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VM/COM, November 1985
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November 1985 edition Volume 2 Number 6
- CsNews Network Newsletter
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Staff:
0 Michele Robinson CSMICH at MAINE Editor
Andrew T. Robinson ANDY at MAINE CsNews Director
David Eckhardt DAE at PSUVAX1 Assistant Editor
Prof. G. Markowsky MARKOV at MAINE Faculty Advisor
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0 Vm-Com Issue 2.6
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- Introduction to Vm/Com 2.6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
CSNEWS Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
The GNU Manifesto (part 3) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Because It's There NETwork? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
All You Ever Wanted to Know About VAXen, . . . . . . . . 10
Nothing Artificial, Please . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
The Revelation of Jesus Christ to Paul Holmes . . . . . . 18
OpCodes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
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0 Vm-Com Issue 2.6
0 Introduction to Vm/Com 2.6
+ Introduction to Vm/Com 2.6
-
Hello out there again... Well good news I've started
getting a few letters for the Letters to the Editor column.
It will be appearing for the first time next month. Maybe
this will encourage more of you to send in your opinions.
0 This time around we have the third and final part of the
GNU Manifesto, an article on BITNET use, a bit of praise for
VAXen, a somewhat humorous look at Artificial Intelligence,
and for the humor section there is the usual dose of OpCodes
and a creation of a rather religious nature, please all of
you reading this don't take offence. It's only meant to be
funny.
0 See ya next time... and remember... only one more issue
left in 1985 after this one!
0 Michele Robinson,
Editor
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0 CSNEWS Notes
+ CSNEWS Notes
0 Andrew T. Robinson, (ANDY@MAINE)
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Hello again. Could it be? Yes, it is... a new issue of
VM/COM!! Already we're into the November issue. Seems like
only last month it was October.
0 Whats new with CSNEWS... well, not a whole lot. We are
cruising right along, getting more and more users, and
building up a lot of interesting stuff on the public disk.
I am not even going to mention assembler conversions,
friendly software systems, or any of that other weirdness
I've already hashed over a hundred times.
0 In this issue, as you may have heard, there is an article
by myself regarding responsible use of the BITNET. This is
an issue that hits right at home for those of us who operate
network servers. We run into problems constantly. One of
the biggest problems to CSNEWS is the user who requests
several hundred files in the space of a half hour or an
hour. There are many other little things to make sure that
we hardly go through a day without having to suspend
someone's access to CSNEWS and send them a mailfile.
0 The biggest dilemma is, most of these problems occur
through ignorance, not maliciousness. I think it is a
primary purpose of every user on BITNET to learn as much as
possible on how the network operates, and teach novice users
what he knows. If you have comments, complaints, or problems
with BITNET, direct your comments to the VM/COM editor, or
BITNET CSNOTICE on CSNEWS.
0 Well, I guess that's about all I have to say right now.
You'll get a good dose of my verbiage below, so prepare
yourself!
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0 The GNU Manifesto
+ The GNU Manifesto
0 Written by Richard M. Stallman
Submitted by Jim Lewis (JWL@UCBKIM.ARPA)
- "Don't people have a right to control
how their creativity is used?"
0 "Control over the use of one's ideas" really constitutes
control over other people's lives; and it is usually used to
make their lives more difficult.
0 People who have studied the issue of intellectual
property rights carefully (such as lawyers) say that there
is no intrinsic right to intellectual property. The kinds
of supposed intellectual property rights that the government
recognizes were created by specific acts of legislation for
specific purposes.
0 For example, the patent system was established to
encourage inventors to disclose the details of their
inventions. Its purpose was to help society rather than to
help inventors. At the time, the life span of 17 years for
a patent was short compared with the rate of advance of the
state of the art. Since patents are an issue only among
manufacturers, for whom the cost and effort of a license
agreement are small compared with setting up production, the
patents often do not do much harm. They do not obstruct
most individuals who use patented products.
0 The idea of copyright did not exist in ancient times,
when authors frequently copied other authors at length in
works of non-fiction. This practice was useful, and is the
only way many authors's works have survived even in part.
The copyright system was created expressly for the purpose
of encouraging authorship. In the domain for which it was
invented--books, which could be copied economically only on
a printing press--it did little harm, and did not obstruct
most of the individuals who read the books.
0 All intellectual property rights are just licenses granted
by society because it was thought, rightly or wrongly, that
society as a whole would benefit by granting them. But in
any particular situation, we have to ask: are we really
better off granting such license? What kind of act are we
licensing a person to do?
0 The case of programs today is very different from that of
books a hundred years ago. The fact that the easiest way to
copy a program is from one neighbor to another, the fact
that a program has both source code and object code which
are distinct, and the fact that a program is used rather
than read and enjoyed, combine to create a situation in
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0 which a person who enforces a copyright is harming society
as a whole both materially and spiritually; in which a
person should not do so regardless of whether the law
enables him to.
0 "Competition makes things get done better."
