Hi,
A few more things added. I put up the rest of the RT-11 System Reference
Manual (Appendix), the RT-11 System Message Manual, and jpeg color scans
of the 1960 Electronics Illustrated article "Build An Electronic
Computer" in the "Miscellaneous" document section. I have a few more
things to OCR, including the RT-11 Software Support Manual, Fortran Notes,
etc. In the next few days...
www.retrobytes.org
Cheers,
Aaron
<Well, wait some more years - my 20 year old is still ok with her K5-100.
Gee and I gave in and bought a P166/mmx when my 486dx board died. Still
runs dos/W3.1 though. Can't run one of the FPGA tools under W95 so I
don't.
Allison
<I've been noticing the same thing when going source diving in the Linux
<kernel and lots of other places. I think 5% would be a pretty generous
<guess there (unless you count all the copyright crap and credits), most of
<the time there isn't a single comment anywhere on the screen I'm looking at
Minix a simpler teaching OS that is unix like is likely the most liberally
commented code I've seen, maybe 5%, 10 if you wrap the book around it.
<If you can lay your hands on unstripped sources to DEC PDP-11 OSes,
<they're really nice examples of well-commented assembly language (no I'm
<not kissing ass, I haven't seen the full RT sources so I wouldn't even know
I have seen RT11 bare and commented. Bare is readable, the commented stuff
is something more, much more. It covers the wacky why'd the do that stuff.
<that interests me, and even then half the time I just have to fill it with
<printfs and recompile to see what it actually does, since I can't figure
<out what it's *supposed* to do.
I do that with Coldfusion (web server middleware), Qbasic4.5 because the
debugers (if they exist) arent able to tell me what I want the way I want
it.
Allison
> How do I get it to copy the whole *tree* in a directory or on a
>disk to a whole other part of the system?
COPY DISK$IN:[INDIRECTORY...]*.*;* DISK$OUT:[OUTDIRECTORY...]
For doing whole disks, I prefer to use BACKUP.
Tim.
The concept of immersion makes sense to me. I came to the U.S. in '52 with
nary a word of English under my belt. I was admitted to the local school
system in first grade, regular classes, with no interpreter anywhere in the
building. That was PS49 in the New York school system. I was later moved
to PS20 where even fewer folks spoke German fluently. Within 6 weeks my
performance was improving to such extent that my language skills were to a
state in which they were not perceived by the teachers to be an impediment.
It didn't hurt that there were lots of Yiddish-speaking merchants in the
neighborhoods through which I walked to and from school. Yiddish is quite
similar to German and certainly makes conversation easier.
Note that I said it took 6 weeks to "catch on" and not the seven or eight
years it typically takes here with the ESL/ESOL programs. If a person has
no reasonable alternative, particularly if that person's young and flexible,
and not fet a bunch of SH*T from the community and from the government,
he/she can learn enough to get by in school, which is more than what's
needed to "get by" in life. I think it's the motivation, not the age,
though. If an adult is motivated to communicate effectively, the road isn't
long, though it may be harder than for a kid.
Dick
-----Original Message-----
From: Aaron Christopher Finney <af-list(a)wfi-inc.com>
To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Date: Thursday, March 09, 2000 3:52 PM
Subject: Re: languages
>
>
>On Thu, 9 Mar 2000, Mike Ford wrote:
>
>> California has made the correct choice in dropping the whole english as a
>> second language program in favor of english immersion. The sooner you
learn
>> english and become proficient, the better students do in general. This
>> isn't to say that ebonics or any other cultural language doesn't have
>> merit, but points out the peril of "too much" local control in a polical
>> setting. This is like offering "creation" as an alternative to "Darwin",
>> the problem being once you declare "God created the heavens and earth"
you
>> have branched off from the next 10 years of scientific education to a
path
>> that leads to what?
>
>I don't know...Canada (ok, I'm biased a little being Canadian) allows for
>official provincial languages outside of the national official languages,
>French and English. It's a neat system, which I think provides a lot of
>flexibility for subcultures to preserve their language/history. I'm
>definitely not one of the "Speak English or Get Out" crowd.
>
>As far as evolution/creation (oh boy, here we go), I think the problem
>with their original idea of teaching both disciplines fell short right at
>the place where they had to rectify the problem you mentioned, which
>simplifies to the question of where a "safe" re-entry point was in the
>continuum of Science for those who went apostate and chose Creationism
>over Darwinian Evolution...
