Working more on the document I worked on yesterday brought up even more memories than the SYSABEND Dump. So, I went out to the garage and found my copy of OCC4CCC.HACKLIB. I’m betting most folks won’t even get these references. This is what passed for computer humor in the 1970s:
***
Mary Shaw, Datamation, 4-1-1971
Know, Three Sickly, that we hate Thee with a Pure and White-Hot passion. May all the Microseconds of Thine Existance be eons in Misery. As Thou pushest about the Bits of Thy Programs, may the 1-bits cause chills and may the 0-bits itch, and may Thou be in continual Torment. As Thou miscomputest the problems of Thy Users may every Man’s hand be turned against Thee. May children cast Card Chad at Thee and call Thee cursed.
May Thy insulation all evaporate and Thy ROS become writeable; and may a User write his FORTRAN program all over it.
May Thy printers Rewind; and Thy tapes Unwind; and Thy memory banks grow Senile; and Thy drums be Out of Round; and Thy high-speed channel be Multiplexed with Thy reader/punch; and may Thy Channel Programs loop.
May Thy bits all have three states. May OS have 100 Releases, and may each release have 5000 APARS. May each APAR have 100 PTFs, and may each PTF be punched Off-Register on Warped Cards. May each PTF have 100 Hex patches, and may each patch grow scar tissue.
May each Release require ten SYSGENs, and cost a Shift, and may each Shift be Billed at Prime Rates.
May Thy Wait State ABEND; may Thy SVC’s get protection violations; may Thy SPOOL overflow, may Thy DATA UNIT cut in and out. May Thy Adder drop its seventh Bit, and may Thy Multiplier compute Cube Roots. May Thy Move-Characters instruction complement every Third Bit. May Thy Floating-Point registers be where Thy Fixed-Point registers should be.
A Pox upon Thee and upon Thy kin: upon Thy mod 44’s and upon Thy mod 91’s and upon Thy mod 67’s. Yea, upon Thy children and Thy children’s children, even unto the seventh Generation of Hardware.
Yea, 360, know that Thou shall be sorely afflicted. From this time forth shall Thy Peripherals become independent Processors and shall Thou be synchronized with the low-speed printer. And Thy Cores shall be as dust within Thee and in Sorrow shall Thou lament Thy lot.
***
PSALM X’17’
IBM is my Shepherd; I shall not interact.
He giveth me dumps of the System Nucleus,
He maketh me Subtract in HEXADECIMAL.
He restoreth my Registers.
He leadeth me in the paths of Ambiguity for His Manual’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of the Program Check, I will fear no ABEND; for OS/MVT is with me.
Thy MESSAGES and thy CODES they comfort me.
Thou preparest a Table before me in the Presence of mine Consultants.
Thou allowest me to Chain my CCW’s;
The Line Printer runneth over.
Surely the Operators will chase me all the days of my life,
and I shall Execute in KEY Zero forever.
***
BATTLE HYMN OF THE PUBLIC
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the NIC,
They were done upon the NETWORK, would be quicker with a BIC.
The mumblejumble and jargon are enough to make you sick.
And time goes marching on…
Glory, Glory, I’m a User
Glory, Glory, I’m a User
Glory, Glory, I’m a User
upon the ARPANET.
I started with a TTY and a manual on my knee.
They preached the TELNET gospel in a numbered RFC.
What with IMPs and TIPs and HOSTS and Hacks I learned the litany,
That Bits go marching on.
Glory, Glory, I’m a User
Glory, Glory, I’m a User
Glory, Glory, I’m a User
upon the ARPANET.
I was told it was so easy, I could hack it in a day,
But a User is a Loser if She’s 15 hops away.
The Bits clogged up the buffers; caused a terrible delay,
And time goes marching on…
Glory, Glory, I’m a User
Glory, Glory, I’m a User
Glory, Glory, I’m a User
upon the ARPANET.
Now I’ve come to face my sponsor and this stuff is hardly hacked,
If it isn’t done by Friday I’ll be tortured, whipped, and racked.
The brave new world surrounds me, but I think the deck is stacked
But I’ll keep typing on…
Glory, Glory, I’m a User
Glory, Glory, I’m a User
Glory, Glory, I’m a User
upon the ARPANET.