0 The paradigm of competition is a race: by rewarding the
winner, we encourage everyone to run faster. When
capitalism really works this way, it does a good job; but
its defenders are wrong in assuming it always works this
way. If the runners forget why the reward is offered and
become intent on winning, no matter how, they may find other
strategies--such as, attacking other runners. If the
runners get into a fist fight, they will all finish late.
0 Proprietary and secret software is the moral equivalent
of runners in a fist fight. Sad to say, the only referree
we've got does not seem to object to fights; he just
regulates them ("For every ten yards you run, you are
allowed one kick."). He really ought to break them up, and
penalize runners for even trying to fight.
0 "Won't everyone stop programming
without a monetary incentive?"
0 Actually, many people will program with absolutely no
monetary incentive. Programming has an irresistible
fascination for some people, usually the people who are best
at it. There is no shortage of professional musicians who
keep at it even though they have no hope of making a living
that way.
0 But really this question, though commonly asked, is not
appropriate to the situation. Pay for programmers will not
disappear, only become less. So the right question is, will
anyone program with a reduced monetary incentive? My
experience shows that they will.
0 For more than ten years, many of the world's best
programmers worked at the Artificial Intelligence Lab for
far less money than they could have had anywhere else. They
got many kinds of non-monetary rewards: fame and
appreciation, for example. And creativity is also fun, a
reward in itself.
0 Then most of them left when offered a chance to do the
same interesting work for a lot of money.
0 What the facts show is that people will program for
reasons other than riches; but if given a chance to make a
lot of money as well, they will come to expect and demand
it. Low-paying organizations do poorly in competition with
high-paying ones, but they do not have to do badly if the
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0 high-paying ones are banned.
0 "We need the programmers desperately. If they demand
that we stop helping our neighbors, we have to obey."
0 You're never so desperate that you have to obey this sort of
demand. Remember: millions for defense, but not a cent for
tribute!
0 "Programmers need to make a living somehow."
0 In the short run, this is true. However, there are plenty
of ways that programmers could make a living without selling
the right to use a program. This way is customary now
because it brings programmers and businessmen the most
money, not because it is the only way to make a living. It
is easy to find other ways if you want to find them. Here
are a number of examples.
0 A manufacturer introducing a new computer will pay for
the porting of operating systems onto the new hardware.
0 The sale of teaching, hand-holding and maintenance
services could also employ programmers.
0 People with new ideas could distribute programs as
freeware, asking for donations from satisfied users, or
selling hand-holding services. I have met people who are
already working this way successfully.
0 Users with related needs can form users' groups, and pay
dues. A group would contract with programming companies
to write programs that the group's members would like to
use.
0 All sorts of development can be funded with a Software
Tax:
0 Suppose everyone who buys a computer has to pay x
percent of the price as a software tax. The
government gives this to an agency like the NSF to
spend on software development.
0 But if the computer buyer makes a donation to
software development himself, he can take a credit
against the tax. He can donate to the project of
his own choosing--often, chosen because he hopes
to use the results when it is done. He can take a
credit for any amount of donation up to the total
tax he had to pay.
0 The total tax rate could be decided by a vote of
the payers of the tax, weighted according to the
amount they will be taxed on.
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- The consequences:
0 * the computer-using community supports software
development.
* this community decides what level of support is
needed.
* users who care which projects their share is
spent on can choose this for themselves.
0 In the long run, making programs free is a step toward the
post-scarcity world, where nobody will have to work very
hard just to make a living. People will be free to devote
themselves to activities that are fun, such as programming,
after spending the necessary ten hours a week on required
tasks such as legislation, family counseling, robot repair
and asteroid prospecting. There will be no need to be able
to make a living from programming.
0 We have already greatly reduced the amount of work that
the whole society must do for its actual productivity, but
only a little of this has translated itself into leisure for
workers because much nonproductive activity is required to
accompany productive activity. The main causes of this are
bureaucracy and isometric struggles against competition.
Free software will greatly reduce these drains in the area
of software production. We must do this, in order for
technical gains in productivity to translate into less work
for us.
- Copyright (c) 1985 Richard M. Stallman
0 Permission is granted to anyone to make or
distribute verbatim copies of this document as
received, in any medium, provided that the
copyright notice and permission notice are
preserved, and that the distributor grants the
recipient permission for further redistribution as
permitted by this notice.
0 Modified versions may not be distributed.
- ÕThis is the thrid and final part of this article - Ed.þ
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0 Because It's There NETwork?
+ Because It's There NETwork?
0 Andy Robinson, (ANDY@MAINE)
- What does BITNET mean to most of you? I am sure that a
lot (if not most) of the users out there are convinced that
BITNET was designed strictly for their edification and
entertainment. Not So. BITNET was designed to facilitate
inter-university communications for the purposes of actual
research, in areas such as (but by no means restricted to)
computer science.
