The RSX Stories

The RSX Stories

A Cry in the Night

I

t was a good day in the computer room. The computers were all running without failure. The network was up. The disks were fast, the CPUs were hot. The software was debugged. The VAXes were elsewhere. The factory was running well. There was nothing to demand my attention. It had been so for a long time now.

It was a very peaceful day. It was good to be alive. I lay back with my hands under my head and stretched out. Then I looked up into the blue, cloudless top of the 785 cabinet. I was pleased. Removing the 785 CPU and replacing it with a MicroVAX I had been a good move, I thought. The cabinet was a good place to sleep, and loaf, and think about RSX.

I pushed the dark glasses down on my nose and continued reading volume 1 of Churchill's History of the English Speaking Peoples. It was a good book, one of my favorites. I liked the funny parts the best.

An annoying noise was bothering me. I did not know what it was. It went on for a long time as I read. I did my best to ignore it.

One of the CPU bay doors opened. Harsh light poured in and hands shook me. "Wake up!" said a voice. "Your beeper's going off!"

"Aw, Linda," I said. "It is a wrong number, you know that. It is always a wrong number. Nobody calls me for anything any more. You VAX people. Pull up a towel and catch some rays. The LEDs are nice today. Pass the tanning oil."

"I would not," she said, "be caught dead inside a 785 with you. What would one of the managers using All-in-One think if they saw me inside a 785 with an RSX hacker?"

"For starters," I said, "no All-in-Fun user would look inside the computer room. They cannot even identify a CPU one time out of three, they are not rocket scientists."

"Secondly," I said, "as far as Ball-o'-Fun goes, a 785 is not a VAX. It is not powerful enough to run All-in-None. That was why we bought you the 9000, so five people could run Dumb-as-a-Wall simultaneously."

"And finally," I said, "you would not be the first to be caught dead inside a 785 with me. Have a look under the power supply rack."

Linda looked under the power supply rack. Her head bobbed down and then came back up. She gulped greenly. "There is a dead rat down there," she announced.

"Very suave of you to notice," I said. "But in fact, there are at least two. Now would you rub some more oil on my back?"

"I suppose so. But at least shut off your beeper first," she demanded.

I reached over for the beeper. The nasty little thing was on my belt somewhere, I knew. Finally I found it. I pushed the shutoff button. The peeping noise finally stopped. A tinny little voice came out: "Call Justin L. Hewser. Important. We need an RSX wizard."

RSX Wizard!

I slammed the CPU bay door shut quickly in Linda's face. Then I locked it. It would not be good to let a VMS infidel know my secret identity as RSX Wizard. I reached for my supercostume. There had been no call for my super-talents in ... well, it had been a long time since I had worn it. It was tight in a few places, but it still fit.

Finally I settled the plastic visor over my head and flipped the switch to turn on the blinking lights. Then I kicked the door open and leaped out of the cabinet. "This," I cried out, "is a job for RSX Wizard!" The old battle cry brought tears to my eyes. I had fought and bled and drunk beer with many fine men as RSX Wizard. I was not ashamed of my tears.

Linda looked at me. She rubbed her eyes. She looked up and down. Finally she spoke.

"Don't cry," she said. "I can let the Hawaiian shorts out and they won't pinch you there anymore. Nobody will notice."

The RSX Stories

Flying to the Rescue

F

inally it was time to go. I had everything I needed to chase RSX problems. I had my SPM-11 distribution kit. I had a copy of Up your ACP. I had my disk recovery software. I had bootable 18-bit M-Plus systems on many different media. I had device driver database dumpers and a copy of Adventure. I had the experience of a long and honorable career as an RSX wizard. I had my rubber duckie signed by Dave Cutler and that was best of all.

I could not put it off any longer. It was time to go.

Linda stood beside me. Her red hair waved in the breeze. She pursed her lips and looked up at me. I laid my hands gently on her shoulders and looked deep into her beautiful green eyes. Then I waited for her to speak. It would not be civil to rush away.

"I knew," she said, "that it could not last."

"Yes," I said. "It was very good for us. But now I must go. My duty calls. The kernel mode of the few must be sacrificed for the runtime of the many. It is better to give than to receive."

"I knew," she said, "that this would happen someday, and you would leave me alone." Her beautiful long eyelashes trembled.

"I am sorry," I said. "I have obligations to Justin. It is a male bonding thing. A hack in time saves nine. 54-40 or fight. On Wisconsin."

"I had hoped in my heart," she said, "that eventually something would happen to get you out of the place. Now I will have some peace for a change. You snore."

"I know," I replied. "And I will miss you too. But now it is time for me to go." My wizard cape ruffled in the breeze. It was time to fly to the aid of Justin.

