15 Jun
2005
15 Jun
'05
1:05 p.m.
Hello all,
I recently acquired an IBM PC-AT 5170, and it is running Pick. When
it boots up, there are some startup messages, then a banner:
THE PICK SYSTEM
PC-AT VER 2.1 of 26 Mar 87
Then, there is a "Logon" prompt. I have no idea what the correct
login is, and I am not the original owner (nor is the person I got the
system from).
Is there some default login? Google didn't seem to be of much
help.... I tried obvious things like "pick", "login",
"user", etc
.... Even tried mixed-case, and all uppercase.... no joy :-(
Thanks for any help in advance....
Rich B.
15 Jun
15 Jun
1:53 p.m.
Richard wrote...
I recently acquired an IBM PC-AT 5170, and it is
running Pick. When
it boots up, there are some startup messages, then a banner:
Awesome... soon
you'll be a Pick addict :) I've dealt with a *LOT* of
different versions of BASIC, and IMHO I've never found a BASIC nearly as
nice as Pick BASIC. Not even close.
THE PICK SYSTEM
PC-AT VER 2.1 of 26 Mar 87
Then, there is a "Logon" prompt. I have no idea what the correct
login is, and I am not the original owner (nor is the person I got the
system from).
The classic "superuser" account on all pick systems is
SYSPROG try logging
in with that. By default, there was no password. However, it was extremely
common to password protect that even in tiny shops. If it's a late version
of pick (doubtful), use DM (which should be just a Q-account to SYSPROG).
Note, most Picks the login was typically all upper case.
Is there some default login? Google didn't seem
to be of much
help.... I tried obvious things like "pick", "login",
"user", etc
.... Even tried mixed-case, and all uppercase.... no joy :-(
Thanks for any help in advance....
There was a way to break in the system. I'm
going from foggy memory... as I
recall, I would log on to an account that wasn't supposed to be logged in to
(not from a security standpoint, there were some data repositories in pick
that they typically set up as an account but weren't really valid accounts).
However, you could log in to them. I seem to recall ERRMSG account, perhaps
BLOCK-LETTERS. Once you logged in, since these weren't really "accounts" you
had little or no valid master dictionary (ie. no commands). BUT... you could
at least use the break key then to get into the system debugger. Once there,
you could calculate the system base frame and start from there, tracking
down to the SYSTEM file (where users were kept). The data bytes in a raw
frame for the sysprog account were obvious :) On older systems, before they
hashed passwords, you could see the password for SYSPROG in plain text. On
newer systems, it was a hash. However, you could generate a known hash on a
different machine and then just patch that hash in place of the current
hash. Then log out from the debugger and log into SYSPROG.
I am quite sure the above is basically correct, however time may have made
parts of the above fuzzy. If you have no success with any of the above, give
me a shout and I'll dig up the necessary manuals and get you broken in.
Regards,
Jay West
10:25 p.m.
Jay West wrote:
Jay,
I'm not aware of any obvious ways to break in if the password are set. One can
bring up a disk editor, and with a knowlege of the drive, can edit the sysprog
or some
other account passsword to have no password, then log in.
The holes that were there went away in the 2.x days, long before the code upon
which the R83 release was based on. This release was the descendent of Pick
R80, and was a "peer" in quality and features to the Royale 3.0 releases on
microdata hardware.
The encryption was pretty schlocky and actually resulted in not the obfuscation
that unix got by introducing doing a "crypt()" function on their password, but
lost information. That meant that there were many possible "alias" passwords
that could work. I doubt that a password guesser would figure it out though.
With a file stats listing, or a file save tape (the stats are t-dumped at the
end of a normal file save) we could possibly break in. It would take a raw
disk editor tht booted from dos, such as norton old utilities, or such, and a
lot of finagling to find the system dictionary and byte fiddle it.
If he has the install goods on a release as old as it sounds, maybe replacing
the
hard drive and installing the system again would give him a tste of pick.
He could install an IDE ISA adapter, and a 1gb disk for probably under $10
given prices of small drives now, and have a huge pick ssytem for his pleasure.
2.2gb was the max on later bios versions and 3.1m release. Dont know
about the one he mentioned. it might be restricted to 525mb, due to int13
considerations.
Jim
16 Jun
16 Jun
5:41 p.m.
Jim wrote...
I'm not aware of any obvious ways to break in if
the password are set.
One can
bring up a disk editor, and with a knowlege of the drive, can edit the
sysprog
or some other account passsword to have no password, then log in.
One can usually -
even on much more recent machines, log in to things like
ERRMSG, just to break to the debugger. Once you get the debugger, you can do
magic. As an alternative, yes, you can boot off a floppy with a disk editor
and patch the system file that way too. He could also try some of the 3rd
party accounts like "PROF" or "TUTOR" or "ACCU-PLOT".
The holes that were there went away in the 2.x days,
long before the code
upon
which the R83 release was based on. This release was the descendent of
Pick
R80, and was a "peer" in quality and features to the Royale 3.0 releases
on
microdata hardware.
I didn't think ANY of the reality releases hashed
passwords... at least on
the pre-spirit machines. I could very well be wrong. I think Pick R83 did
though.
With a file stats listing, or a file save tape (the
stats are t-dumped at
the
end of a normal file save) we could possibly break in. It would take a
raw
disk editor tht booted from dos, such as norton old utilities, or such,
and a
lot of finagling to find the system dictionary and byte fiddle it.
With a disk
editor you don't need the filestats or anything... you can
search for SYSPROG:@AM:SYS2 and the like. But if you want to use the break
key to get to the debugger, a filesave listing would be handy to get the
system base. However, you CAN get the system base arithmetically in the
absence of filestats.
If he has the install goods on a release as old as it
sounds, maybe
replacing
the hard drive and installing the system again would give him a tste of
pick.
Unfortunately, the version of Pick he has used laserburns on a floppy. Ick.
*I'M* not capable of getting around that, probably some here are. I don't
know x86 code well at all. I *DO* have an original full install set of Pick
R83/XT though, but I don't think that will work on an AT.
Someone on the list pointed me to an opensource Pick-alike... I believe it
ran on BSD/Linux. Nifty!
Now, of all the Pickheads here, who remembers the "4gl" called Wizard? The
code that thing generated was incredibly incredibly NASTY!
Someday, I really *MUST* add a PR1ME to my collection. I really miss PRIMOS
and PRIME INFORMATION! I have NEVER found one in the wild though :\
Jay
15 Jun
15 Jun
5:44 p.m.
Richard Beaudry wrote:
Hello all,
I recently acquired an IBM PC-AT 5170, and it is running Pick. When
it boots up, there are some startup messages, then a banner:
THE PICK SYSTEM
PC-AT VER 2.1 of 26 Mar 87
Then, there is a "Logon" prompt. I have no idea what the correct
login is, and I am not the original owner (nor is the person I got the
system from).
Is there some default login? Google didn't seem to be of much
help.... I tried obvious things like "pick", "login",
"user", etc
.... Even tried mixed-case, and all uppercase.... no joy :-(
Thanks for any help in advance....
Rich B.
Rich, you might try DM or SYSPROG. I don't know if it'll ask for a
password, but try (again), DM or SYSPROG.
g.
7131
days inactive
7133
days old
4 comments
4 participants
participants (4)
-
geneb＠deltasoft.com -
jwest＠classiccmp.org -
jwstephens＠msm.umr.edu -
richard.beaudry＠gmail.com