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Subject: C/Unix was a joke...
Date: Tue, 17 Mar 92 09:01:21 EST
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From: jc (John Chambers)
To: jchome
Subject: rec.humor #78067 - Re: Wanted: Bell Labs says C was a joke
In article <1992Mar7.125848.22824@paramount.nikhefk.nikhef.nl>,
maart@paramount.nikhefk.nikhef.nl (Maarten Litmaath) writes:
Path: nntpd.lkg.dec.com!pa.dec.com!decwrl!uunet!mcsun!sun4nl!nikhefk!maart
From: maart@paramount.nikhefk.nikhef.nl (Maarten Litmaath)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.misc,rec.humor
Subject: Re: Wanted: Bell Labs says C was a joke
Message-ID: <1992Mar7.125848.22824@paramount.nikhefk.nikhef.nl>
Date: Sat, 7 Mar 92 07:58:48 GMT-)1:44
References: <PZS.92Mar6101154@ficus.webo.dg.com>
Organization: Nat. Inst. for Nuclear and High-Energy Physics, Amsterdam
Lines: 102
Xref: nntpd.lkg.dec.com comp.unix.misc:3790 rec.humor:78067
pzs@ficus.webo.dg.com (Peter Z. Simpson) writes:
\
\ I'm looking for a copy of the phony press release I saw around
\Christmas time. The gist of it was that C and UNIX were a prank that
\got out of hand & Bell Labs wasn't going to let it go on any longer.
\
\ It had a nice example of unreadable but supposedly legal C code
\and mentioned something about K&R typing a line of garbage & then
\betting they could come up with a compiler in which the garbage was
\legal code.
: This is a shar archive. Extract with sh, not csh.
: This archive ends with exit, so do not worry about trailing junk.
: --------------------------- cut here --------------------------
PATH=/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/ucb
echo Extracting 'Hoax'
sed 's/^X//' > 'Hoax' << '+ END-OF-FILE ''Hoax'
X
X
X
X T h e V O G O N N e w s S e r v i c e
X
XVNS TECHNOLOGY WATCH: [Mike Taylor, VNS Correspondent]
X===================== [Littleton, MA, USA ]
X
XCOMPUTERWORLD 1 April
X
X CREATORS ADMIT UNIX, C HOAX
X
X In an announcement that has stunned the computer industry, Ken Thompson,
X Dennis Ritchie and Brian Kernighan admitted that the Unix operating
X system and C programming language created by them is an elaborate April
X Fools prank kept alive for over 20 years. Speaking at the recent
X UnixWorld Software Development Forum, Thompson revealed the following:
X
X "In 1969, AT&T had just terminated their work with the GE/Honeywell/AT&T
X Multics project. Brian and I had just started working with an early
X release of Pascal from Professor Nichlaus Wirth's ETH labs in
X Switzerland and we were impressed with its elegant simplicity and
X power. Dennis had just finished reading 'Bored of the Rings', a
X hilarious National Lampoon parody of the great Tolkien 'Lord of the
X Rings' trilogy. As a lark, we decided to do parodies of the Multics
X environment and Pascal. Dennis and I were responsible for the operating
X environment. We looked at Multics and designed the new system to be as
X complex and cryptic as possible to maximize casual users' frustration
X levels, calling it Unix as a parody of Multics, as well as other more
X risque allusions. Then Dennis and Brian worked on a truly warped
X version of Pascal, called 'A'. When we found others were actually
X trying to create real programs with A, we quickly added additional
X cryptic features and evolved into B, BCPL and finally C. We stopped
X when we got a clean compile on the following syntax:
X
X for(;P("\n"),R-;P("|"))for(e=C;e-;P("_"+(*u++/8)%2))P("| "+(*u/4)%2);
X
X To think that modern programmers would try to use a language that
X allowed such a statement was beyond our comprehension! We actually
X thought of selling this to the Soviets to set their computer science
X progress back 20 or more years. Imagine our surprise when AT&T and
X other US corporations actually began trying to use Unix and C! It has
X taken them 20 years to develop enough expertise to generate even
X marginally useful applications using this 1960's technological parody,
X but we are impressed with the tenacity (if not common sense) of the
X general Unix and C programmer. In any event, Brian, Dennis and I have
X been working exclusively in Pascal on the Apple Macintosh for the past
X few years and feel really guilty about the chaos, confusion and truly
X bad programming that have resulted from our silly prank so long ago."
X
X Major Unix and C vendors and customers, including AT&T, Microsoft,
X Hewlett-Packard, GTE, NCR, and DEC have refused comment at this time.
X Borland International, a leading vendor of Pascal and C tools,
X including the popular Turbo Pascal, Turbo C and Turbo C++, stated they
X had suspected this for a number of years and would continue to enhance
X their Pascal products and halt further efforts to develop C. An IBM
X spokesman broke into uncontrolled laughter and had to postpone a
X hastily convened news conference concerning the fate of the RS-6000,
X merely stating 'VM will be available Real Soon Now'. In a cryptic
X statement, Professor Wirth of the ETH institute and father of the
X Pascal, Modula 2 and Oberon structured languages, merely stated that P.
X T. Barnum was correct.
X
X In a related late-breaking story, usually reliable sources are stating
X that a similar confession may be forthcoming from William Gates
X concerning the MS-DOS and Windows operating environments. And IBM
X spokesman have begun denying that the Virtual Machine (VM) product is
X an internal prank gone awry.
X {COMPUTERWORLD 1 April}
X {contributed by Bernard L. Hayes}
X
X<><><><><><><><> VNS Edition : 2336 Tuesday 4-Jun-1991 <><><><><><><><>
X
X
X
+ END-OF-FILE Hoax
chmod 'u=rw,g=r,o=r' 'Hoax'
set `wc -c 'Hoax'`
count=$1
case $count in
4059) :;;
*) echo 'Bad character count in ''Hoax' >&2
echo 'Count should be 4059' >&2
esac
exit 0
- --
Zippy-Says: If you can't say something nice, say something surrealistic.
------- End of Forwarded Message