foo?

Dave Martindale dave at onfcanim.UUCP
Tue Jan 6 14:49:07 AEST 1987


In article <584 at mcgill-vision.UUCP> mouse at mcgill-vision.UUCP (der Mouse) writes:
>
>By the way, wharf rat isn't joking about the DEC meaning.  VAXen really
>do have a failed UNIbus address register, and the documentation (eg,
>the architecture reference manual) really does call it the FUBAR.

The best part of this one is that it did make it into the manual!

But there is other humour in DEC hardware.  If, someday, you are casually
browsing through the VAX 780 circuit diagrams, stop on the page coded
"TBMW".  (To find it, the drawings are in order by backplane slot;
board TBM is slot 6.  Once you've found the TBM diagrams, the 4th
letter of the drawing code is just an alphabetical sequence number).

As you look around this drawing, you'll see signals with ordinary
hardware-ese names like EN UNALIGN TRAP H, EN TB PAR L, and WRITE CHECK H.
But you'll also find AARDVARK L, KINKAJOU L, and WOMBAT L.
Anyone care to speculate on what they do?

Then there's the apocryphal story about the PDP-11's sign extend
instruction.  The mnemonic op code was, of course, SEX.  That one got
changed to SXT before the manuals were printed.



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