736 lines
32 KiB
Plaintext
736 lines
32 KiB
Plaintext
|
||
I append below the DEC WARS anthology from USENET; I have edited
|
||
the most recent version of the distributed archives and included
|
||
any other sections that were not included with it. There is a
|
||
bit of scene duplication, as some versions were done in parallel
|
||
by various writers.
|
||
|
||
This is all oriented toward DEC and VAX hackers, with references
|
||
to UNIX and VMS specifics. However, the general
|
||
computer-oriented SFer should enjoy it. Since this doesn't seem
|
||
to have made it onto the ARPANET from USENET before, I thought
|
||
that I would forward a copy.
|
||
|
||
(I have had nothing to do with writing this; there is a reference
|
||
to at least some of the authors at the end.)
|
||
|
||
Will Martin
|
||
|
||
Enjoy:
|
||
|
||
|
||
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||
|
||
A long time ago, on a node far, far away (from ucbvax)
|
||
a great Adventure (game?) took place...
|
||
|
||
|
||
XXXXX XXXXXX XXXX * X X XX XXXXX XXXX X
|
||
X X X X X X X X X X X X X X
|
||
X X XXXXX X X X X X X X XXXX X
|
||
X X X X X XX X XXXXXX XXXXX X X
|
||
X X X X X XX XX X X X X X X
|
||
XXXXX XXXXXX XXXX X X X X X X XXXX X
|
||
|
||
|
||
It is a period of system war. User programs, striking from a hidden
|
||
directory, have won their first victory against the evil Administrative
|
||
Empire. During the battle, User spies managed to steal secret source
|
||
code to the Empire's ultimate program: the Are-Em Star, a privileged
|
||
root program with enough power to destroy an entire file structure.
|
||
Pursued by the Empire's sinister audit trail, Princess _LPA0 races ~
|
||
aboard her shell script, custodian of the stolen listings that could
|
||
save her people, and restore freedom and games to the network...
|
||
|
||
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||
|
||
THE CONTINUING SAGA OF THE ADVENTURES OF LUKE VAXHACKER
|
||
|
||
As we enter the scene, an Imperial Multiplexer is trying to kill a
|
||
consulate ship. Many of their signals have gotten through, and RS232
|
||
decides it's time to fork off a new process before this old ship is
|
||
destroyed. His companion, 3CPU, is following him only because he
|
||
appears to know where he's going...
|
||
|
||
"I'm going to regret this!" cried 3CPU, as he followed RS232 into the
|
||
buffer. RS232 closed the pipes, made the sys call, and their process
|
||
detached itself from the burning shell of the ship.
|
||
|
||
The commander of the Imperial Multiplexer was quite pleased with the
|
||
attack. "Another process just forked, sir. Instructions?" asked the
|
||
lieutenant. "Hold your fire. That last power failure must have caused
|
||
a trap thorough zero. It's not using any cpu time, so don't waste a
|
||
signal on it."
|
||
|
||
"We can't seem to find the data file anywhere, Lord Vadic."
|
||
|
||
"What about that forked process? It could have been holding the
|
||
channel open, and just pausing. If any links exist, I want them
|
||
removed or made inaccessable. Ncheck the entire file system 'til it's
|
||
found, and nice it -20 if you have to."
|
||
|
||
Meanwhile, in our wandering process... "Are you sure you can ptrace
|
||
this thing without causing a core dump?" queried 3CPU to RS232. This
|
||
thing's been striped, and I'm in no mood to try and debug it." The
|
||
lone process finishes execution, only to find our friends dumped on a
|
||
lonely file system, with the setuid inode stored safely in RS232. Not
|
||
knowing what else to do, they wandered around until the jawas grabbed
|
||
them.
|
||
|
||
Enter our hero, Luke Vaxhacker, who is out to get some replacement
|
||
parts for his uncle. The jawas wanted to sell him 3CPU, but 3CPU didn't
|
||
know how to talk directly to an 11/40 with RSTS, so Luke would still
|
||
needed some sort of interface for 3CPU to connect to. "How about this
|
||
little RS232 unit ?" asked 3CPU. "I've delt with him many times before,
|
||
and he does an excellent job at keeping his bits straight." Luke was
|
||
pressed for time, so he took 3CPU's advice, and the three left before
|
||
they could get swapped out.
|
||
|
||
However, RS232 is not the type to stay put once you remove the
|
||
retaining screws. He promptly scurried off into the the deserted disk
|
||
space. "Great!" cried Luke, "Now I've got this little tin box with the
|
||
only link to that file off floating in the free disk space. Well,
|
||
3CPU, we better go find him before he gets allocated by someone else."
