DG Review articles from September 1989

DG Review archives from September 1989

Accounting for errors: accounting errors in AOS-VS can make for some pretty interesting system call charges.
September 1, 1989... Accounting for Errors I recently discovered a big problem in AOS/VS accounting that can lead to erroneous performance assessments and benchmarking under AOS/VS. Not to worry--I'm including patches to correct the problem in AOS/VS and...

File finders. (Part 1 of two)
September 1, 1989... File Finders Scene 1: Fade in to man hunched over keyboard, papers scattered all over the desk, somewhere between 10 and 300 Coke (Classic) cans littering every available surface. He mumbles, "What did I call that damned file?" Scene...

Forming a solution. (Part 2 of two)(producing forms on a laser printer)
September 1, 1989... FORMING A SOLUTION Last time, we concentrated on the advantages of laser printing over pre-printed forms. This month we'll demonstrate the relative ease of creating such a solution in your own shop. Let's begin our discussion by...

Pack, crunch, squeeze: at last, the ARC file compression utility comes to Data General.
September 1, 1989... Pack, crunch, squeeze When I first saw the advertisement for the Data General version of ARC, I couldn't believe that someone had brought one of my favorite PC utilities to the Data General world. Having used the product extensively on...

Zeroing in on bugs. (in RDOS 7.6)
September 1, 1989... Zeroing in on Bugs As we all know, combinations of well-behaved programs or unusual code can reveal holes in even the most carefully written or mature operating systems. the bug in RDOS I reported in the March issue of DG Review is...

Hackers away. (security measures against hacking)
September 1, 1989... Hackers Away In my 13-year career as a computer junkie, I have hacked exactly one machine. I had just completed an upgrade from a Data General C/350 to an MV/8000, so I was attending SM209, System Manager Seminar. Everything was going...

Security and self delusion: things that "will never happen to me" often do.
September 1, 1989... Security and Self Delusion Unless we are in a business where we have no choice but to be security conscious, most system managers operate under the "why worry" philosophy. Perhaps they are lucky enough to learn from the example of others....

Software viruses.
September 1, 1989... Software Viruses In computerspeak, a virus is a computer program that makes copies of itself. The genesis of these self-replicating programs is not without ambiguity--several programs invented over the last 30 years may have led to what...

Software piracy: the key to stopping pirates is a good defense.
September 1, 1989... Software Piracy For those of us whose business is software authorship, the loss of a couple dozen release tapes is devastating, and the possibility should be a daily reminder that precautions should be taken at every turn. Software...

Of stepping stones and building blocks. (BackWords)
September 1, 1989... OF STEPPING STONES AND BUILDING BLOCKS Computer people are resistant to change, often avoiding it like the plague. Others are simply slow at advancing. Most of these individuals, once they've learned to perform their daily task at their...