0 BITNET was NOT intended for chatting, recreational file
transfer, or free student access. As far as the official
policy goes, this is still true. I think that a lot of
students are making a big mistake by assuming that access to
BITNET is a RIGHT. It is not. It is only through the
tolerance of individual computing center administrators that
most students can access BITNET at all.
0 There are many installations which are quite liberal in
allowing student student access to BITNET. When problems
arise from accidental or malicious misuse, they are dealt
with on an individual level, and not by wholesale
restriction. I think that the administrators from these
nodes deserve recognition and praise for giving the students
the benefit of the doubt and allowing them to use BITNET --
They have to work harder to police their systems, just
because they DO allow general access.
0 There is much for students to find and learn about on
BITNET, and there are many beneficial aspects of free
access. Some of these aspects include learning about
networks, operatings systems, and most other computer
related subjects. Another side-effect of BITNET usage is the
relationships that develop between people who interact with
each other via the network. These can range from simple
acquaintances to marriages.
0 I have been told many times that these human aspects of
BITNET are not relevant and should be left out of any debate
regarding the access of BITNET. But that is wrong. If more
people would realize the incredible benefits that these
things bring us, you would very likely see fewer problems in
the world.
0 As a far-out example, think about the possibilities if we
could actually have a few un-censored BITNET links in
Russia... Who knows what could happen. We might actually get
to like Russians, just like we do Germans, Italians,
Americans, Canadians, Israelis, and everyone else on BITNET.
Granted, this is not likely to happen in the near future,
but it is food for thought.
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0 So goes the basic argument FOR free student BITNET
access: Sure, there will be abuses, and there will be
problems. But the knowledge, experience and general good
obtained more than balances these problems. The argument has
merit, in my humble opinion.
0 But like any argument, there is also a CON side. I think
most people are for free BITNET access, but those people who
are in a position of responsibility for computer
installations or services recognize the problems that come
from this type of freedom. Recently, someone used the
BITNAUTS LIST to send out one and possibly two mass mailings
within a weeks time. One of the mailings contained some
rather derogatory comments about the operations manager here
at MAINE. The fact that the BITNAUTS LIST was used to mail
these files was a bad reflection on CSNEWS, the LIST, and
student use of the BITNET in general. It is that type of
garbage that causes installations to restrict BITNET.
0 I am positive in my own mind that most of the students
who use BITNET are at least fairly responsible for their
actions, and do not purposefully abuse the network. However,
from an administrator's standpaoint, his attention is
usually drawn to the negative things about any situation.
When the amount of feedback reaches a certain level, he
begins to forget that there is anything good at all about
that situation! Unfortunately, there are a lot of negative
things regarding student use of BITNET that occur every day.
0 What kind of negative things? Give me a month, and I will
list some of them, but here are a few right off the top of
my head, that I personally have had experience with:
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A List of Things NOT to Do, on BITNET or Anywhere Else
0 1. Unsolicited mass-mailings
0 2. Full-screen or longer messages
0 3. Password and userid theft
0 4. Requesting large numbers of files from a BITNET
server in succession (as in more than 5 or 10).
0 5. Accessing other users' files w/o permission
0 6. Abusing network servers (CSNEWS, BITSERVE, etc.)
0 7. Random messaging of people you don't know
(unless they are in the BITNAUTS LIST)
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BITNET installations (this clogs the network
links).
0 9. Using non-distributed CHAT machines, especially
during the peak usage hours between 8am and 4pm.
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Any computing center official is faced with dealing with
any or all of these problems, whether they are perpetrated
by malicious users, careless users, or 'pseudo-hackers' (who
know just about enough to cause trouble, without actually
meaning to). Whatever the case, the problems have to be
dealt with, regardless of the personality of the source.
0 When students first start using the computer and BITNET,
they are likely to do one or more of the foolish things I
listed above -- just because they don't know any better. But
after a short time they are usually set strait, either by
other students who know the ropes or by their computing
center officials. Every student should be given the benefit
of the doubt and at least one chance.
0 The problems with new users at a single computing center
are bad enough, but when BITNET becomes involved, this
problem magnifies itself immensely: Not only can a single
user cause HIS computing center grief, but serveral other
computing centers as well. And the originating computing
center will get nasty letters from the administrators at all
the others. This is the primary reason why many computing
center officials are leery of unsupervised student use of
the BITNET. Once something leaves an RSCS, the
administrators of that node have little control over it.
0 This brings me to another point: Student relations with
their computing center administrators. I think too many
students have a problem, in that they think BITNET access is
a RIGHT. Then, when they deal with their computing center
officials, they act as if the administration is denying them
that right. That type of attitude is bound to turn those
administrators off from the start, and they are not likely
to listen to anything you have to say after that, even if it
has merit. Get it strait: BITNET access is a PRIVILEGE. And
like any other privilege it can be taken away if abused.