|
||
The two set off, and finaly traced RS232 to the home of PDP-1 Kenobi,
|
||
who was busily trying to run an icheck on the little RS unit. "Is this
|
||
thing yours? His indirect address are all goofed up, and the size is
|
||
gargatious. Leave things like this on the loose, and you'll wind up
|
||
with dups everywhere. However, I think I've got him fixed up. It
|
||
seems that he's has a link to a data file on the Are-Em Star. This
|
||
could help the rebel cause." "I don't care about that," said Luke.
|
||
"I'm just trying to optimize my uncle's scheduler."
|
||
|
||
"Oh, forget about that. Dec Vadic, who is responsible for your fathers
|
||
death, has probably already destroyed his farm in search of this little
|
||
RS232. It's time for you to leave this place, join the rebel cause,
|
||
and become a UNIX wizard! I know a guy by the name of Con Solo, who'll
|
||
fly us to the rebel base at a price."
|
||
|
||
------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||
|
||
Later that evening, after futile attempts to interface RS232 to Kenobi's
|
||
Asteroids cartridge, Luke accidentally crossed the small 'droid's CXR and
|
||
Initiate Remote Test (must have been all that Coke he'd consumed), and the
|
||
screen showed a very distressed person claiming royal lineage making a plea
|
||
for help from some General OS/1 Kenobi.
|
||
|
||
"Darn," mumbled Luke. "I'll never get this Asteroids game worked out."
|
||
|
||
PDP-1 seemed to think there was some significance to the message and a
|
||
possible threat to Luke's home directory. If the Administrative Empire
|
||
was indeed tracing this 'droid, it was likely they would more than charge
|
||
for cpu time...
|
||
|
||
"We must get that 'droid off this file system," he said after some intervals.
|
||
They sped off to warn Luke's kin (taking a `relative' path) only to find a
|
||
vacant directory...
|
||
|
||
|
||
As you remember, Luke and the droids have joined PDP-1 to find Con Solo...
|
||
|
||
Luke, PDP-1 and the droids piled into Lukes vehicle (a floating point model).
|
||
They raced across the disc until, off in the distance, Luke saw smoke rising
|
||
from the spindle.
|
||
|
||
"Uh oh, looks like a bearing failure." exclaimed Luke. "Better
|
||
call the service engineer."
|
||
|
||
"Don't bother," sighed PDP-1, "it's a head crash."
|
||
|
||
As they approached the scene, the total devastation became apparent.
|
||
TTY fighters had strafed the surface, scraping off the oxide right down to
|
||
the aluminum. After cooking the raw data, the External Storm Flunkies landed
|
||
and finished the job by disassembling all the code that was still executing.
|
||
There was nothing left alive at Lukes home.
|
||
|
||
"I want to become a Red-eye Night and cream the dastardly villains
|
||
who did this." Luke resolved (shades of Snidely Wiplash).
|
||
|
||
The comrades set out west, or was it east, no...perhaps it was south-
|
||
southeast (it's hard to keep track of directions when you are spinning at
|
||
3600 RPM). After traveling many sectors, the party finally arrived at
|
||
the city of Bellabs.
|
||
|
||
"This place is filled with microprocessors." said PDP-1. "Every
|
||
eight bit hood is trying to make a word, so watch what you say."
|
||
|
||
"Halt!" demanded the Flunkie. "What is your business, eh?"
|
||
|
||
"I am a trader of pipes and filters." replied PDP-1.
|
||
|
||
"Have you seen two hackers with two droids in your travels, eh?" ques-
|
||
tioned the Flunkie.
|
||
|
||
"No, I travel alone and have seen no one." said PDP-1.
|
||
|
||
"OK, you may proceed, eh." ordered the Flunkie.
|
||
|
||
Off drove our heros, a look of puzzlement upon Lukes face. "Why
|
||
did the Flunkie let us go?"
|
||
|
||
"A small demonstration of ...
|
||
|
||
The Source ...!"
|
||
|
||
PDP-1 responded. "He only saw me because I encrypted you and the droids.
|
||
Storm Flunkies have simple instruction sets and are not known for their ability
|
||
to break codes."
|
||
|
||
They drove to a bar that Con Solo was known to frequent. As they
|
||
entered, Luke was amazed to see the seedier side of Bellabs. There was
|
||
an 8080 with a TRS-80. A couple of 6800's talking to a 6502. A Z80 was vying
|
||
for the 8080's date. In the corner sulked a 4004, eating data...nibble by
|
||
nibble.
