z X-NEWS: spcvxb!spcvxa alt.folklore.computers: 3256Relay-Version: VMS News - V6.0 10/3/90 VAX/VMS V5.3; site spcvxb.spc.edu~ Path: spcvxb.spc.edu!njin!princeton!udel!wuarchive!usc!samsung!noose.ecn.purdue.edu!newton.physics.purdue.edu!sawmill!mdbs!zed" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: DecWars- Message-ID: <1990Sep6.023937.23098@mdbs.uucp>   From: zed@mdbs.uucp (Bill Smith) Date: 6 Sep 90 02:39:37 GMT  Organization: mdbs, Inc.
 Lines: 753    @           A long time ago, on a node far, far away (from ucbvax)* 	  a great Adventure (game?) took place...    G     XXXXX   XXXXXX   XXXX  *        X    X    XX    XXXXX    XXXX     X G     X    X  X       X    X          X    X   X  X   X    X  X    X    X G     X    X  XXXXX   X               X    X  X    X  X    X   XXXX     X G     X    X  X       X               X XX X  XXXXXX  XXXXX        X    X B     X    X  X       X    X          XX  XX  X    X  X   X   X    XG     XXXXX   XXXXXX   XXXX           X    X  X    X  X    X   XXXX     X     K It is a period of  system  war.  User  programs,  striking  from  a  hidden K directory,  have  won  their  first victory against the evil Administrative K Empire. During the battle, User spies managed to steal secret  source  code K to  the  Empire's  ultimate program: the RM Star, a privileged root program K with enough power to destroy an  entire  file  structure.  Pursued  by  the K Empire's  sinister  audit  trail,  Princess  Lpr  races  ~ aboard her shell K script, custodian of the stolen listings that could save  her  people,  and , restore freedom and games to the network...                                                 K *  DEC,  PDP,  VAX,  and  UNIBUS  are  trademarks  of   Digital   Equipment :    Corporation.  UNIX is a trademark of Bell Laboratories.  K --------------------------------------------------------------------------- A The Adventures of Luke Vaxhacker                        Episode n K ---------------------------------------------------------------------------   K As we enter the  scene,  an  Imperial  Multiplexer  is  trying  to  kill  a K consulate  ship.  Many  of  their  signals  have  gotten through, and RS232 K decides it's time to fork off  a  new  process  before  this  old  ship  is K destroyed.  His  companion,  3CPU, is following him only because he appears  to know where he's going...   K "I'm going to regret this!" cried 3CPU,  as  he  followed  RS232  into  the K buffer.  RS232  closed  the  pipes,  made  the  sys call, and their process 3 detached itself from the burning shell of the ship.   K The commander of the  Imperial  Multiplexer  was  quite  pleased  with  the K attack.  "Another  process  just  forked,  sir.  Instructions?"  asked  the K lieutenant. "Hold your fire.  That last power failure must  have  caused  a K trap  thorough  zero.  It's not using any cpu time, so don't waste a signal  on it."   ; "We can't seem to find the data file anywhere, Lord Vadic."   K "What about that forked process?  It could have been  holding  the  channel K open,  and  just  pausing.  If any links exist, I want them removed or made K inaccessible.  Ncheck the entire file system 'til it's found, and  nice  it  -20 if you have to."  K Meanwhile, in our wandering process... "Are you sure you  can  ptrace  this K thing  without  causing  a core dump?" queried 3CPU to RS232.  This thing's K been stripped, and I'm in no mood to try and debug it."  The  lone  process K finishes  execution,  only  to  find  our  friends  dumped on a lonely file K system, with the setuid inode stored safely  in  RS232.  Not  knowing  what > else to do, they wandered around until the jawas grabbed them.  K Enter our hero, Luke Vaxhacker, who is out to get  some  replacement  parts K for his uncle.  The jawas wanted to sell him 3CPU, but 3CPU didn't know how K to talk directly to an 11/40 with RSTS, so Luke would still need some  sort K of  interface  for 3CPU to connect to. "How about this little RS232 unit ?" K asked 3CPU. "I've dealt  with  him  many  times  before,  and  he  does  an K excellent  job at keeping his bits straight." Luke was pressed for time, so K he took 3CPU's advice, and the three left before  they  could  get  swapped  out.  K However, RS232 is not the type to stay put once you  remove  the  retaining K screws.  He  promptly  scurried  off  into  the  the  deserted  disk space. K "Great!" cried Luke, "Now I've got this little tin box with the  only  link K to that file off floating in the free disk space.  