Re: Did I get in?

Article: 7813 of alt.hackers
From: dilatush@raptor.sccs.swarthmore.edu (Jeremy Todd Dilatush)
Newsgroups: alt.hackers
Subject: Re: Did I get in?
Date: 12 May 1995 23:13:01 GMT
Organization: Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA, USA
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Nathan Hand (nathanh@bin.anu.edu.au) wrote:
: : So what did you write the script with if you didn't use an editor and
: : didn't have cat?

: Ummm... I think he just told you...

:     tee /dev/null > cat.sh

Actually, I used an editor.  You see, the machine I was using was a
Macintosh, so it had a "nice" GUI text editor with which I wrote
that.
What I wanted was an editor to use in "MacMiNT" which is the Mac
port of a
Unix-like system for the Atari ST.  The distribution I had only had
"elvis"
and "vi" is hard to learn without docs.

: ObHack: One of the uni machines had a broken "3" key. Of course
: all the other machines were taken, and I needed to put number 3
: into about 50 different positions in a table. Grrrrr. So I just
: found an old file with 3 already in it. 3 seconds later (ha) Id
: cut and paste the text across and problem solved.

I've pulled that hack a couple of times, like in writing the "text
hack"
I posted a little while ago -- I didn't know how to get "escape"
characters
into the text so I used a file that I'd written with "cat" and
copied them
over ... few weeks later I learned that C-q ESC in Emacs would do it.

I think I've also modified system files with the "sed" hack
someone else
posted, but I can't remember for sure...

Hmmm... what for an ObHack.  Well, I've just finished finals week so my
hacking time has been rather limited.

OK.  Since this and the last post are related to it, I'll mention my

ObHackedMachine:
	I've got a Macintosh Color Classic (a weird machine on which
Apple cut a few _too_ many corners).  Not the machine for a Unix geek.
Well, my text editor of choice on it is GNU emacs.  That should count
for something.	Oh...and I experimented with "MacMiNT" which is
a sort
of single-user quasi-Unix system.  It's cool, but kinda slow, and I never
really got a complete installation of it, so I got rid of it (the OS, the
machine still sits on my desk.)

	I like to tell people that at one point I had four different
versions of GCC running.  I had version 2.6.1 or something on an SGI,
2.5.8 on some Suns, 2.4.4 (?) on a DOS box, and 2.3.? on my Mac...

If the above isn't enough here's another bite-sized ObHack...

ObDocumentationHack:
	Wrote a 2-page document about doing 3D function plots on an SGI
workstation, teaching people who'd maybe never used anything but a Mac
before how to log in to X, run a buggy user-hostile program without too
much trouble, and log out.  And the users understood, except those who
didn't look at the first page...

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