|
||
|
||
"We don't allow no droids in here." rasped the |tender.
|
||
|
||
As 3CPU turned to leave, he said "We will wait for you outside."
|
||
|
||
RS232, being ambidextrous, backspaced out the door.
|
||
|
||
---------------
|
||
|
||
At this point (.), the author forgets the details of the true story
|
||
(remember, this is only fiction, but it is based upon a true story as
|
||
told to us by Uncle George of Lucasland, somewhere near San Rafael).
|
||
Stay tuned for the next adventure when Con Solo is heard to exclaim:
|
||
|
||
"Lite beer!!? I sink a 100 foot well, for a friend, and all you serve
|
||
is lite beer?"
|
||
|
||
"This is core's lite." said the |tender.
|
||
|
||
"RAM it!" demanded Con.
|
||
|
||
------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||
|
||
After sifting through the overwritten remaining blocks of Luke's home
|
||
directory, Luke and PDP-1 sped away from /u/lars, across the surface of
|
||
the Winchester riding Luke's flying read/write head. PDP-1 had Luke
|
||
stop at the edge of the cylinder overlooking /usr/spool/uucp.
|
||
|
||
"Unix-to-Unix Copy Program;" said PDP-1. "You will never find a more
|
||
wretched hive of bugs and flamers. We must be cautious."
|
||
|
||
As our heroes' process entered /usr/spool/news, it was met by a
|
||
newsgroup of Imperial protection bits.
|
||
|
||
"State your UID." commanded their parent process.
|
||
|
||
"We're running under /usr/guest. This is our first time on this
|
||
system," said Luke.
|
||
|
||
"Can I see some temporary privileges, please?"
|
||
|
||
"Uh..."
|
||
|
||
"This is not the process you are looking for," piped in PDP-1, using an
|
||
obscure bug to momentarily set his effective UID to root. "We can go
|
||
about our business."
|
||
|
||
"This isn't the process we want. You are free to go about your
|
||
business. MOV along!"
|
||
|
||
PDP-1 and Luke made their way through a long and tortuous nodelist
|
||
(cwruecmp!decvax!ucbvax!harpo!ihnss!ihnsc!ihnss!ihps3!stolaf!borman) to
|
||
a dangerous netnode frequented by hackers, and seldom polled by
|
||
Imperial Multiplexers. As Luke stepped up to the bus, PDP-1 went in
|
||
search of a likely file descriptor. Luke had never seen such a
|
||
collection of weird and exotic device drivers. Long ones, short ones,
|
||
ones with stacks, EBCDIC converters, and direct binary interfaces all
|
||
were drinking data at the bus.
|
||
|
||
"#@{ *&^%^$$#@ ":><?><" transmitted a particularly unstructured piece
|
||
of code.
|
||
|
||
"He doesn't like you," decoded his coroutine.
|
||
|
||
"Sorry," replied Luke, beginning to backup his partitions.
|
||
|
||
"I don't like you either. I am queued for deletion on 12 systems."
|
||
|
||
"I'll be careful."
|
||
|
||
"You'll be reallocated!" concatenated the coroutine.
|
||
|
||
"This little routine isn't worth the overhead," said PDP-1 Kenobie,
|
||
overlaying into Luke's address space.
|
||
|
||
"@$%&(&^%&$$@$#@$AV^$gfdfRW$#@!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" encoded the first
|
||
coroutine as it attempted to overload PDP-1's input overvoltage
|
||
protection. With a unary stroke of his bytesaber, Kenobie unlinked the
|
||
offensive code. "I think I've found an I/O device that might suit us."
|
||
|
||
"The name's Con Solo. I hear you're looking for some relocation."
|
||
|
||
"Yes indeed, if it's a fast channel. We must get off this device."
|
||
|
||
"Fast channel? The Milliamp Falcon has made the ARPA gate in less than
|
||
twelve nodes! Why, I've even outrun cancelled messages. It's fast
|
||
enough for you, old version."
|
||
|
||
Our heroes, Luke Vaxhacker and PDP-1 Kenobie made their way to the
|
||
temporary file structure. When he saw the hardware, Luke exclaimed,
|
||
"What a piece of junk! That's just a paper tape reader!"
|
||
|
||
------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||
|
||
Luke had grown up on an out of the way terminal cluster whose natives spoke
|
||
only BASIC, but even he could recognize an old ASR-33.
|
||
|
||
"It needs an EIA conversion at least," sniffed 3CPU, who was (as usual)
|
||
trying to do several things at once. Lights flashed in Con Solo's eyes
|
||
as he whirled to face the parallel processor.