Well, 3CPU, we better go K find him before he gets allocated by someone else." The two  set  off,  and K finally  traced RS232 to the home of PDP-1 Kenobi, who was busily trying to K run an icheck on the little RS unit. "Is this  thing  yours?  His  indirect K address  are  all goofed up, and the size is gargatious.  Leave things like ? this on the loose, and you'll wind up with  dups  everywhere.     K --------------------------------------------------------------------------- . The Adventures of Luke Vaxhacker			Episode n+1K ---------------------------------------------------------------------------   K Later that evening, after futile attempts to interface  RS232  to  Kenobi's K Asteroids  cartridge,  Luke accidentally crossed the small 'droid's CXR and K Initiate Remote Test (must have been all that Coke he'd consumed), and  the K screen showed a very distressed person claiming royal lineage making a plea ( for help from some General OS/1 Kenobi.   G "Darn," mumbled Luke.  "I'll never get this Asteroids game worked out."   K PDP-1 seemed to think there was some significance  to  the  message  and  a K possible  threat to Luke's home directory. If the Administrative Empire was K indeed tracing this 'droid, it was likely they would more than  charge  for  cpu time...   K "You must help me to mv this 'droid safely to /usr/alderaan," he said after K some intervals. They sped off to warn Luke's kin (taking a `relative' path) # only to find a vacant directory...    K --------------------------------------------------------------------------- . The Adventures of Luke Vaxhacker			Episode n+2K ---------------------------------------------------------------------------   K Luke, PDP-1 and the droids piled  into  Lukes  vehicle  (a  floating  point K model).  They  raced  across  the disc until, off in the distance, Luke saw  smoke rising from the spindle.    K "Uh oh, looks like a bearing failure." exclaimed  Luke.  "Better  call  the  service engineer."    2 "Don't bother," sighed PDP-1, "it's a head crash."  K As they approached the scene, the total devastation  became  apparent.  TTY K fighters  had strafed the surface, scraping off the oxide right down to the K aluminum. After cooking the raw data, the External  Storm  Flunkies  landed K and  finished  the  job  by  disassembling  all  the  code  that  was still 8 executing. There was nothing left alive at Luke's home.   K "I want to become a Red-eye Night and cream the dastardly villains who  did 3 this." Luke resolved (shades of Snidely Whiplash).    K The comrades set out west, or was  it  east,  no...perhaps  it  was  south- K southeast  (it's  hard to keep track of directions when you are spinning at K 3600 RPM). After traveling many sectors, the party finally arrived  at  the  directory /usr/spool/uucp.      K --------------------------------------------------------------------------- . The Adventures of Luke Vaxhacker			Episode n+3K ---------------------------------------------------------------------------   K "Unix-to-Unix Copy Program;" said  PDP-1.  "You  will  never  find  a  more 9 wretched hive of bugs and flamers.  We must be cautious."   K As our heroes' process entered /usr/spool/news, it was met by  a  newsgroup  of Imperial protection bits.  1 "State your UID." commanded their parent process.   K "We're running under /usr/guest.  This is our first time on  this  system," 
 said Luke.  . "Can I see some temporary privileges, please?"   "Uh..."   K "This is not the process you are looking for," piped  in  PDP-1,  using  an K obscure  bug to momentarily set his effective UID to root. "We can go about  our business."  K "This isn't the process we want.  You are free to go about  your  business.S MOV along!"1  K PDP-1 and Luke  made  their  way  through  a  long  and  tortuous  nodelistdK (cwruecmp!decvax!ucbvax!harpo!ihnss!ihnsc!ihnss!ihps3!stolaf!borman)  to  alK dangerous netnode frequented by hackers,  and  seldom  polled  by  Imperial K Multiplexers.  As  Luke  stepped  up  to the bus, PDP-1 went in search of a K likely file descriptor.  Luke had never seen such a collection of weird andoK exotic  device  drivers.  Long  ones,  short ones, ones with stacks, EBCDICeK converters, and direct binary interfaces all were drinking data at the bus.X  K "#@{ *&^%^$$#@ ":><?><" transmitted a particularly  unstructured  piece  of  code.   - "He doesn't like you," decoded his coroutine.   : "Sorry," replied Luke, beginning to backup his partitions.  C "I don't like you either.  I am queued for deletion on 12 systems."    "I'll be careful."  4 "You'll be reallocated!" concatenated the coroutine.  K "This  little  routine  isn't  worth  the  overhead,"  said  PDP-1  Kenobi,r% overlaying into Luke's address space.t  K "@$%&(&^%&$$@$#@$AV^$gfdfRW$#@!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"    encoded    the    first K coroutine as it attempted to overload PDP-1's input overvoltage protection. K With a unary stroke of his bytesaber, Kenobi unlinked the  offensive  code.o6 "I think I've found an I/O device that might suit us."  B "The name's Con Solo.  I hear you're looking for some relocation."  C "Yes indeed, if it's a fast channel.  We must get off this device."l  K "Fast channel?  The Milliamp Falcon has made the ARPA  gate  in  less  than K twelve  nodes!  Why, I've even outrun cancelled messages.  It's fast enoughr for you, old version."  K Our heroes, Luke Vaxhacker and PDP-1 Kenobi made their way to the temporary K file structure.  When he saw the hardware, Luke exclaimed, "What a piece of ( junk!  That's just a paper tape reader!"    K ----------------------------------------------------------------------------. The Adventures of Luke Vaxhacker			Episode n+4K ---------------------------------------------------------------------------   K Luke had grown up on an out of the way terminal cluster whose natives spoke 6 only BASIC, but even he could recognize an old ASR-33.  K "It needs an EIA conversion at least," sniffed 3CPU,  who  was  (as  usual)oK trying  to do several things at once.  Lights flashed in Con Solo's eyes asl* he whirled to face the parallel processor.  K "I've added a few jumpers.  The  Milliamp  Falcon  can  run  current  loopsm= around any Imperial TTY fighter.  She's fast enough for you."i  * "Who's your co-pilot?" asked PDP-1 Kenobi.   "Two Bacco, here, my Bookie."u  K "Odds aren't good," said the  brownish  lump  beside  him,  and  then  fellhK silent, or over.  Luke couldn't tell which way was top underneath all those  leaves.   K Suddenly, RS232 started spacing wildly.  They turned just in time to see  a K write  cycle  coming  down  the UNIBUS toward them. "Imperial Bus Signals!"vK shouted Con Solo. "Let's boot this popsicle stand!  Twoie, set clock fast!"t  K "Ok, Con," said Luke. "You said this crate was fast enough.  Get us out  ofi here!"  K "Shut up, kid!  Two Bacco, prepare to make  the  jump  into  system  space!s% I'll try to keep their buffers full."i  K As the bookie  began  to  compute  the  vectors  into  low  core,  spurious K characters  appeared  around the Milliamp Falcon. "They're firing!" shouted  Luke. "Can't you do something?"   K "Making the jump to system space takes time, kid.  One missed cycle and your? could come down right in the middle of a pack of stack frames!"e  K "Three to five we can go now," said the bookie.  Bright chunks of  position K independent  code  flashed  by  the  cockpit  as the Milliamp Falcon jumped K through the kernel page tables.  As the crew breathed a sigh of relief, theS bookie started paying off bets.   K "Not bad, for an acoustically  coupled  network,"  remarked  3CPU.  "Thought6 there was a little phase jitter as we changed parity."   ,K ---------------------------------------------------------------------------p. The Adventures of Luke Vaxhacker			Episode n+5K ---------------------------------------------------------------------------   K The Milliamp Falcon hurtles onward through system space.  Meanwhile,  on  al distant page in user space...   K Princess Lpr was ushered into the  shared  RAM,  followed  closely  by  DecxK Vadic.  "Governor  Tarchive," she spat, "I should have expected to find youlK holding Vadic's lead. I recognized your unique pattern  when  I  was  firsthK moved  to  this  file  system."  She eyed the 0177545 tatooed on his headero coldly.   K "Charming to the last," Tarchive  declared  menacingly.  "Vadic,  have  you  retrieved any information?"   K "Her resistance to the logic probe is considerable," Vadic rasped. "PerhapsaB we would get faster results if we increased the supply voltage..."  K "You've had your chance, Vadic.  Now I would like the Princess  to  witnessuK the  test  that  will  make  this  workstation fully operational.  Today we-K enable the -r  beam  option,  and  we've  chosen  the  Princess'  $HOME  oft% /usr/alderaan as the primary target."   K "No!  