0 The basic point I am trying make here (and I hope
everyone takes this to heart before it is too late) is that
students had better start showing a LOT more responsibility
and maturity when using BITNET. A good first step would be
to avoid doing any of those things I mentioned about in my
list of "Don't Do"s. Granted, you might have to exercise
some self-control, but sometimes you have to give a little
to keep what you've got.
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0 All You Ever Wanted to Know About VAXen,
+ All You Ever Wanted to Know About VAXen,
the Wunderkind of DEC.
0 Todd Aven, (MANAGER@UMDHEP)
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Although BITNET is an RSCS-protocol network (meaning it
was made for IBM machines running the VM operating system),
the extreme flexibility of the VAX architecture in general
and the VMS operating system in particular have aided VAXen
in becoming a notable contingent on BITNET. At my last
check, there were over 200 sites listed in my routing table
as being VMS sites, and there are quite a few Unix machines
(many of them VAXen) connected.
0 VAXen come in several flavors: the most common is the
11/780, there are a few 11/750's, and now 8600's are coming
on the scene. There exist other models using the VAX
architecture (11/730, uVAX I & II, et al.) but they don't
seem to be very common. VAXen running the VMS operating
system, a system that was designed for the VAX architecture
as much as the VAX architecture was designed for the VMS
operating system, must use a package called JNET marketed by
Joiner Associates out of WISCPSL. This package actually
interfaces to the BITNET network through DECNET, a protocol
DEC machine in particular, since DECNET interfaces to the
VMS mail utility, but DECNET is totally transparent to the
BITNET user.
0 JNET, then, has to emulate any command that IBM/VM is
capable of. But the author of JNET (Craig Watkins) was smart
enough to ask himself, "Why stop there?" So JNET is capable
of the standard RSCS subset (CMD, MSG, CPQ, and SENDFILE)
and is also able to perform other functions. JNET 1.2 is the
version that is in distribution as of August 1985, but in
September 1985 Joiner Associates will be shipping JNET 2.0.
JNET2.0 is set up in such a fashion that experienced
programmers can easily interface with the network in several
fashions. One such application is a user lookup facility.
This is called FINGER after the utility on UNIX machines.
All BITNET sites running JNET have a stock version of FINGER
already, but... Richard Garland has written a FINGER that
is able to get much more information than the basic FINGER,
and is smart enough to do it over BITNET if asked. Any node
that has this new FINGER can FINGER any other JNET site, and
is capable of forwarding FINGER requests to other JNET
sites. Hopefully, somebody on an IBM system will soon
implement a FINGER utility (hint! hint!). FINGER will even
provide on-line help over the network when invoked as the
command FINGER/HELP (VM adds qualifiers to commands after
the left paren but VMS uses the slash). You can even FINGER
a particular user to find out if they have read their mail
(my modification which isn't out yet allows you to find out
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0 whether they have read YOUR mail in particular). It turns
out that what FINGER does is very close to another
capability that is available on ARPANET, that of bi-
directional file transfer. You all should be familiar with a
similar setup (BITSERVE) where you request a file and it
gets sent to you. I will be writing one for VMS soon (of
course it will be much more sophisticated). Remote Job Entry
is another feature that would be nice, provided access is
appropriately restricted. After the file server I will do
RJE. Beat that, IBM/VM!
0 Without a doubt the principle purpose of BITNET is to
provide file transfer capability between as many different
nodes and different types of machines/systems as possible.
Unfortunately, JNET1.x does not handle files sent via the
DISK DUMP command very well and many sites will be running
1.2 even after 2.0 comes out (2.0 costs additional money),
so let me provide some tips for sending to a JNET site:
0 a) send it PUNCH (VMS can always deal with this
format)
b) keep the filename to 8 characters and the file
type to 3 for maximum compatibility.
0 VMS is out at present in two distinct versions: 3.x and 4.x.
To find out what a site is using, use the command CPQ
INDICATE. 4.x can handle filenames of up to 39 characters
and filetypes of up to 39 characters, but as mentioned
above, 3.x is limited to 8/3 characters. Since many sites
have software that won't work if they upgrade to 4.x, they
are holding onto 3.x for a while, so help them out a little.
0 JNET has the capability of printing a received file
directly onto a printer, but since this is changing from
JNET1.2 to JNET2.0 and is totally unrestricted I will not
describe how to go about this. I am sure that you can ask
the particular site for this information.
0 Another nicety of JNET is the ease with which we can send
files through so-called gateways to other networks (ARPANET,
CSNET, and UUCP to name a few). In principle, any site
should be able to do this, but it requires tacking a header
onto the file being sent to conform to SMTP protocol and I
don't know whether IBM's are capable of this right now (if
they are, I can provide the header info).
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0 VMS machines are also becoming capable of sending what
are called BACKUP savesets over BITNET to other VMS sites.
These are essentially sets of files suitably encoded with
error-checking information and packed into one file. The
saveset is converted to RSCS 'text' format (which bears no
resemblance to a text file) and sent along to be re-
converted and decoded. I have successfully sent sets of as
many as 50 files in this manner. The advantage here is that
if RSCS trashes the file in any way in transit, the BACKUP
utility will know it (and will actually be able to recover
the information if it is not too mangled).