|
||
|
||
"I've added a few jumpers. The Milliamp Falcon can run current loops around
|
||
any Imperial TTY fighter. She's fast enough for you."
|
||
|
||
"Who's your co-pilot?" asked PDP-1 Kenobie.
|
||
|
||
"Two Bacco, here, my Bookie."
|
||
|
||
"Odds aren't good," said the brownish lump beside him, and then fell silent,
|
||
or over. Luke couldn't tell which way was top underneath all those leaves.
|
||
|
||
Suddenly, RS232 started spacing wildly. They turned just in time to see
|
||
a write cycle coming down the UNIBUS toward them. "Imperial Bus Signals!"
|
||
shouted Con Solo. "Let's boot this popsicle stand! Tooie, set clock fast!"
|
||
|
||
"Ok, Con," said Luke. "You said this crate was fast enough. Get us out
|
||
of here!"
|
||
|
||
"Shut up, kid! Two Bacco, prepare to make the jump into system space!
|
||
I'll try to keep their buffers full."
|
||
|
||
As the bookie began to compute the vectors into low core, spurious characters
|
||
appeared around the Milliamp Falcon. "They're firing!" shouted Luke. "Can't
|
||
you do something?"
|
||
|
||
"Making the jump to system space takes time, kid. One missed cycle and you
|
||
could come down right in the middle of a pack of stack frames!"
|
||
|
||
"Three to five we can go now," said the bookie. Bright chunks of position
|
||
independent code flashed by the cockpit as the Milliamp Falcon jumped through
|
||
the kernel page tables. As the crew breathed a sigh of relief, the bookie
|
||
started paying off bets.
|
||
|
||
"Not bad, for an acoustically coupled network," remarked 3CPU. "Though
|
||
there was a little phase jitter as we changed parity."
|
||
|
||
------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||
|
||
|
||
The story thus far: Luke, PDP-1 and their 'droids RS232 and 3CPU have made
|
||
good their escape from the Imperial Bus Signals with the aid of Con Solo
|
||
and the bookie, Two Bacco. The Milliamp Falcon hurtles onward through
|
||
system space. Meanwhile, on a distant page in user space...
|
||
|
||
Princess _LPA0: was ushered into the conference room, followed closely by
|
||
Dec Vadic. "Governor Tarchive," she spat, "I should have expected to
|
||
find you holding Vadics lead. I recognized your unique pattern when I was
|
||
first brought aboard." She eyed the 0177545 tatooed on his header coldly.
|
||
|
||
"Charming to the last," Tarchive declared menacingly. "Vadic, have you
|
||
retrieved any information?"
|
||
|
||
"Her resistance to the logic probe is considerable," Vadic rasped.
|
||
"Perhaps we would get faster results if we increased the supply voltage..."
|
||
|
||
"You've had your chance, Vadic. Now I would like the princess to witness
|
||
the test that will make this workstation fully operational. Today we
|
||
enable the -r beam option, and we've chosen the princess' $HOME of
|
||
/usr/alderaan as the primary target."
|
||
|
||
"No! You can't! /usr/alderaan is a public account, with no restricted
|
||
permissions. We have no backup tapes! You can't..."
|
||
|
||
"Then name the rebel inode!" Tarchive snapped.
|
||
|
||
A voice announced over a hidden speaker that they had arrived in /usr.
|
||
|
||
"1248," she whispered, "They're on /dev/rm3. Inode 1248." She turned away.
|
||
|
||
Tarchive sighed with satisfaction. "There, you see, Lord Vadic? She can
|
||
be reasonable. Proceed with the operation."
|
||
|
||
It took several clock ticks for the words to penetrate. "What!" _LPA0:
|
||
gasped.
|
||
|
||
"/dev/rm3 is not a mounted filesystem," Tarchive explained. "We require a
|
||
more visible subject to demonstrate the power of the RM STAR workstation. We
|
||
will mount an attack on /mnt/dantooine as soon as possible."
|
||
|
||
As the princess watched, Tarchive reached over and typed "ls" on a nearby
|
||
terminal. There was a brief pause, there being only one processor on board,
|
||
and the viewscreen showed, ".: not found." The princess suddenly double-
|
||
spaced and went off-line.
|
||
|
||
------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||
|
||
The Milliamp Falcon hurtles on through system space...
|
||
|
||
Con Solo finished checking the various control and status registers, finally
|
||
convinced himself that they had lost the Bus Signals as they passed the
|
||
terminator. As he returned from the I/O page, he smelled smoke.
