From: hlb@ATHENA.MIT.EDU Date: Sat, 24 Feb 90 11:47:34 -0500 To: gli@ATHENA.MIT.EDU, finagler@ATHENA.MIT.EDU, jtidwell@ATHENA.MIT.EDU Subject: just to increase your volume for the day... The following is sung to the tune of Gilbert & Sullivan's "Modern Major General" from _The_Pirates_of_Penzance_. A Computer Song by Steven Levine, Apollo Computer I've built a better model than the one at Data General For databases vegetable, animal, and mineral My OS handles CPUs with muliplexed duality My PL/I compiler shows impressive functionality. My storage system's better than magnetic core polarity, You never have to bother checking out a bit for parity; There isn't any reason to install non-static floor matting; My disk drive has capacity for variable formatting. Chorus: His disk drive has capacity for variable formatting, His disk drive has capacity for variable formatting, His disk drive has capacity for variable format-formatting. I feel compelled to mention what I know to be a gloating point: There's lots of room in memory for variables floating-point, Which shows for input vegetable, animal, and mineral I've built a better model than the one at Data General. Chorus: Which shows for input vegetable, animal, and mineral He's built a better model than the one at Data General. The IBM new home computer's nothing more than germinal; At Prime they still have trouble with an interactive terminal; While Tandy's done a lousy job with operations Boolean, At Wang the byte capacity's too small to fit a coolie in. Intel's mid-year finances are something of the trouble sort; The Timex Sinclair crashes when you implement a bubble sort. All DEC investors soon will find they haven't spent their money well; And need I even mention Nixdorf, Univac, or Honeywell? Chorus: And need he even mention Nixdorf, Univac, or Honeywell? And need he even mention Nixdorf, Univac, or Honeywell? And need he even mention Nixdorf, Univac, or Honey-Honeywell? By striving to eliminate all source code that's repetitive I've brought my benchmark standing to results that are competitive. In short, for input vegetable, animal, and mineral I've built a better model than the one at Data General. Chorus: In short, for input vegetable, animal, and mineral He's built a better model than the one at Data General. In fact when I've a floppy of maximum diameter, When I can call a subroutine of infinite parameter, When I can point to registers and keep their current map around, And when I can prevent the need for mystifying wraparound, When I can update record blocks with minimum of suffering, And when I can afford to use a hundred K for buffering, When I've performed a matrix sort and tested the addition rate, You'll marvel at the speed of my asynchronous transmission rate. Chorus: You'll marvel at the speed of my asynchronous transmission rate. You'll marvel at the speed of my asynchronous transmission rate. You'll marvel at the speed of my asynchronous transmission-mission rate. Though all my better programs that self-reference recursively Have only been obtained through expert spying, done subversively, But still for input vegetable, animal, and mineral, I've built a better model than the one at Data General. Chorus: But still for input vegetable, animal, and mineral, He's built a better model than the one at Data General. And the next one... The following article by Sol Weber appears in the May 1987 issue of the New York Pinewoods Folk Music Club Newsletter: ---------------------------------------------------------------- A COMPUTER SONG The famous Major-General's patter song from THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE has given rise to many excellent parodies. Here's one for the computer nuts among you (and everyone else, too). It's by Neil Zod of Philadelphia and appeared in DATAMATION Magazine, and also in the newsletter of The Gilbert and Sullivan Society of New York. On IBM, I use VSAM with ID CAMS utility. Creating paths to datasets, I index with agility. Including free-space ratios for high updatability, I add a password to prevent unwanted readability. With secondary indices, I add adaptability Within the master file to read and write with high mobility; Or write the OS JCL for added flexibility, To execute my programs well for corp'rate visibility. Design for problem program codes with structured methodology, I use commands with operands developed in astrology. To optimize the system, I use virtual technology, And document the whole darn thing in lucid phraseology. I write a user manual in language that's not technical, Then demonstrate it all at once; it's really quite a spectacle. An analyst or programmer with methods quite exceptional, I am the very model of the true dp professional. ---------------------------------------------------------------- New York Pinewoods Folk Music Club, CDSS 505 8th Avenue, rm. 2500 New York, NY 10018 (Sample newsletters available upon request.) ---------------------------------------------------------------------