0 As a final note, there will soon be software capable of
receiving netnews (the scourge of ARPANET, a news bulletin
board spanning the world) on VMS systems over BITNET.
0 Elucidation of any information provided in this article can
be obtained by MAILing to me (Todd Aven) at username MANAGER
at node UMDHEP.
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0 Nothing Artificial, Please
+ Nothing Artificial, Please
0 Written by Phil Bertoni
Submitted by Cindy Mitchell, ASA077@MAINE
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The computer, the genie, is absolutely under our
command, we simply have to be sensible about our commands.
Our helper is a dumb machine, remember, with no mind, much
less a mind of its own.
0 For now.
0 But, my god, what if we someday give it one? What about
all the experiments in artificial intelligence? What if
those efforts succeed in creating a machine that thinks for
itself, as truly autonomous automation? There may be a few
benefits, sure, but cant hey possibly outweigh the hazards
incurred by bringing a freakish, maybe even fiendish,
superhuman intelligence into the world?
0 Relax. Let's just apply our nonartificial intelligence to
this problem here. The sun's going to go out someday, for
sure, but we'd be damn fools to stop growing crops because
of that fact.
0 Now, artificial intelligence (AI to the cognoscenti) is,
of course, a subject for a book in itself (and has been the
subject of many),but let's just look at a dimension or two
of the problem, the ones that most directly concern our
getting comfortable with the new magic -- enough for a
realistic and adventurous outlook.
0 AI is marvelous stuff. The work ongoing in that field is
among the most ingenious and inventive in human history. But
the name itself is misleadingly ambitious. Most of the
effort is directed toward extending the capabilities of
machines to make them more useful tools, not toward making
ersatz human minds. Which is a good thing. Because no one
has the faintest idea how to make a machine think like a
human.
0 Furthermore, we don't even know how natural intelligence
works; which in one approach is a prerequisite for making a
machine behave with human like intelligence. In the other
approach, we simply try to make a machine intelligent and
don't particularly care whether it's human-like or now. But
in the end, given that we have only one example of
intelligence to measure the outcome by, it amounts to the
same things as striving for the human like.
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0 We must look just a bit further at those two approaches
- the first begins from the standpoint of brain and mind and
attempts to determine how they function - hopefully to apply
that knowledge to the building of machines. The other
approach starts from information science. From what is know
about information itself, in a formal sense to determine
precisely what intelligence is, and to create a machine that
embodies it. Most of the work goes on somewhere in between,
seesawing back and forth between trying to make a computer.
And the work that is done mostly results in expanding the
sets of things that computers can do.
0 But those things are still based on the same old imput
output computation control storage organization, the same
old binary coding, the same old circuits and flip-flop
logic. Ons and offs.
0 If we look at what's known about human intelligence and
measure the computer's capabilities and characteristics
agains it, it's not even certain we're on the right track.
In the first place, the brain does not appear to be
structured like a computer. It is most likely digital in its
processing, that is, responsive to discrete quantities of
electricity, pulses, but lord knows if it's binary. It's
possible there's a multi-valued logic involved, not a two-
valued one. In fact, with respect to human programming, the
only coding format we have any real knowledge of is that
employed by the genetic code, which is four-valued
(quarternary). It's not even clear that a binary format is
possible for the human brain, when you consider the amount
of information we handle and the number of logic elements
(neurons) that are available for the job.
0 If we take a grosser view of human intelligence, we
still find extraordinary differences between our own
capabilities and those of computers. Look at us. We start
out simply with the machine turned on. There may be a
complete, pre-existing 'how to be human' program burned in
there by the genetic coder, or we may simply come equipped
with a bootstrap loader, that gives us enough initialization
to allow experience to program the brain. But either we
program ourselves, or the world does, or a bit of both, and
both are free-form. In principle, we don't need new
instructions for every new situation; we develop our own. No
one consciously 'programs' us, in a fundamental sense (with
much success, anyway, not even parents as any kid or parent
knows, the direct and purposive influence of parent over
child in negligible). Withing about twenty person-years of
data gathering and reflexive debugging, we become fully
functioning self operating organisms. Less time, if you
concentrate on physiology and leave out the several years of
emotional tuning that adolescence represents. It's magic.
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0 Let's be mildly analytical about this: suppose we
program ourselves (with the occasional assistance of a few
other people). It represents far less than a hundred person-
years of programming time. From the AI standpoint, the
cumulative effort required to program a computer to play a
passable game of chess is of the same order of magnitude.
And that's not even close to intelligence. O.k. then, lets
be more realistic. This human behavior stuff, maybe it's
just a set of applications programs, which are a snap to
develop (or even self developing) once you've got the right
high-powered operating system. And the right hardware.
Crack those problems and the self-programming takes care
(aptly enough) of itself.