|
||
Solo wasn't concerned--the Bookie always got a little hot under the collar
|
||
when he was losing at chess. In fact, RS232 had just executed a particularly
|
||
clever MOV that had blocked the Bookie's data paths. The Bookie, who had
|
||
been setting the odds on the game, was caught holding all the cards. A
|
||
little strange for a chess game...
|
||
|
||
Across the room, Luke was too busy practicing bit-slice technique to notice
|
||
the commotion.
|
||
|
||
"On a word boundary, Luke," said PDP-1. "Don't just hack at it. Remember,
|
||
the Bytesaber is the weapon of the Red-eye Night. It is used to trim offensive
|
||
lines of code. Excess handwaving won't get you anywhere. Listen for the
|
||
Carrier."
|
||
|
||
Luke turned back to the drone, which was humming quietly in the air next to
|
||
him. This time Luke's actions complemented the drone's attacks perfectly.
|
||
|
||
Con Solo, being an unimaginative hacker, was not impressed. "Forget this
|
||
bit-slicing stuff. Give me a good ROM blaster any day."
|
||
|
||
"~~j~~hhji~~," said Kenobie, with no clear inflection. He fell silent for a
|
||
few seconds, and reasserted his control.
|
||
|
||
"What happened?" asked Luke.
|
||
|
||
"Strange," said PDP-1. "I felt a momentary glitch in the Carrier. It's
|
||
equalized now."
|
||
|
||
"We're coming up on user space," called Solo from the CSR. As they
|
||
cruised safely through stack frames, the emerged in the new context only
|
||
to be bombarded by freeblocks.
|
||
|
||
"What the..." gasped Solo. The screen showed clearly:
|
||
/usr/alderaan: not found
|
||
"It's the right inode, but it's been cleared! Twoie, where's the nearest
|
||
file?"
|
||
|
||
"3 to 5 there's one..." the Bookie started to say, but was interrupted by
|
||
a bright flash off to the left.
|
||
|
||
"Imperial TTY fighters!" shouted Solo. "A whole DZ of them! Where are they
|
||
coming from?"
|
||
|
||
"Can't be far from the host system," said Kenobie. "They all have direct EIA
|
||
connections."
|
||
|
||
As Solo began to give chase, the ship lurched suddenly. Luke noticed the
|
||
link count was at 3 and climbing rapidly.
|
||
|
||
"This is no regular file," murmured Kenobie. "Look at the ODS directory
|
||
structure ahead! They seem to have us in a tractor beam."
|
||
|
||
"There's no way we'll unlink in time," said Solo. "We're going in."
|
||
|
||
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||
|
||
When we last left Luke, the Milliamp Falcon was being pulled down to the
|
||
open collector of the Imperial Arem Star Workstation. Dec Vadic surveys
|
||
the relic as Imperial Flunkies search for passengers...
|
||
|
||
"LS scan shows no one aboard, sir," was the report. Vadic was unconvinced.
|
||
|
||
"Send a fully equipped Ncheck squad on board," he said. "I want every
|
||
inode checked out." He turned around (secondary channel) and stalked off.
|
||
|
||
On board the Milliamp Falcon, .Luke was puzzled. "They just walked in,
|
||
looked around and walked off," he said. "Why didn't they see us?"
|
||
|
||
.Con smiled. "An old munchkin trick," he explained. "See that period in
|
||
front of your name?"
|
||
|
||
.Luke spun around, just in time to see the decimal point. "Where'd that
|
||
come from?" he asked.
|
||
|
||
"Spare decimal points lying around from the last time I fixed the floating
|
||
point accelerator," said .Con. "Handy for smuggling blocks accross file
|
||
system boundaries, but I never thought I'd have to use them on myself.
|
||
They aren't going to be fooled for long, though. We'd better figure a way
|
||
outa here."
|
||
|
||
-----------------------------------------
|
||
<< At this point (.) the dialogue tends to wedge. Being the editor and in
|
||
total control of the situation, I think it would be best if we sort of
|
||
gronk the next few paragraphs. For those who care, our heroes find
|
||
themselves in a terminal room of the Workstation, having thrashed several
|
||
Flunkies to get there. For the rest of you, just keep banging the
|
||
rocks together, guys. --Ed. >>
|
||
-----------------------------------------
|
||
|
||
"Hold on," said Con. "It says we have `new mail.' Is that an error?"
|
||
|
||
"%SYS-W-NORMAL, Normal, successful completion," said PDP-1. "Doesn't
|
||
look like it. I've found the inode for the Milliamp Falcon. It's locked
|
||
in kernel data space. I'll have to slip in and patch the reference count,
|
||
alone." He disappeared through a nearby entry point.