You can't! /usr/alderaan is a  public  account,  with  no  restrictedm5 permissions.  We have no backup tapes!  You can't..."a  . "Then name the rebel inode!" Tarchive snapped.  C A voice announced from a hidden pipe that they had arrived in /usr.e  K "1248," she whispered, "They're on /dev/rm3.  Inode 1248." She turned away..  K Tarchive sighed with satisfaction. "There, you see, Lord Vadic?  She can be ) reasonable.  Proceed with the operation."r  K It took several  clock  ticks  for the  words  to  penetrate.  "What!"  Lpr  gasped.d  K "/dev/rm3 is not a mounted filesystem," Tarchive explained. "We  require  aaK more  visible  subject to demonstrate the power of the RM Star workstation. ? We will mount an attack on /mnt/dantooine as soon as possible."e  K As the Princess watched, Tarchive reached over and piped "ls" into a nearby-K csh.  There was a brief pause, there being only one processor on board, and-K the viewscreen showed, ".: not found." The Princess suddenly  double-spacedn and went off-line. n   uK ---------------------------------------------------------------------------t. The Adventures of Luke Vaxhacker			Episode n+6K ---------------------------------------------------------------------------e  6 The Milliamp Falcon hurtles on through system space...  K Con Solo finished  checking  the  various  control  and  status  registers,oK finally  convincing  himself  that  they  had  lost the Bus Signals as theysK passed the terminator.  As he returned from the I/O page, he smelled smoke.aK Solo  wasn't concerned--the Bookie always got a little hot under the collareK when  he  was  losing  at  chess.  In  fact,  RS232  had  just  executed  alK particularly  clever  MOV  that  had  blocked the Bookie's data paths.  TherK Bookie, who had been setting the odds on the game, was caught  holding  all 0 the cards.  A little strange for a chess game...  K Across the room, Luke was too busy practicing bit-slice technique to notices the commotion.  K "On a word boundary, Luke," said PDP-1. "Don't just hack at  it.  Remember, K the  Bytesaber  is  the  weapon  of  the Red-eye Night.  It is used to trim-K offensive lines of code.  Excess handwaving won't get you anywhere.  Listenr for the Carrier."-  K Luke turned back to the drone, which was humming quietly in the air next toiJ him.  This time Luke's actions complemented the drone's attacks perfectly.  K Con Solo, being an unimaginative hacker, was not  impressed.  "Forget  thise8 bit-slicing stuff.  Give me a good ROM blaster any day."  K "~~j~~hhji~~," said Kenobi, with no clear inflection.  He fell silent for as( few seconds, and reasserted his control.   "What happened?" asked Luke.  K "Strange," said PDP-1. "I felt a momentary  glitch  in  the  Carrier.  It's. equalized now."t  K "We're coming up on user space," called Solo from the CSR.  As they cruisedtK safely  through  stack  frames,  the  emerged in the new context only to be" bombarded by freeblocks.  6 "What the..." gasped Solo.  The screen showed clearly:  1                          /usr/alderaan: not foundg  K "It's the right inode, but it's been cleared!  Twoie, where's  the  nearest! file?"  K "3 to 5 there's one..." the Bookie started to say, but was interrupted by ao bright flash off to the left.p  K "Imperial TTY fighters!" shouted Solo. "A whole DZ of them!  Where are theyf
 coming from?"   K "Can't be far from the host system," said Kenobi. "They all have direct EIA 
 connections."o  K As Solo began to give chase, the ship lurched suddenly.  Luke  noticed  thel) link count was at 3 and climbing rapidly.^  K "This is no regular file," murmured Kenobi.  "Look  at  the  ODS  directory : structure ahead!  They seem to have us in a tractor beam."  C "There's no way we'll unlink in time," said Solo. "We're going in."i    K ---------------------------------------------------------------------------e. The Adventures of Luke Vaxhacker			Episode n+7K ---------------------------------------------------------------------------v  K When we last left Luke, the Milliamp Falcon was being pulled  down  to  the!K open  collector of the Imperial RM Star Workstation.  Dec Vadic surveys theD3 relic as Imperial Flunkies search for passengers...r  K "LS scan shows no one aboard, sir," was the report.  Vadic was unconvinced.n  K "Send a fully equipped Ncheck squad on board," he said. "I want every inodeoC checked out." He turned around (secondary channel) and stalked off.e  K On board the Milliamp Falcon, .Luke was  puzzled.  "They  just  walked  in,eA looked around and walked off," he said. "Why didn't they see us?"   K .Con smiled. "An old munchkin trick," he explained.  "See  that  period  inu front of your name?"  K .Luke spun around, just in time to see the  decimal  point.  "Where'd  thatw come from?" he asked.h  K "Spare decimal points lying around from the last time I fixed the  floating-K point  accelerator,"  said  .Con.  "Handy  for smuggling blocks across fileoK system boundaries, but I never thought I'd have  to  use  them  on  myself.-K They  aren't going to be fooled for long, though.  We'd better figure a wayi outa here."h  ) -----------------------------------------oK << At this point (.) the dialogue tends to wedge.  Being the editor and  indK    total  control  of the situation, I think it would be best if we sort of K    gronk the next few paragraphs.  For those  who  care,  our  heroes  find K    themselves  in  a  terminal  room  of  the  Workstation, having thrashed K    several Flunkies to get there.  For the rest of you, just  keep  banging &    the rocks together, guys.  --Ed. >>,    -----------------------------------------  D "Hold on," said Con. "It says we have `new mail.' Is that an error?"  K "%SYS-W-NORMAL, Normal, successful completion," said PDP-1.  "Doesn't  lookuK like  it.  I've  found  the  inode for the Milliamp Falcon.  It's locked inrK kernel data space.  I'll have to slip in and  patch  the  reference  count,h4 alone." He disappeared through a nearby entry point.  K Meanwhile, RS232 found a serial  port  and  logged  in.  His  bell  starteduK ringing  loudly.  "He  keeps  saying, `She's on line, she's on line'," saidhK 3CPU. "I believe he means Princess Lpr. She's being  held  on  one  of  thet privileged levels."   ) -----------------------------------------iK << Once again, things get sticky, and the dialogue suffers the most damage.uK    After  much  handwaving  and  general flaming, they agree to rescue her.kK    They headed for the detention level, posing as Flunkies (which  is  hard K    for most hackers) claiming that they had trapped the Bookie executing aneK    illegal racket.  They reached the block where the Princess was locked up 5    and found only two guards in the header.  --Ed. >> ,    -----------------------------------------  % "Good day, eh?" said the first guard.   ? "How's it goin', eh?" said the other.  "Like, what's that, eh?".  7 "Process transfer from block 1138, dev 10/9," said Con.a  K "Take off, it is not," said the first guard. "Nobody told US about it,  and- we're not morons, eh?"  K At this point (.), the Bookie started raving wildly, Con shouted "Look out,-K he's loose!" and they all started blasting ROMs left and right.  The guardshK started to catch on and were about to issue a general wakeup when  the  ROMs blasters were turned on them.e  K "Quickly, now," said Con. "What buffer is she in?  It's not going  to  takeI long for these..."  K The intercom receiver interrupted him, so he took out its firmware  with  a  short blast.  K "guys to figure out something is goin' on," he continued. "Here it is, cello> 2187.  Go on Luke, Twoie and I will keep these Flunkies busy."   aK ---------------------------------------------------------------------------c. The Adventures of Luke Vaxhacker			Episode n+8K ---------------------------------------------------------------------------v  K Ok, like, remember we left our heroes  in  the  detention  priority  level?s Well, they're still there...  K Luke quickly located the interface card and followed the cables to a sound-eG proof enclosure.  He lifted the lid and peered at the mechanism inside..  9 "Aren't you a little slow for ECL?" printed Princess Lpr.w  K "Wha?  Oh, the Docksiders," stammered Luke.  He took  off  his  shoes  (for J industry) and explained, "I've come to relocate you.  I'm Luke Vaxhacker."  K Suddenly, forms started bursting around them. "They've blocked the  queue!"n8 shouted Solo. "There's only one return from this stack!"  K "OVER HERE!" printed Lpr  with overstrikes.  "THROUGH THIS  LOOPHOLE!" LukeP3 and the Princess disappeared into a nearby feature.k  K "Gritch, gritch," mumbled  Two  Bacco,  obviously  reluctant  to  trust  ans Administrative oversight.   K "I don't care how crufty it is!" shouted Con, pushing the Bookie toward the # crock. "DPB yourself in there now!"e  K With one last blast that reprogrammed two flunkies, Con  joined  them.  