0 All right, let's figure machine development in and also
assume an operating system programmed fully by the genetic
code. To come up with this machine and its software required
a billion years of calendar time multiplied by how many
organisms in the evolutionary web. Lets be absurdly
conservative and say it took a mere quadrillion organism-
years of trial and error development. And suppose that
anything; plants, rocks, even computers can become
intelligent with quadrillion organism-years of R&D. Do you
want to place any bets on seeing the development of
intelligent computers before the sun dies?
0 Perhaps that's a little hyperbolic, but the point is
this: In order to make a machine in the image of the human
mind, we must first unravel the mystery of human
consciousness, a complexity billions of years in the
raveling. We're unlikely to come by that understanding very
soon. But if we ever do, we will have incidentally solved
the riddle of Existance, and probably won't be much
discommoded by the idea of smart machines.
0 Observe the problem now from the other side, looking at
the computer's characteristics and seeing how close they
come to what we'd call intelligence.
0 First of all, as we noted, thought technology has
advanced and computers are more capable than ever, the basic
component organization and structure of computers - their
essential logic - is exactly the same as that of the very
first machine built 40 years ago. We've gotten a lot of
mileage out of an original concept, but computers still are
limited logic machines.
0 Of all the components of human intelligence, the
computer exhibits logic, and only logic. It's that way
because out of all of the recognizable components of
intelligence including intuition, imagination, insight
(we're the ones who shout Aha!) logic is the only one that
can be described, expressed in rules, and thus in circuits.
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0 Logic is not even a very large factor in our
intelligence (we use it sparingly enough); it's a minor
specialty of ours, an actually, the rules of logic are
something we invented ourselves, from observing ourselves, a
mental artifact. When you look at the issue that way,
computers are not artificial humans; we are organic
computers. Do you see the computers worrying about sharing
their turf?
0 Second, then, how do you get a computer to exhibit
those other essentials of intelligence -- imagination,
intuition, insight? How to describe and embody them?
0 In most cases, AI applications involve brute force
programming, that is to say, every conceivable situation,
response, and outcome is deliberately and consciously
programmed in (even the instructions to 'think for itself').
If we want a computer to show initiative, as in a game
playing situation, we must program in the conditions under
which initiative is to be taken define the range of
appropriate initiatives, and prescribe rules for deciding
what the appropriate initiative should be. This is
initiative? We're essentially telling it, 'all right, now
think this predefined thought for yourself, as soon as I say
go'.
0 But computers can simulate just about anything, right?
Probably even those non-logical aspects of intelligence, if
we describe them operationally. Some AI efforts attempt to
do just that. Make the machine simulate illogic by
programming it to. Uh, that's still programming. We can play
around with unpredictably, instructing the machine to
respond to certain random events, with a certain randomly
selected range of responses. We're still the ghost haunting
the machine. We may get some nifty behavior, but it's not
intelligence.
0 Look, computers are wonderful, don't get my wrong. Like
the steam engine is a marvel of simple precision, power and
efficiency. In certain respects, and after two hundred
years, it remains to be improved upon. It's a great
machine. But you could never power an airplane with it. Too
gross in structure and weight compared to power. Problem of
scale. It's just all wrong for the job.
0 And the computer for the intelligence job?
0 According to Clarke's Second Law, 'When a distinguished
by elderly scientist says that something is possible, he is
almost certainly right. When he says it is impossible, he
is very probably wrong.' For what I am about to say, I
exempt myself from this law because I don't meet any of the
qualifications. I fully realize the folly of avowing the
impossibility of things, we do live in a statistical
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0 universe after all, but in this instance I will sidle out
on a limb and commit futurism (the eighth Deadly Sin).
0 Computers will never be as smart as humans. Or ever
think for themselves, in any but the loosest possible sense.
Part of the reasoning behind that pronouncement is merely
logical. The great weight of evidence, comparative and
otherwise, suggests that computers are just the wrong
machine for the, too clunky an limited in scope, relative to
the only know intelligent gizmo, us.
0 The other part of the reasoning is pure human craft and
guile. Note that I didn't say ' No human-made device will
ever be as smart as a human.' Who knows what the far future
holds, crystal based machines with molecular switches, maybe
even devices based in whole or part on biological organisms.
But that's pure speculation. There's not a hint of them
today, nor does the issue have any bearing on how we live
with and understand computers.
0 Crafty hidden qualification 2: Neither did I say that
computers would never exhibit some sorts of usefully
intelligent behavior. I say that, even should that happen,
we'll still have the edge. For two reasons. My human
intuition tell me that the reason computers so far outstrip
us in the performance of merely logical operations is that
they are not encumbered with imagination, insight and
intuition. I intuit that if you build a gizmo that
incorporates all of the above, you're going to slow it down
something fierce, so much so, in fact, that it begins to
look merely human.
0 And second, our present ignorance about intelligence
strongly indicates that in order to build and intelligent
machine, we're going to have to get a whole lot smarter.
