[ prog / sol / mona ]

prog


Zork on the PDP-10

4 2021-03-22 13:34

There are nice oddities too, like this ITS shell poetry by Guy L. Steele Jr.

Once before a console dreary, while I programmed, weak and weary,
Over many a curious program which did TECO's buffer fill, --
While I pondered, nearly sleeping, suddenly there came a feeping,
As of something gently beeping, beeping with my console's bell.
"'Tis my DDT," I muttered, "feeping on my console's bell:
Once it feeped, and now is still."

Ah, distinctly I remember that dark night in bleak December,
And each separate glowing symbol danced before me, bright and chill.
Eagerly I wished the morrow; vainly I had sought to borrow
From my HACTRN aid for sorrow -- sorrow for the bugs which fill --
For the strange unknown and nameless bugs which ever all my programs f
Bugs which now I searched for still.

And the coughing, whirring, gritty fan I heard inside my TTY
Made me with fantastic terrors never known before to thrill;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart I stood repeating,
"'Tis some interrupt entreating DDT to signal me --
Some strange interrupt entreating DDT to signal me --
Its importance surely nil."

(...)

http://victor.se/bjorn/its/hactrn.php

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