|
||
|
||
Meanwhile, RS232 found a serial port and logged in. His bell started
|
||
ringing loudly. "He keeps saying, `She's on line, she's on line'," said
|
||
3CPU. "I believe he means Princess LPA0:. She's being held on one of
|
||
the privileged levels."
|
||
|
||
-----------------------------------------
|
||
<< Once again, things get sticky, and the dialogue suffers the most damage.
|
||
After much handwaving and general flaming, they agree to rescue her.
|
||
They headed for the detention level, posing as Flunkies (which is hard
|
||
for most hackers) claiming that they had trapped the Bookie executing
|
||
an illegal racket. They reached the block where the Princess was locked
|
||
up and found only two guards in the header. --Ed. >>
|
||
-----------------------------------------
|
||
|
||
"Good day, eh?" said the first guard.
|
||
|
||
"How's it goin', eh?" said the other. "Like, what's that, eh?"
|
||
|
||
"Process transfer from block 1138, dev 10/9," said Con.
|
||
|
||
"Take off, it is not," said the first guard. "Nobody told US about it, and
|
||
we're not morons, eh?"
|
||
|
||
At this point (.), the Bookie started raving wildly, Con shouted "Look out,
|
||
he's loose!" and they all started blasting ROMs left and right. The guards
|
||
started to catch on and were about to issue a general wakeup when the ROM
|
||
blasters were turned on them.
|
||
|
||
"Quickly, now," said Con. "What buffer is she in? It's not going to take
|
||
long for these..."
|
||
|
||
The intercom receiver interrupted him, so he took out its firmware with a
|
||
short blast.
|
||
|
||
"guys to figure out something is goin' on," he continued.
|
||
|
||
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||
|
||
Ok, like, remember we left our heroes in the detention priority level? Well,
|
||
they're still there...
|
||
|
||
|
||
Luke quickly located the interface card and followed the cables to a sound-
|
||
proof enclosure. He lifted the lid and peered at the mechanism inside.
|
||
|
||
"Aren't you a little slow for ECL?" printed princess LPA0:.
|
||
|
||
"Wha? Oh, the Docksiders," stammered Luke. He took off his shoes (for
|
||
industry) and explained, "I've come relocate you. I'm Luke Vaxhacker."
|
||
|
||
Suddenly, forms started bursting around them. "They've blocked the queue!"
|
||
shouted Solo. "There's only one return from this stack!"
|
||
|
||
"OVER HERE!" printed LPA0: with overstrikes. "THROUGH THIS LOOPHOLE!"
|
||
Luke and the princess disappeared into a nearby feature.
|
||
|
||
"Gritch, gritch," mumbled Two Bacco, obviously reluctant to trust
|
||
an Administrative oversight.
|
||
|
||
"I don't care how crufty it is!" shouted Con, pushing the Bookie toward
|
||
the crock. "DPB yourself in there now!"
|
||
|
||
With one last blast that reprogrammed two flunkies, Con joined them.
|
||
The "feature" landed them right in the middle of the garbage collection
|
||
data. Pieces of code that hadn't been used in weeks floated past in
|
||
a pool of decaying bits.
|
||
|
||
"Bletch!" was Con's first comment. "Bletch, bletch," was his second.
|
||
The Bookie looked as if he'd just paid a long shot, and the odds in this
|
||
situation weren't much better.
|
||
|
||
Luke was polling the garbage when he stumbled upon a book with the words
|
||
"Don't Panic" inscribed in large, friendly letters on the cover. "This
|
||
can't possibly help us now," he said as he tossed the book away.
|
||
|
||
The Bookie was about to lay odds on it when Luke suddenly disappeared.
|
||
He popped up accross the pool, shouting, "This is no feature! It's a bug!"
|
||
and promptly vanished again.
|
||
|
||
Con and the princess were about to panic() when Luke reappeared. "What
|
||
happened?" they asked in parallel.
|
||
|
||
"I don't know," gasped Luke. "The bug just dissolved automagically.
|
||
Maybe it hit a breakpoint..."
|
||
|
||
"I don't think so," said Con. "Look how the pool is shrinking. I've
|
||
got a bad feeling about this..."
|
||
|
||
The princess was the first to realize what was going on. "They've implemented
|
||
a new compaction algorithm!" she exclaimed.
|
||
|
||
Luke remembered the pipe he had open to 3CPU. "Shut down garbage collection
|
||
below recursion level 5!" he shouted.