0 We'll always be one step ahead.
0 ÕThis article was taken from Lawrence Behrens' and
Leonard J. Rosen's book, READING AND WRITING ACROSS
THE CURRICULUM, Boston: Little Brown and Co., 1985.
2nd edition. It was excerpted there from an article
'Strangers in Computerland' appearing in the Jan.
1984 Popular Computing magazine. -Edþ
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0 The Revelation of Jesus Christ to Paul Holmes
+ The Revelation of Jesus Christ to Paul Holmes
0 Rick Hudspeth, (P0236AU@UMVMA) and Paul Holmes,
(C366965@UMCVMB)
- Translated from the original machine language by His servant
and user consultant, Rick Hudspeth.
- 1 The Revelation of Jesus Christ which God did give to Him
to communicate to His students and His users, as given by
His graders and teaching assistants, to His student and
programmer, Paul,
0 2 who bore witness to many classes and many programs, even
to all he saw. Blessed is he who reads this file and heeds
what is written in it, yea, blessed is he who receives this
file, for the semester is almost over.
0 3 Paul to the 7 terminal sites that are at the University of
Columbia: Grace to you and peace from Him who is and was
submitted, and is to be output; and from the seven user
consultants who are before His throne;
0 4 and from Jesus Christ, the faithful programmer, the best
of the program writers, and ruler of the presidents of the
computing empires. To Him who loves us and released us from
our sins by His blood,
0 5 and He has made us to be a system, programmers to His God
and Father; to Him be the glory and dominion forever. Amen.
0 6 To the users of the umc computer network in mid-missouri,
grace and peace from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
0 7 I, Paul, author and finisher of many programs, write to
you to encourage you.
0 8 I do not wish you to be uninformed, my dear brethren,
concerning the submission of computer jobs and that beast
which stands on the earth, that is the conversational
monitoring system.
0 9 And power was given to this virtual beast from the beast
which resides in the abyss of math science. And this is the
beast which was cast into the meat locker by the strong
angel, yet for a little while it is loosed.
0 10 Do not lose heart my dear users, but be strong, to him
who overcometh belongs the cluster controller, yea, even the
comten controller.
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0 11 For I saw an amdahl, one like an interactive machine,
coming on the clouds, and to it was given 32 megabytes of
storage. And it shall compute forever and ever.
0 12 And I looked and I saw that beast and the lesser beast
and they were bound with a 3000 bpi tape, and they were cast
into the BITNET system; and there was weeping and gnashing
of teeth.
0 13 And all the businesses and Jesse Hall, they all mourned
the destruction of the system, and the smoke went up like an
enqueued job, all day it went up, and great was the smoke
that went up.
0 14 And they all wept because no longer could they submit
jobs and no longer could they make student's lives miserable
with their long jobs. Oh, great was the mourning.
0 15 But lo, I beheld a great multitude, and they sang a new
song, sweeter than that sung by a rejoicing SAS programmer
who has finished her project.
0 16 The sound of the rejoicing went up like a sweet incense
before the throne, faster and more efficient than a correct
job statement with no job parms.
0 17 And the users from all over campus submitted jobs for a
thousand years and the turn around time was indeed short.
0 18 And the wicked beast reigned no more. No longer could he
deny system use to the poor users.
0 19 And the printers were returned and there was much
printing.
0 20 All the printers were laser printers, but the parm values
were incredibly easy to understand.
0 21 No longer were there error analysts, because there were
no more errors.
0 22 And that third beast, which was called UNIX, who intend
to inhabit the second beast, that is the IBM 3031 which rose
up out of the meat locker, it was also erased and the 3031
was dismantled and sold for scrap.
0 23 And here is wisdom, the number of the beast is 3031.
0 24 He who has wisdom let him understand.
0 25 And the Amdahl and his users reigned and submitted their
jobs for a thousand years, and this is the first printout.
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0 26 Afterwards, the system was purged and IPLed for a final
battle.
0 27 And I looked and I saw one riding a white mainframe, and
on his disk and on his tapedrives were written IBM.
0 28 And the operating system which proceeded out of his mouth
was indeed great.
0 29 And he slew all the other mainframes with the OS which
proceeded out of his mouth.
0 30 And the rest of the mainframes were purchased by small
businesses and computed happily forever.
0 31 And those users which had lost their files to the beast
were reconnected and their files were restored.
0 32 Here is wisdom, to him who overcomes will be given an A.
0 33 Hold fast, my little users, the day of the single VM is
coming. And great will be His wrath.
- Commentary
- Verse 8: The conversational monitoring system (CMS) is the
interactive operating system currently in use on the IBM
system/370 at the University of Missouri-Columbia.
0 Verse 9: Virtual, from the Greek 'virtusus', meaning to
appear, or seem to exist. ...cast into the meat locker...
History tells us that one of the mainframe computers used by
the University of MissouriColumbia was stored in a meat
locker at one of the dormitory cafeterias before being put
back into use.