ThesK "feature"  landed  them right in the middle of the garbage collection data.aK Pieces of code that hadn't been used in weeks floated past  in  a  pool  ofn decaying bits.  K "Bletch!" was Con's first comment. "Bletch, bletch," was  his  second.  The-K Bookie  looked  as  if  he'd  just  paid  a long shot, and the odds in this  situation weren't much better.  K Luke was polling the garbage when he stumbled upon a book  with  the  words-K "Don't  Panic"  inscribed  in  large,  friendly letters on the cover. "Thiso@ can't possibly help us now," he said as he tossed the book away.  K The Bookie was about to lay odds on it when Luke suddenly  disappeared.  HesK popped up across the pool, shouting, "This is no feature!  It's a bug!" anda promptly vanished again.  K Con and the Princess were about to  panic()  when  Luke  reappeared.  "What " happened?" they asked in parallel.  K "I don't know," gasped Luke. "The bug just dissolved  automagically.  Maybe  it hit a breakpoint..."   K "I don't think so," said Con. "Look how the pool is shrinking.  I've got  a  bad feeling about this..."  K The Princess  was  the  first  to  realize  what  was  going  on.  "They'ven7 implemented a new compaction algorithm!" she exclaimed.d  K Luke remembered the pipe he had open to 3CPU. "Shut down garbage collectiono( above segment boundary $05!" he shouted.  K Back in the control room, RS232 searched the process  table  for  the  lisp K interpreter.  "Hurry,"  sent  3CPU.  "Hurry,  hurry,"  added  his other twoyK processors.  RS232 found the interpreter, interrupted it, and  altered  the 8 stack frame they'd fallen into to allow a normal return.  K Join us next time when we hear the bowl  of  petunias  say,  "Oh,  no,  notM again."a   yK ---------------------------------------------------------------------------o. The Adventures of Luke Vaxhacker			Episode n+9K ---------------------------------------------------------------------------   K PDP-1 made his way deep into the core of  the  Workstation,  slipping  fromsK context  to  context,  undetected  through  his  manipulation  of  label_t.rK Finally, causing a random trap (through nofault of his own) he  arrived  at K the inode table. Activity there was always high, but the Spl6 sentries were K too secure in their knowledge that no user could interrupt them  to  noticerK the bug that PDP-1 carefully introduced. On a passing iput, he adjusted thekK device and inode numbers, maintaining parity, to free the Milliamp  Falcon. A They would be long gone before the locked inode was diagnosed... e  K Unobserved, he began traversing user structures to find the  process  where K the  Milliamp  Falcon  was  grounded.  Finding it and switching context, heeK discovered his priority weakened suddenly. "That's not very nice," was  allg? he could say before the cause of the obstruction became clear.    K "I have been pausing a long time, PDP-1 Kenobi," rasped Dec Vadic. "We meete0 again at last. The circuit has been completed."   K They looped several times, locking byte sabers. Bit by bit, PDP-1  appeared-K to  weaken.  The  fight  had  come  into  the address space of the Milliamp7K Falcon, and provided the .di (diversion?) that allowed Luke and the  othersv8 to reassert control. Luke paused to watch the conflict.   K "If my blade finds its mark," warned Kenobi, "you will  be  reduced  to  soeH many bits. But if you slice me down, I will only gain computing power."   K "Your documentation no longer confuses me, old version," growled Vadic.  "InK am  the  scheduler  now.  At last we'll see who the real file master is" hedK remarked.  Bits, bytes, words, and nybbles flew as the two fought  for  busn mastership.   K PDP-1 exclaimed "You were my best subtask! How could you have been  seduced K by  the  sideband  portion  of the carrier?". "It's simple," Vadic said, "Ih enjoy obscure protocol". "  K While the battle continued, Luke, Con, Bookie, and the Princess  linked  up K with  the  droids  and found their way back to the inode where the MilliampeK Falcon was stored. It looked quiet, but, Luke said, "It  could  be  an  MMU K trap."  "No  chance,"  said  Con,  "I  loaded  the  par's before I left themK Falcon." As they started toward it a squad of recursive  functions  swapped K in and started firing ROM blasters at them. "I thought you said it couldn'thK be a trap" quipped Luke "I said no chance for an MMU trap this is obviouslye# a k-mon--f-trap-to 4" Con replied. e  K PDP-1 shouted at the others "Run while you can! I'll cause wait  states  asfK long  as  possible!"  