"Are you going to fly to the rescue, RSX Wizard?" asked Linda. "All superheroes fly when they are needed."

"Yes," I said, "I am going to fly." I tensed my legs for the big lift. Then I picked up my suitcases and walked down the jetway to where the stewardess was waiting.

"Goodbye," said Linda. "Have a nice time. Call if you get work."

I turned and looked back at her standing alone. "I shall return," I said.

"Dogs' feet on ya," she replied. "Do what you must. Make a proper job of it and don't rush things. Document everything excellently well, preferably several times."

"I will come back to you," I promised. "Wait for me."

"Vaya con carne," she cried. "Do thorough and craftsmanlike work. You don't have to hurry on my account. Take your time."

My eyes filled with hot tears. I turned away so she would not see them. "I must go now," I said. And I squared my shoulders and entered the plane.

She waved a final farewell. "Banzai voyage. And you had better see about getting those shorts let out."

The RSX Stories

Boots Made for Walking

I

t was hot outside the computer room. It had been hot for several years now. There was no relief in sight. It was only two hours into my shift.

Inside the computer room it was cool. The boy Justin Hewser knelt before the holy system console and made incantation to his heathen gods as his fathers and his forefathers had done before him.

"Element of waste! Operate! Restart, vile offspring of a hyena!" he said. "Mother of pearl! Valueless item of refuse!" he continued. He made mystic passes before the console, shaking his fists. It sounded like so much raving to me. But it is well to respect another's beliefs.

I waited for him to finish.

Finally he did. He turned to me. "The system is down," he stated flatly. "It will not restart. I have tried it all, and it will not go. It is pining for Maynard. It is an ex-system."

"I see," I said. "Have you ensured that the system disk is rotating?" I asked him.

"I have, Your Wisdom," he replied. "It is rotating, as determined by my finger being sliced half off after shorting the hood interlock."

"You have done well so far," I said. "Is the disk indeed bootable, complete with boot block and system files?" I asked.

"It should be, sir," he said, "it was in when the machine crashed. But I checked others just in case."

"Ah," I said. "I take it that you have also checked to ensure that all cables are seated and in good condition?"

"Yes, master," he replied. "All the cables are fine, which is more than I can say for my finger. I even replaced the DUP cable I ran over with the beer keg dolly yesterday. Once more we will communicate with the network, but only if this thing starts up."

"You must learn to overlook nothing," I chided him. "Small or great, all must be considered in the scheme of things. The transient and the eternal are the same. Speaking of the transient, is the power, both line and DC, in sufficient quantity and acceptable quality?"

"I have checked AC LO and DC LO," he replied, "and both are inactive. The voltages +5, +12 and -12 are all of good quality," he went on. "I am desperate, oh most wise guru; I flail about and clutch at straws."

I meditated on his words. There was meaning much deeper than he knew. "While you were clutching at straws," I said, "did you stick one into the fans to make sure that they were all running?"

"I have, your cleverness," he said. "All the fans snarl when I stick your curly root beer straw in to them. This is piddly and has nothing to do with the problem."

"Ah," I said. "You are impatient, my son. You must learn patience. Eliminating many things means that whatever remains must contain the problem. We have now eliminated many things. The problem must lie within the sacred central processor itself."

"I agree, my leader," he said. "I have been through the reboot sequence 23 times. It executes one instruction and stops. The magic box is crocked. We must call for holy men to lay on hands and exorcise the big, blue, foul spirits in the CPU."

"I see," I told him. "and I agree that spirits may have had something to do with this problem. Strong spirits. But perhaps not all is lost. It is true, the central processor may be possessed by demons. In that case we should have no recourse but to call for holy men from Digital, and hope against all likelihood that we get a devout one. A sorry prospect, to be sure. But once, dim years ago, a wise and very Covert man told me of a similar problem with his 11/74. Perhaps if you flipped the switch labelled HALT/ENABLE, the problem might be alleviated."

"It does not say to do that on the panel, boss," he said. "It says to toggle in the boot address, then hit START. Nothing is said about HALT/ENABLE. That is therefore not the problem." So speaking, he turned to the console, lifted the HALT/ENABLE switch, and hit START. The system started just as usual.

"When starting an automobile," I said, tweaking his ear, "neither is any mention made about taking one's foot off the brake before driving away. Nonetheless, many people do release the brake before stepping on the gas pedal. Perhaps you can draw an analogy," I suggested.

"So," he said, "unless I take my foot off the brake, the central processor refuses to boot when I turn the key in the ignition? I do not completely understand."

"No kidding," I replied. "You must meditate upon this until you achieve true enlightenment. This 11/60 full IPB set will help you." I opened the spares cabinet and leaped aside as 80 pounds of paper fell out onto his head.

