EGREG - TUHS

17 Jan 2021

Andrew Hume (dammit andrew):

  i have probed recently about the origins of the bEGREGb (its all greg cession's fault) error in Research Unix.
  alas, i recall nothing about this, and can't recall ever getting the message.

===

Your memory fails you, which is not unreasonable for stuff you
probably haven't thought about in more than 30 years:

/*
	SCSI Pass-Thru driver for the TD Systems UD? -- Andrew Hume
	Ninth Edition Unix
*/

[...]

scsiwrite(dev)
	dev_t dev;
{
	register count;
	register struct scsi *p = &scsi[minor(dev)];
	register struct mscmd *cmd = &p->junk->cmd.msg;
	unsigned char flag, bus_id;

	if(p->flag&NEXTWR)
		p->flag &= ~NEXTWR;
	else {
		u.u_error = EGREG;
		return;
	}

As I remember it, EGREG went into errno.h and libc out
of a desire to have some never-normally-used error to
be returned when debugging.  I forget just who was in
the UNIX Room conversation that created it; almost certainly
I was.  I thought andrew was as well; very likely one or
more of andrew td presotto.

I do remember being a bit annoyed at Andrew for putting it
in permanent use in the raw-SCSI driver (which was at the
time of interest mainly to Andrew for controlling an
early optical-disc jukebox, used by the original File
Motel backup system).

As to the origin of `It's all Greg's fault' as a meme,
that was already around and established when I arrived at
the Labs in mid-1984, though Greg himself had already
moved west.  Maybe Doug or Ken remembers how that started.

Andrew himself was responsible for or blamed by more than
one meme of the days.  The scsi driver spawned one, in fact:
the first attempt used a SCSI interface from Emulex, which
never worked quite right, and despite repeated phone calls
to Emulex Andrew could never get it figured out.  He tried
and tried, though, and his attempts spawned the catch
phrase `Time to call Emulex again!'

Norman Wilson
Toronto ON