         DEC Diagnositcs would run on a beached whale
>
> ?
>
> Anyone remember and/or know?
>
> (It seems to apply to other manufacturer's diagnostics as well, even
> today.)
>
> Thanks,
>
> Arnold
>

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 2306 bytes --]

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 20+ messages in thread

* [TUHS] Who said ...
@ 2021-09-01 13:30 arnold
  2021-09-01 13:48 ` Clem Cole
  2021-09-01 16:10 ` Ron Natalie
  0 siblings, 2 replies; 20+ messages in thread
From: arnold @ 2021-09-01 13:30 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: tuhs

...
	DEC Diagnositcs would run on a beached whale

?

Anyone remember and/or know?

(It seems to apply to other manufacturer's diagnostics as well, even today.)

Thanks,

Arnold

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 20+ messages in thread

end of thread, other threads:[~2021-09-01 21:48 UTC | newest]

Thread overview: 20+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed)
-- links below jump to the message on this page --
2021-09-01 14:16 [TUHS] Who said Norman Wilson
2021-09-01 14:23 ` arnold
2021-09-01 14:27 ` Clem Cole
2021-09-01 14:29 ` Henry Bent
2021-09-01 14:32   ` Clem Cole
2021-09-01 14:48 ` Chris Torek
2021-09-01 16:00 ` Ron Natalie
  -- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
2021-09-01 13:30 arnold
2021-09-01 13:48 ` Clem Cole
2021-09-01 13:55   ` John Cowan
2021-09-01 13:57   ` arnold
2021-09-01 14:11     ` Clem Cole
2021-09-01 14:26   ` Henry Bent
2021-09-01 15:08     ` Andrew Hume
2021-09-01 16:10 ` Ron Natalie
2021-09-01 16:42   ` Tom Lyon via TUHS
2021-09-01 17:41     ` Lawrence Stewart
2021-09-01 20:00       ` ron minnich
2021-09-01 20:04         ` ron minnich
2021-09-01 21:47           ` Rob Pike

This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox;
as well as URLs for NNTP newsgroup(s).