He considered the large pile of paper for a long time.

"I could have written network Datatrieve procedures with TDMS front ends," he sniffled. "I could be making $50K a year."

"And I could have had that knockout redhead from Smith College as a trainee," I told him. "Despite your continual loafing and grousing, you seem to have some aptitude for RSX. But if you feel you do not ..." I shrugged.

"Oh, I do not, I do not!" wailed the boy.

"... then I will do my best to help you by beating it into you," I concluded.

"That puts a different complexion on things," he said. "I will take this very valuable and educational material and start to read it immediately."

And he left for his squalid cubicle, to learn the ways of the hardware.

The RSX Stories

Called to Account

N

ight-time in the computer room was very different from the day. It was much darker, for one thing. Strange and unholy things came out of the darkness in the computer room at night. Delivery men bearing anchovy, pineapple and onion pizzas, to name only one.

Backups ran back and forth in the darkness across the tape drives. They made sucking and hissing noises. Batch jobs ran off to unknown destinations. Some ran to completion. Many ran to other places.

It was cold. It was always cold at night. The night was when the air conditioning came on. Then it worked hard to make up for not working all day.

The boy Justin L. Hewser sat before a glowing video screen. He rubbed his hands together to warm them. He looked about fearfully at the glowing eyes scattered about the computer room. Some were red and some were green. The lights watched him hungrily and mostly did not move or blink.

Only the lights on the front of the 11/70 moved. It crossed its eyes continually. It gave the impression of either great boredom or great irritation. Occasionally the lights would stop as it paused and strained to pass a DECnet packet.

Justin walked across the room, loaded a disk, and hung a tape on the tape drive. He typed arcane incantations on the terminal. The tape spun for a while. It stopped. It rewound. Justin typed again on the terminal, then removed the disk and tape from the drives. He slunk out the door quietly, looking around constantly. Soon all was quiet again.

Bright and early, at 11 AM the next morning I arrived at work. The error log for the previous day lay open on my desk. It showed magtape errors occurring at 10 PM the previous night. That was curious. Daily backup did not run until 2 AM.

The system console was not helpful. There were no device mount or dismount messages. System accounting was more helpful. One HEWSER J had logged in briefly at 9:55 PM, mounted a disk labelled DECUS, executed 4,356 QIOs, dismounted the disk, and logged out at 10:06.

I called the boy into my office. He looked nervous. I came to the point immediately. "Let me come to the point," I said, "immediately. You came in last night and made an illicit copy of the DECUS disk. This is a serious violation of the secrecy and computer security policies. It is cause for dismissal. I trusted you. You have wounded me. Tell me why you did this."

The boy tried to look shocked. "Surely, master," he said, "you know I would never do such a thing. I could not have done such a thing, there are no mount or dismount messages on the system console. You accuse me falsely. I am hurt."

"Can it," I said. "I know the old trick of removing TKTN so that device mount/dismount and error messages do not appear on the system console. The system accounting file shows that you were logged in between 21:55 and 22:06, and that you mounted and dismounted a disk called DECUS. Error logging shows that the magtape threw 15 errors at 22:00." I threw the log on the desk. I pointed at it. There was black rage in my heart. It was like the rage that comes when the line printer dies at 3 AM.

"It does not," I concluded, "take a rocket scientist to figure out what has happened here. You get one more chance to explain, otherwise we will go see Security. They will pull out your toenails, play non-stop polka music, make you debug faulty DIBOL code, give you cafeteria coffee to drink, and then they may decide to torture you as well. Confess! Confess!" I shouted.

He slumped in his chair. "Yes," he cried, "it is true. I have made an illicit copy of the PACMAN program for my own filthy personal gain. You have caught me red-handed. I am ashamed. I die. My programs escheat to the company, and some are found to be useful. They are sold publicly, and run on many machines. But there is a fatal code bug, and all systems crash. The Internet goes down, and the ARPA machines decide to launch missiles. All die. Oh, the embarrassment."

"Barf," I said. "Get out of here, and never try to fool your master again. And do not try to use that tape; all the doors here are degausser portals."

I reached into my desk. "I should probably," I said, "shoot you in the head and save the law the trouble of dealing with you. Users who steal games are the lowest scum of the earth. They eventually become murderers, dog thieves or foulness even worse -- IBM salesmen."

I paused, one hand in the desk. Then I grabbed the familiar lumpy package in the bottom drawer, and whipped it out onto the desk. I had never thought to use it in anger, but this was the time. Ripping off the protective wrapping, I pointed the contents at him. He stared at me and quaked with gut-wrenching fear. Fear like the fear even a strong man can have when the Field Service man roars in the night.