>
--- Geoff Roberts <geoffrob(a)stmarks.pp.catholic.edu.au> wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Ethan Dicks" <ethan_dicks(a)yahoo.com>
> > > I don't have any Uni level CS under my belt, and that seems
> > > to be what's needed to comprehend it.
> >
> > Rubbish.
> > I saw that we had a UNIX machine nestled amongst the VAXen...
> You are fortunate in having had access to such systems early in the piece.
That is true. I was also fortunate enough to sieze the opportunity. Of
the handful of college barely-over-minimum-wage backup operators that
paraded through SRC, only two of us are making a living in IT. Most of
the operators mounted the tapes, printed the labels and read trashy novels
while the TU-78 did its stuff for 6 hours. The other geek and I wrote
programs on one of the other systems while the main system was being backed
up. We both ended up as full-time programmers for the company's VMS and
UNIX products. Several people had access to the programming resources.
Most did nothing with the opportunity.
> > I never learned a programming language in school, only by rolling up my
> > sleeves, going into larval mode once again and banging out a fun project.
>
> Interesting. I got the impression that the knowledgeable C programmers
> around either
> a) Worked in a professional computing environment and 'worked their way up'
> or
> b) Went to university and studied CS there.
> or
> c) Both.
I got my first job writing 6502 assembler for the C-64 in 1982 before I
was old enough to drive. My mother had to drop me off and work and sign
my contracts. I realize this is atypical, but there it is. I did start
off at University with a double CS and EE major. I took one "FORTRAN for
Engineers" class and after two years in the program switched my major and
earned a BA in History (while learning to program in C on the side at work).
So given your above model of the anticipated career paths of C programmers,
I would most closely fall into A). I learned C at work, doing a project
to automate one of my assigned job tasks after having been a professional
assembler programmer for two to three years. I did it by asking the "real"
programmers at work, exploring source code and reading K&R cover to cover
several times. I still tell people to start with that book, BTW. It's
a goldmine of information.
> C doesn't strike me as a language that could be 'self taught' without prior
> knowledge of a lot of things that you don't see outside that kind of
> environment.
I'm not sure I agree here.
> All the books I ever saw on C seemed to expect that you already have a
> working knowledge of data structures architecture of the machine etc.
Have you read K&R? It assumes a PDP-11/VAXish machine architecture, but
it covers the basic data structures, linked lists, multi-dimensional arrays,
strings, pointers to arrays of pointers. More than enough stuff to get you
into buckets of trouble.
> TP was perhaps just better documented for ignorant newbies than C is.
I did work with TP at one job. The programmer there would certainly
be described as a newbie. He was a business major, not a geek. I have
no idea how he ever produced that much working code except by pure
force of will. It was extremely inelegant.
> That you have 'self taught' on it regardless indicates otherwise, so I will
> revise my opinion. However I must agree that it does seem to (me at least,
> and I saw a another response to my original post that agreed) to be a "write
> only" language unless it is very well commented.
Again, that depends. I've seen some stuff that was absolutely unintellegible
without comments (and not very understandable even _with_ comments) and other
things that are so idiomatic and commonly used that adding comments disturbs
the flow to the point of hiding what's happening.
There are other languages that are _more_ "write only" (APL comes to mind
immediately), but I do agree that zero comments makes C extremely difficult
to understand.
> Er, I should point out that I don't/didn't intend to start a holy war here...
It tends to happen when anyone makes somewhat broad and somewhat firm
statements about anything in this biz, editors, OSes _and_ languages,
to name a few.
> I'm merely relating my experiences. We all seem to have our favourites, I
> guess I like TP because it was the first 'real' language (something compiled,
_That_ is typical in my experience.
=====
Even though my old e-mail address is no longer going to
vanish, please note my new public address: erd(a)iname.com
The original webpage address is still going away. The
permanent home is: http://penguincentral.com/
See http://ohio.voyager.net/ for details.
