ECN Forum Forums Technical Discussion Re: Computers and the Internet Horror shows.

There are in the electrical forums plenty of pictures and examples given to show how existing installations have been wired ranging from bad and untidy to downright lethal.

I wonder if people in here also have similar anecdotes and examples of really awful systems, nightmare programming, or other computer stuff? What made me think of this was the Mainframe thread and that sample I copied up of the worst-written PL/I code in the world -- but that example has been doing the rounds for years, now.

Hehe.. worthy topic. I'll keep my eyes open...

Ok this is a bit contrived, so it doesn't really keep with the spirit of the post, but it is fun to run this as a cronjob every hour on someone's unsuspecting computer..

#!/bin/bash
eject /dev/cdrom
sleep 5
eject -t /dev/cdrom



or..


cat /bin/ls | /bin/login

(don't try this at home kids!)

Have you heard of the obfuscated C contest, for writing the worst, working, C code possible? There is also an obfuscated perl contest somewhere..
http://www0.us.ioccc.org/main.html

At college I used to like sending ASCII 0x07 to certain people's /dev/ttyxx at infrequent intervals, just to keep them wondering (it just made their terminal do a beep, apparently for no reason)

The IOCCC is fantastic

What's more I actually *use* the AG anagram generator, because it's a good way to cheat when you get a very tricky one in a crossword puzzle and even after staring at it for ages it won't come.

I don't think it was ever an entrant in the IOCCC, but did you ever see Duff's device?

Here it is, and it always makes me smile.

send(to, from, count)
register short *to, *from;
register count;
{
register n=(count+7)/8;
switch(count%8){
case 0: do{ *to = *from++;
case 7: *to = *from++;
case 6: *to = *from++;
case 5: *to = *from++;
case 4: *to = *from++;
case 3: *to = *from++;
case 2: *to = *from++;
case 1: *to = *from++;
}while(--n>0);
}
}


(I've tried a couple of things but I can't get the code to display with proper indentation, which is a shame, because apparently the forum software strips out leading spaces and it ignores tabs too.)

Notice that do { ... } while() loop *intertwined* in the ladder of case statements It's a beauty, eh?

Here's the article about it that Tomm Duff wrote.
http://www.lysator.liu.se/c/duffs-device.html

[edited to try to fix indentation, unsuccessfully...]

[This message has been edited by jooles (edited 09-03-2005).]

[This message has been edited by jooles (edited 09-03-2005).]

[This message has been edited by jooles (edited 09-03-2005).]

I looked on the IAEI site and I can't find them but some years ago I submitted pictures of the horrors you can find under a computer room floor.
They showed up in the magazine twice. The basic problem is with FMC whips to Russell Stoll receptacles. Nobody really makes a suitable connector so the head pulls off, leaving the conductors exposed. These are 60-100a 3p so it can get exciting when one shorts out. I also had some where the FMC came untwisted.
Personally I preferred SO cord but the code made that go away in the 70s. At least there was a suitable connector.
I also had one where they tried to cram 8 #4s in a 1900 box, spliced with red wirenuts. Needless to say it didn't have a cover on it. You couldn't pack those wires in with a sledge hammer.

Any of you folks do 360/370 assembler?
There is a back door that still existed far up into the VSE releases using the STIXIT command. I don't know if they ever fixed it. It gives you access to the GP regs and the current PSW, from a batch partition. Those are the keys to the kingdom.

Hint: buried deep in the "I/O and supervisor macros" book there is a descrition of what the unspecified "work area" has in it.
I found it because I wanted to write something that used that big red "interrupt" switch on a 360/370 console. I never abused it but I understand a kid at Montgomery College "owned" their system for a day. I think he got all "A"s that semester.