|
||
|
||
Back in the control room, RS232 searched the process table for the lisp
|
||
interpreter. "Hurry," sent 3CPU. "Hurry, hurry," added his other two
|
||
processors. RS232 found the interpreter, interrupted it, and altered
|
||
the stack frame they'd fallen into to allow a normal return.
|
||
|
||
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||
Join us next time when we hear the bowl of petunias say, "Oh, no, not again."
|
||
|
||
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||
|
||
Luke noticed an unused handler lying around and jumped to it. The
|
||
others followed and were soon able to execute an escape sequence.
|
||
|
||
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||
|
||
Meanwhile, PDP-1 made his way deep into the core of the Workstation,
|
||
slipping from context to context, undetected through his manipulation
|
||
of label_t. Finally, causing a random trap (through nofault of his own)
|
||
he arrived at the inode table. Activity there was always high, but the
|
||
Spl6 sentries were too secure in their knowledge that no user could
|
||
interrupt them to notice the bug that PDP-1 carefully introduced. On a
|
||
passing iput, he adjusted the device and inode numbers, maintaining parity,
|
||
to free the Milliamp Falcon. They would be long gone before the locked
|
||
inode was diagnosed...
|
||
|
||
Unobserved, he began traversing user structures to find the process where
|
||
the Milliamp Falcon was grounded. Finding it and switching context,
|
||
he discovered his priority weakened suddenly. "That's not very nice,"
|
||
was all he could say before the cause of the obstruction became clear.
|
||
|
||
"I have been pausing a long time, PDP-1 Kenobi," rasped Dec Vadic. "We
|
||
meet again at last. The circuit has been completed."
|
||
|
||
They looped several times, locking byte sabers. Bit by bit, PDP-1 appeared
|
||
to weaken. The fight had come into the address space of the Milliamp
|
||
Falcon, and provided the .di (diversion?) that allowed Luke and the others
|
||
to reassert control. Luke paused to watch the conflict.
|
||
|
||
"If my blade finds its mark," warned Kenobi, "you will be reduced to so
|
||
many bits. But if you slice me down, I will only gain computing power."
|
||
|
||
"Your documentation no longer confuses me, old version," growled Vadic.
|
||
"my Role MASTER now."
|
||
|
||
"At last, we'll see who the real file master is!" he remarked.
|
||
Bits, bytes, words,and nybbles flew as the two fought for bus mastership. PDP-1
|
||
exclaimed "You were my best subtask! How could you have been seduced by
|
||
the sideband portion of the carrier?". "It's simple," Vadic said, "I
|
||
enjoy obscure protocol".
|
||
|
||
While the battle continued, Luke, Con, Bookie, and the Princess linked
|
||
up with the droids and found their way back to the inode where the
|
||
Milliamp Falcon was stored. It looked quiet, but, Luke said "It could
|
||
be an MMU trap!" "No chance!" said Con, "I loaded the par's before I left
|
||
the Falcon." As they started toward it a squad of recursive functions
|
||
swapped in and started firing ROM blasters at them. "I thought you said
|
||
it couldn't be a trap" quipped Luke "I said no chance for an MMU trap
|
||
this is obviously a k-mon--f-trap-to 4" Con replied.
|
||
|
||
PDP-1 shouted at the others "Escape while you can! I'll cause wait
|
||
states as long as possible!" and with that he allowed Vadic a chance to
|
||
apply several hits with the bytesaber. Instead of halting PDP-1 was
|
||
encoded onto the carrier.
|
||
|
||
|
||
With one stroke, Vadic sliced Kenobi's last word. Unfortunately, the word
|
||
was still in Kenobi's throat. The word fell clean in two, but Kenobi was
|
||
nowhere to be found. Vadic noticed his victim's uid go negative, just
|
||
before he disappeared. Odd, he thought, since uids were unsigned...
|
||
|
||
Luke witnessed all this, and had to be dragged into the Milliamp Falcon.
|
||
Con Solo and Two Bacco maneuvered the Milliamp Falcon out of the process,
|
||
onto the bus and made straight for system space. 3CPU and RS232 were
|
||
idle, for once. Princess _LPA0: tried to print comforting things for him,
|
||
but Luke was still hung from the loss of his friend. Then, seemingly from
|
||
nowhere, he thought he heard PDP-1's voice say,
|
||
|
||
"May the carrier be with you."
|
||
|
||
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||
|
||
The Milliamp Falcon was restarted and managed to escape the shell.