0 Verse 10: Cluster controller--the machine which controls
the terminals at a particular terminal site. Comten
controller--the machine which sometimes allows one mainframe
to communicate with another if used correctly.
0 Verse 11: Amdahl--a particular brand of mainframe named
after the company's founder, Gene Amdahl. 32 megabytes--
literally 32 million bytes; probably symbolic, but some
systems do have this much storage.
0 Verse 12: Several beasts are mentioned by Paul, but
apparently they will all eventually meet with defeat. 3000
bpi tape--literally 3000 bytes per inch on a computer tape;
a fairly high density of data.
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0 Verse 13: Jesse Hall--most likely the administration
building at UMC, but it possibly refers to the scarlet woman
mentioned in the Apocalypse by John. Enqueued--probably
refers to the placing of computer programs and jobs on
queues (waiting lines) to be processed. The smoke went up
all day, so the queues must have been full, or perhaps this
is symbolic, also.
0 Verse 15: SAS--from the Greek word 'sasalupsis'. SAS was
apparently a statistical analysis software package, but
using it was notoriously difficult. From this we surmise
that Paul means the victory over the system will indeed by
sweet.
0 Verse 17: Thousand years--some have equated this with the
millenial reign, but we find no evidence in the text or the
period of writing to support this view. Paul probably is
using the thousand years symbolically to represent complete
control of the system.
0 Verse 20: Laser printers--Laser printers can print at
approximately 3 yards a second, making them incredibly fast.
Parm values--from the Greek 'paramasis', slang for parameter
values which tell the computer how the user wants his output
printed. Paul says that they will be easy to understand, so
even those who can not now use the system will be able to
use it during this thousand years.
0 Verse 22: UNIX--a mythical operating system which was
supposedly more powerful than any other, but failed to gain
complete acceptance in the business world. ...intended to
inhabit... probably refers to the running of the operating
system on the mainframe.
0 Verse 23: Much has been said about this number 3031. We
feel that Paul was refering to the IBM machine 3031.
However, some feel that he is refering to President Reagan
or even Adolf Hitler. We do not feel that the text supports
these views.
0 Verse 26: Purged, IPLed--refer to the complete emptying of
the memory and the 'Initial Program Load', the loading of
the operating system into the now empty memory.
0 Verse 29: OS--short for operating system.
0 Verse 33: The single virtual machine most likely refers to
the mainframe which provides support for all the users.
Technically, single virtual machine would mean only one
user. We can only speculate that Paul was refering to one
mainframe supporting the VM operating system, instead of the
three that historically supported it. By reducing to one
mainframe, the system would be greatly more efficient and
easier for users to use. But this is only speculation.
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0 OpCodes
+ OpCodes
0 Various and Assorted Creative Minds...
-
BCU Be Cruel and Unusual
BTD Byte The Dust
BWOP BeWilder Operator
COLB Crash for Operator's Lunch Break
CRYPT reCuRsive encrYPt Tape mnemonic ÕUNIXþ
CSU Call Self Unconditional
DBL Desegregate Bus Lines
DEC Decompile Executable Code
DD Drop Disk
DPC Decrement Program Counter
DSI Do Something Interesting
DSTD Do Something Totally Different
DSUIT Do Something Utterly, Indescribably Terrible
DUD Do Until Dead
FDR Fill Disk Randomly
FFF Form Feed Forever
FPT Fire Photon Torpedoes
FRG Fill with Random Garbage
GDP Grin Defiantly at Programmer
GDR Grab Degree and Run
HCP Hide Central Processor
IGI Increment Grade Immediately
IGIT Increment Grade Immediately Twice
INCAM INCrement Arbitrary Memory location
ISI Increment and Skip on Infinity
ISP Increment and Skip on Pi
IP Increment and Pray
IPS Increment Processor Status
JNL Jump when programmer is Not Looking
JSU Jump Self Unconditional
JRGA Jump Relative and Get Arrested
JRCF Jump Relative and Catch Fire
JT Jump if Tuesday
JWN Jump When Necessary
LMB Lose Message and Branch
LOSM Log Off System Manager
MD Move Devious
MDDHAF Make Disk Drive Hop Across Floor
OCF Open Circular File
QWA Quit While Ahead
RBAO Ring Bell and Annoy Operator
RPU Read character and Print Upside down
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0 SD Slip Disk
SDDB Snap Disk Drive Belt
SDI Self Destruct Immediately
SLD Slip Disk
SHIT Stop Here If Thursday
SMT Stretch MagTape
SOS Sign Off, Stupid
SPA Sliding Point Arithmetic
SRO Sort with Random Ordering
SRR Set Registers to Random values
SRU Signoff Random User
SWAT SWAp Terminals
SWN SWap Nibbles
TDB Transfer and Drop Bits
TLW Transfer and Lose Way
VPA Vanishing Point Arithmetic
XVF Exchange Virtue for Fun
XOS Exchange Operator's Sex
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