3 Nov
2020
3 Nov
'20
3:40 p.m.
This memory just came back to me. There was a UNIX disribution
(PWB/UNIX?) that had a program called 1.
It printed tis quaint bit of propaganda.
One Bell System. It works.
This was fine until one day I’m at work in a big bull pen computer room
when Bernie, one of my co-workers, shouts.
“What’s all this Bell System crud in the editor?”
My reaction is, “Well, it’s all Bell System crud.” I walk over to his
terminal and find he is typing 1 repeatedly at the shell prompt and
getting the above message. (This was back in the old /bin/ed days where
1 got you to the top of the file). I had to point out he wasn’t in
the editor.
Later that day, the program was changed to say:
You’re not in the editor, Bernie.
This I think made it into one of the BRL releases and occassionally got
inquiries as to who Bernie is.
3 Nov
3 Nov
3:53 p.m.
👍
On Tue, Nov 3, 2020 at 10:49 AM Ron Natalie <ron(a)ronnatalie.com> wrote:
This memory just came back to me. There was a UNIX
disribution
(PWB/UNIX?) that had a program called 1.
It printed tis quaint bit of propaganda.
One Bell System. It works.
This was fine until one day I’m at work in a big bull pen computer room
when Bernie, one of my co-workers, shouts.
“What’s all this Bell System crud in the editor?”
My reaction is, “Well, it’s all Bell System crud.” I walk over to his
terminal and find he is typing 1 repeatedly at the shell prompt and getting
the above message. (This was back in the old /bin/ed days where 1 got you
to the top of the file). I had to point out he wasn’t in the editor.
Later that day, the program was changed to say:
You’re not in the editor, Bernie.
This I think made it into one of the BRL releases and occassionally got
inquiries as to who Bernie is.
4 p.m.
On Nov 3, 2020, at 7:40 AM, Ron Natalie <ron(a)ronnatalie.com> wrote:
This memory just came back to me. There was a UNIX
disribution (PWB/UNIX?) that had a program called 1.
It printed tis quaint bit of propaganda.
One Bell System. It works.
This was fine until one day I’m at work in a big bull pen computer room when Bernie, one
of my co-workers, shouts.
“What’s all this Bell System crud in the editor?”
My reaction is, “Well, it’s all Bell System crud.” I walk over to his terminal and
find he is typing 1 repeatedly at the shell prompt and getting the above message. (This
was back in the old /bin/ed days where 1 got you to the top of the file). I had to
point out he wasn’t in the editor.
Later that day, the program was changed to say:
You’re not in the editor, Bernie.
This I think made it into one of the BRL releases and occassionally got inquiries as to
who Bernie is.
Yes, PWB/UNIX.
I seem to recall it also had /usr/bin/flog. You pass it a process ID as argument, and it
was supposed to make the process work harder. (I can't remember the exact wording on
the web page. In fact, I could be confused about it being in PWB.)
8:56 p.m.
On Tue, Nov 3, 2020 at 10:49 AM Ron Natalie <ron(a)ronnatalie.com> wrote:
One Bell System. It works.
I was told, though I didn't see this for myself, that in a post-1982
release it was changed to read "One Bell System. It used to work."
Googling turns up "One Bell System. It used to work before they installed
the Dimension." (I don't know what that means.)
Every day I type "1" (or sometimes "0") to get to the top of the file
in
`ex`. (I know, of course, that `ed` is the standard editor, but I'm
willing to trade off a little standardosity for a little more helpfulness.)
As for flog(1), there is a boring modern command called that: it writes
stdin to a specified log file and rotates it on receiving SIGHUP.
John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan(a)ccil.org
Yes, chili in the eye is bad, but so is your ear. However, I would
suggest you wash your hands thoroughly before going to the toilet.
--gadicath
1433
days inactive
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days old
3 comments
4 participants
participants (4)
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Clem Cole -
John Cowan -
pobox.com -
Ron Natalie