Fact, Friction, Faff and Folderol …

Apocalypse 32767

It's here! Today is the much anticipated and much over-hyped Mayan Apocalypse. Thus far — and this day is nearly complete — today's prognostications have turned out to be more apocryphal than apocalyptic. However, for one of my clients, today was not so uneventful. They had experienced an apocalypse that was not manifest in the numerology of the ancient Mayan calendar; their apocalypse was rooted in the stored binary numerics of the OpenVMS file system. Yes, they hit the OpenVMS file version number limit. (read all 1221 words.)

Date(time) to Quadword

I was recently Googling for something completely unrelated when one of Google's finds pointed me to this thread; titled: Date to quadword in DCL???? I perused the thread's entries wondering why Google returned this link as matching my query. However, I was quickly drawn into the quagmire of the thread because the original question was never actually answered. (read all 1484 words.)

F$ForgottenAvoidedOverlooked

I have looked at vast quantities of DCL code over the years. Most of the DCL procedures I have seen were written for simple tasks or for one time use. I have also encountered many procedures — some on the order of a thousand lines — that have been written for production and used heavily throughout the production cycle. What I find to be the most amazing about this latter case is that this DCL code is usually some of the worst written, and the least or most poorly documented DCL. However, there is one common denominator in either of these cases and that is the forgotten, avoided, and overlooked lexical function, F$FAO. (read all 1652 words.)

Calendar

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Today's Reads

Rocketry Video utilizing a Strap-on Camera Mount

Amateur rocketry is great fun! 5-4-3-2-1 Launch! The motor ignites, the rocket accelerates upward toward the sky and it's soon well out of sight hundreds, if not thousands, of feet into the air. For a great many rocketry enthusiasts, this would be enough; however, I soon found myself pining to see what I could not — the view from the rocket's point of view. I found numerous on-board rocketry videos on YouTube made by other amateur rocketeers which prompted me to want to try my hand at doing the same. If you too should have an interest in video documentation of your own amateur rocket's flights, read on. (read all 1223 words.)

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Recent Comments

Queuemnnady: I have a tendancy to be lazy with commenting, but i adore your blog and i may well also say it correct …
Mike Kier: > _This is the first system that I have purchased new with the added baggage of Billy-tax — Micro$oft W…
PaulSture: This immediately struck me as a neat way to get stuff into VMS running on SIMH or Alpha emulators.
Rich Nistuk: Ugh.. I’ve had the same problems with this meter. I was really looking forward to using it. Right now I…
Carl Karcher: Hey VAXman – thanks for this excellent example! It’s been so long since I’ve done this that I missed th…
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