With  one  stroke,  Vadic  sliced Kenobi's last word.hK Unfortunately, the word was still in Kenobi's throat. The word  fell  cleaniK in  two, but Kenobi was nowhere to be found. Vadic noticed his victim's uideK go negative, just before he disappeared. Odd, he thought, since  uids  were- unsigned...   K Luke witnessed all this, and had to be dragged into  the  Milliamp  Falcon. K Con  Solo  and Two Bacco maneuvered the Milliamp Falcon out of the process,uK onto the bus, and made straight for system space. 3CPU and RS232 were idle,rK for  once.  Princess Lpr tried to print comforting things for him, but LukehK was still hung from the loss of his friend. Then, seemingly  from  nowhere,u' he thought he heard PDP-1's voice say,      		"May the Carrier be with you."  K The Milliamp  Falcon  was  restarted  and  managed  to  escape  the  shell.eK "Quickly!"  shouted Con, "We've got to warp into virtual space!" The Bookie K made several attempts, but it was obvious that a CE had not done  PM  in  ayK long  time and it would take a lot of decimal adjusts to byte align all the K data registers.  After much debugging, virtual space was finally  achieved.nK "Do  you  know the path?" asked Princess Lpr. "No sweat", said Con, "All weh( have to do is check the free space map".    K --------------------------------------------------------------------------- / The Adventures of Luke Vaxhacker			Episode n+10>K ---------------------------------------------------------------------------f  K The DECTAPE drive was not a habitable world.  Many  files  and  directories.K had  lived  here once, but now all that remained were some crufty pieces of K data which had been long since abandoned.  Deep inside the drive, we rejoino# our heroes in the briefing room....o  K "The RM Star Workstation you have all heard of is approaching from the  fartK side  of  the  bus,"  said  General Micronta. "It must be stopped before iteK reaches this drive, before it brings its recursion  on  us  as  it  did  onmK /usr/alderaan."  "The  workstation  is  heavily  shielded,  and mounts moretK firepower than half the Administrative fleet.  But a small  fighter  should * be able to penetrate the protection bits."  K "We've found a bug in the defense algorithm,"  he  continued.  "It's  in  a1K small  wormhole, just big enough for one of our PTY fighters.  But a direct-E hit will cause a chain reaction and the entire thing will dump core."    A few hours later......r  K RS232 was being plugged into the socket  behind  Luke's  cockpit.  Finally,-K all  was  ready.  One  by  one,  the  PTY fighters popped off the stack andi cycled toward the RM Star.  K "Cdr boys, this is Cdr leader.  Adjust your parentheses and check  in.  CdrbK Two,  you're  too  far out.  Close it up." When all members of the squadronn: were in formation, the leader gave the command. "Execute!"  K "Accelerate to attack frequency," commanded the Cdr  leader.  "Car  leader,s2 this is Cdr leader.  We're in position, go on in."  K The Administrative tacticians had expected the rebels to defend their  tapenK drive,  they  were  completely  unprepared for an offensive attack.  But itnK didn't take them long to alter their thinking.  Soon, the  attacking  rebelH. forces had been cut down to half their number.  K "This is Cdr Five," said Luke, as he DPB'd into the  wormhole.  "I'm  going  in."  + "Right behind you, Cdr Five," said Cdr Two.   K Luke sighted the bug, and turned to adjust his  controls.  He  turned  back 0 just in time to see a write cycle coming at him.  K "LDB!  LDB!" screamed Cdr Two.  But Luke realized he didn't have  time.  He K closed  his  eyes, and when he opened them, he realized he was still in one / piece.  The write cycle hadn't done any damage.    --------------------------K At this point (.), things start getting a little drawn out.  Suffice it  to K say  that  the  Administration  sends  out its TTY fighters, and a dogfighttK ensues.  Both sides sustain losses, and  then  it's  Car  squad's  turn  tosK attack  the bug.  They fail.  The rest of the Cdr squad tries, comes close, K and fails.  Meanwhile, Dec Vadic himself has come out in a TTY  fighter  toaK beat  the  rebels  once  and  for  all.  Now it's Luke's turn to attack thee bug....  --------------------------  K Luke studied his instruments, and fought with a control which seemed to  bevK malfunctioning.  Suddenly,  a  voice  sounded  in  his  ears.  "Trust  youraK feelings, Luke," was all it said. Luke didn't have time to worry about  it.dK Vadic  and  two other TTY fighters were right on his tail, followed closely.* by two other members of the Cdr squadron.   > "Fork, guys," said Luke.  "It's the only way we'll take them."  K The three PTY fighters branched off in different directions.  All three TTYnK fighters  followed  Luke.  Vadic fired on Luke's ship, missed, and frowned. = "The Carrier is strong with this one.  I'll take him myself."b  K Vadic fired again. Luke didn't see the blast behind him, nor did he  noticehK that  RS232  had  gone down. All three TTY fighters were still right behind"K him. Suddenly, one of the ships went crashing  into  the  workstation.  ThetK remaining  wing man looked around for the source of the attack. He had onlyoK a jiffy to see the ASR-33 before he bought the farm too. Vadic's ship begansK spinning  helplessly. Conpletely out of control, Vadic was sent to the vast- reaches of /dev/null.   G "You're all clear, kid.  Let's blow this mother and go home," said Con.-  K Luke looked up and smiled.  Then he looked  back  at  what  he  was  doing.sF There was a tingling in his head as he looked through the rangefinder.  K "Luke......trust me," said the tingle.  Luke gave in, and closed his  eyes.cK The  next  thing  he new, he was headed back for the tape drive.  He didn't K remember firing the write  cycles,  but  he  must  have.  Behind  him,  theeK workstation shattered into millions of bits, bytes, cookies, and registers.h   PK ---------------------------------------------------------------------------e/ The Adventures of Luke Vaxhacker			Episode n+11pK ---------------------------------------------------------------------------e  ? 	The beginning of Empire Strikes Back -- the Abominable Snowmano 	and the Battle. lK ---------------------------------------------------------------------------r/ The Adventures of Luke Vaxhacker			Episode n+12rK ---------------------------------------------------------------------------l   Some months later...  K Luke was feeling rather bored. 3CPU could get to be rather  irritating  andTK RS232  didn't  really speak Luke's language.  Suddenly, Luke felt someone'saK eyes  boring  through  the  back  of  his  skull.   He  turned  slowly   to B see...nothing.  A quiet voice came from somewhere in front of him.  K "Grasshopper, the carrier is strong within you." Luke froze,  which  was  atK good  thing  since  his  legs  were  insisting that he run but they weren'tiK likely to be particular about direction.  Luke guessed  that  his  odds  ofiK getting lost in the dense tree structures were pretty good.  Unfortunately,n the Bookie wasn't available.  K "Yes.  Very strong, but the modulation is yet weak.  His network  interfacedK is  totally  undeveloped,"  the  voice  continued.  A  small furry creaturehK walked out of the woods as Luke stared on.  Luke's stomach had  now  joinedeK the  rest  of his body in loud complaints.  Whatever was peering at him wasiK certainly small and furry, but Luke was quite sure that it didn't come fromB Alpha Centauri.i  K "Well, well," said the creature as it rolled its eyes  at  Luke.  "Frobozz,eK y'know.  Morning,  name's  Modem.  What's  your game?  Adventure?  D&D?  OruK are you just one of those Apple-pong  types  that  hang  around  the  storeeK demonstrations?"  Luke  closed his eyes.  Perhaps if he couldn't see it, itn wouldn't notice him.  K "Hmm," muttered the creature. "Must  use  a  different  protocol.  @@@H  @@t% @($@@@H }"@G$ @#@@G'(o% @@@@@%%H(b ?"   K "No, no," stammered Luke. "I don't speak EBCDIC.  I was sent here to becomeh- a UNIX wizard.  Must have the wrong address."u  K "Right address," said the creature. "I'm a UNIX wizard.  Device  drivers  ae: specialty.  Or do you prefer playing with virtual memory?"  K Luke eyed the creature cautiously.  If this was  what  happened  to  systemnK wizards  after  years  of  late  night  crashes, Luke wasn't sure he wantedOK anything to do with it.  He felt  a  strange  affection  for  the  familiaraK microcomputers  of  his home.  And wasn't virtual memory something that youm  got from drinking too much Coke?   e< ------------------------------------------------------------G << rest of empire strikes back, especially getting to the user haven, ar!    directory unconnected to /. >> = -------------------------------------------------------------n) << Return of the Jedi, if and when ... >> = -------------------------------------------------------------c