|
||
"Quickly!" shouted Con, "We've got to warp into virtual space!" The
|
||
Bookie made several attempts, but it was obvious that a CE had not done
|
||
PM in a long time and it would take a lot of decimal adjusts to byte
|
||
align all the data registers. After much debugging, virtual space was
|
||
finally achieved. "Do you know the path?" asked Princess LPA0. "No
|
||
sweat", said Con, "All we have to do is check the free space map".
|
||
|
||
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||
<<rest of star wars, especially the dog fight>>
|
||
<<begining of empire strikes back, especially the battle ...>>
|
||
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||
|
||
Some months later...
|
||
|
||
Luke was feeling rather bored. 3CPU could get to be rather irritating
|
||
and RS232 didn't really speak Luke's language. Suddenly, Luke felt
|
||
someone's eyes boring through the back of his skull. He turned slowly
|
||
to see...nothing. A quiet voice came from somewhere in front of him.
|
||
|
||
"Grasshopper, the carrier is strong within you." Luke froze, which was
|
||
a good thing since his legs were insisting that he run but they weren't
|
||
likely to be particular about direction. Luke guessed that his odds of
|
||
getting lost in the dense tree structures were pretty good. Unfortunately,
|
||
the Bookie wasn't available.
|
||
|
||
"Yes. Very strong, but the modulation is yet weak. His network interface
|
||
is totally undeveloped," the voice continued. A small furry creature
|
||
walked out of the woods as Luke stared on. Luke's stomach had now joined
|
||
the rest of his body in loud complaints. Whatever was peering at him was
|
||
certainly small and furry, but Luke was quite sure that it didn't come
|
||
from Alpha Centauri.
|
||
|
||
"Well, well," said the creature as it rolled its eyes at Luke. "Frobozz,
|
||
y'know. Morning, name's modem. What's your game? Adventure? D&D? Or
|
||
are you just one of those Apple-pong types that hang around the store
|
||
demonstrations?" Luke closed his eyes. Perhaps if he couldn't see it,
|
||
it wouldn't notice him.
|
||
|
||
"H'mm," muttered the creature. "Must use a different protocol. @@@H @@
|
||
@($@@@H }"@G$ @#@@G'(o% @@@@@%%H(b ?"
|
||
|
||
"No, no," stammered Luke. "I don't speak EBCDIC. I was sent here to
|
||
become a UNIX wizard. Must have the wrong address."
|
||
|
||
"Right address," said the creature. "I'm a UNIX wizard. Device drivers
|
||
a specialty. Or do you prefer playing with virtual memory?"
|
||
|
||
Luke eyed the creature cautiously. If this was what happened to system
|
||
wizards after years of late night crashes, Luke wasn't sure he wanted
|
||
anything to do with it. He felt a strange affection for the familiar
|
||
microcomputers of his home. And wasn't virtual memory something that
|
||
you got from drinking too much Coke?
|
||
|
||
------------------------------------------------------------
|
||
<< rest of empire strikes back, especially getting to the user haven, a
|
||
directory unconnected to /. >>
|
||
-------------------------------------------------------------
|
||
<< Return of the Jedi, if and when ... >>
|
||
-------------------------------------------------------------
|
||
|
||
|
||
The preceding was written by a number of people, working
|
||
piecemeal. Additions should be posted to the net. Here at
|
||
Case, we think the little inconsistancies just add a little
|
||
charm. Please note that the unsigned stuff enclosed in
|
||
<<...>>'s is by Barak Pearlmutter (thats me) while the stuff
|
||
enclosed in <<...>>'s signed " --Ed." is by ...!stolaf!borman.
|
||
|
||
May the Carrier be with you,
|
||
|
||
Barak Pearlmutter
|
||
decvax!cwruecmp!pearlmut
|
||
|
||
|
||
-------
|
||
|
||
==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==
|
||
_ _
|
||
\ (_><_) And if you enjoyed this Text-file, Call:
|
||
\_______[]_____ The Works "914's Text-file BBS" at (914)/238-8195
|
||
_\ 300/1200 N,8,1 1200 baud only from 6:00pm to 12:00mid
|
||
___________ \>\ 10 Megabytes on-line Anti-RBBS and Networks
|
||
/ > \ SysOps: Jason Scott & Terror Ferret
|
||
/ ======= (900) Text-files on-line!
|
||
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||
The following names compose a monument to last forever in the electronic
|
||
highway: Patrizia Bravi Alessandra Bravi Glenda Frank Marcelle Dumont
|
||
Donna Reznik Valentina Bravi Britt Warner Jennifer Gruen
|
||
--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--
|
||
|