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! Messenger.
http://im.yahoo.com
I have recently found the time to start playing with my VAXen
again, and have been struck by a bit of a confusing dilemma:
Why is it that when I attempt to copy a large tree from any place
to another under VMS 7.2, it always copies as follows:
This command:
backup dub3:[000000...]*.*;* dub2:
causes vms to copy a directory structure that looks like this:
[000000.000TOOLS.AXP]file1...file2...etc
[000000.000TOOLS.VAX]file3...file4...etc
to this:
[000000.000TOOLS] (empty)
[000000.AXP]file1...file2...etc
[000000.VAX]file3...file4...etc
How do I get it to copy the whole *tree* in a directory or on a
disk to a whole other part of the system? I tried reading the help
available on copy and backup, but I haven't been able to figure out how to
copy a whole tree from one place to another.
Thanks for your help!
Greg Linder
fluke(a)mcs.net
>Hmpf! A bad programmer can make an awful mess in _ANY_
>language, including ADA.
Absolutely... it is possible to write well in any language
(including BASIC, contrary to many people's opinions) and it
is possible to write poorly in any language. It depends more
on the skill of the programmer...
...but I think I better stop here before entirely rekindling
the language wars...
Megan Gentry
Former RT-11 Developer
+--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+
| Megan Gentry, EMT/B, PP-ASEL | Internet (work): gentry!zk3.dec.com |
| Unix Support Engineering Group | (home): mbg!world.std.com |
| Compaq Computer Corporation | addresses need '@' in place of '!' |
| 110 Spitbrook Rd. ZK03-2/T43 | URL: http://world.std.com/~mbg/ |
| Nashua, NH 03062 | "pdp-11 programmer - some assembler |
| (603) 884 1055 | required." - mbg |
+--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+
>C's abstraction begins to bore me and it seems a write only language.
Unfortunately, it appears that those who advocate and write in C
and other such structured languages appear to have lost the ability
to comment their code (at least it seems that way from all the code
I look at at work -- I would say a mere 5% is really commented).
They appear to assume that C code is itself sufficient commenting...
It doesn't work.
Megan Gentry
Former RT-11 Developer
+--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+
| Megan Gentry, EMT/B, PP-ASEL | Internet (work): gentry!zk3.dec.com |
| Unix Support Engineering Group | (home): mbg!world.std.com |
| Compaq Computer Corporation | addresses need '@' in place of '!' |
| 110 Spitbrook Rd. ZK03-2/T43 | URL: http://world.std.com/~mbg/ |
| Nashua, NH 03062 | "pdp-11 programmer - some assembler |
| (603) 884 1055 | required." - mbg |
+--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+
You're right about what rises to the top, Allison, and I'd add that the fact
that teachers are, in general, represented by a "union" which emphasizes the
normal distribution just as the environment in which they work does, by
their nature desiring neither accolade nor criticism. Being good doesn't
reap the rewards it should in an environment where being good is good, but
being average is better.
Dick
-----Original Message-----
From: Allison J Parent <allisonp(a)world.std.com>
To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Date: Friday, March 10, 2000 5:56 PM
Subject: Re: Re: languages (Teachers)
><Allison, I believe you've been sold a bill of goods.
>
>Looked for myself in my locale.
>
><First of all, look at what a teacher has to do for his/her education and
>>>>>snipped/
>
>I know far to many doing the real thing...
>
>Like someone else said but I'll say differently: Like cream that rises to
>the top, so does the scum. We see the exceptional asses and heros, the
>average teacher is more in the world of trying not to be disenchanted with
>to many rules, too few resources and an overabundance of students.
>
><didn't do so well in high school, mainly due to lack of ambition and
><diligence, didn't want to work too hard in college, and, of course,
couldn'
><get into a good college. Fortunately, a good college isn't required. On
><top of that, he's chosen a niche in which he only has to work a 6-hour day
><and he only has to do that 183 days a year to get full salary and,
><ultimately a generous pension.
>
>Well your experience is different. You wish to see the scum and you do,
>those that do the job are missed and those that exceed the mark are
>ignored.
>
>I don't for one second believe that our educational system is up to stuff.
>If anything I'd be glad to post my parting address to my HS class, it
>wasn't complmetary to skills taught in 1971. The briefest words I'd still
>say is I knew Algebra, trig and could write a term paper that would knock
>your socks off but... income tax preparation and employment paperwork
>(W4, resume, applications) were a mystery. I was trained to go to college.
>Thankfully I persued both academic and vocational path in parallel.
>
>
>Allison
>
