h X-NEWS: spcvxb comp.os.vms: 8039Relay-Version: VMS News - V6.0 10/3/90 VAX/VMS V5.3; site spcvxb.spc.eduY Path: spcvxb.spc.edu!njin!rutgers!ucsd!ucbvax!PUCC.PRINCETON.EDU!MEEHAN%tech2.printech.ie  Newsgroups: comp.os.vms , Subject: A little light humor: VAXtrek Story- Message-ID: <2A41378AB15F800DB1@ccvax.ucd.ie> Y From: MEEHAN%tech2.printech.ie@PUCC.PRINCETON.EDU ("Eoin Meehan, Printech International")  Date: 27 Sep 90 18:52:00 GMT" Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: The Internet
 Lines: 211  	 Hi Folks,   ? The following is a little humour written by Tom Wade of EuroKom . and Eoin Meehan of Printech International plc.  < We hope it lightens your day! Distribute or destroy at will!L ----------------------------------------------------------------------------  L V A X T R E K                                   (c) Tom Wade and Eoin Meehan  F These are the voyages of the StarVAX ENTERP::, it's five-year mission:F to explore strange new nodes, to seek out new protocols, new hardware-I to boldly address where no call-request packet has been addressed before!   , "Captain's Log - Etherdate 0B-00-0D-7B-EF-A8  K The StarVAX ENTERP:: is in standard orbit around a strange, hostile, barren L system. Previous Federation scouting missions have disappeared without traceG and the we have been sent to find out what happened. The only reference J the ships computer has is an alien symbol transmitted back to VAXbase by aK previous expedition before it disappeared -  "/usr/etc/planet". What can it  mean?"  H System Programmer Spock leaned over his OPA0: and tried to penetrate theN dense shell surrounding this barren rock, but even photon protocols were being
 deflected.E     "Spock, what do you think?" inquired Kirk from his command chair. H     "It's illogical, Captain" he toned in his level Vulcan manner. "I'veM tried communicating in every protocol known to VAXfleet in every combination. M I have tried DDCMP, X.25, SNA, BSC, IPARS, ASYNC, SYNC, ASCII, EBCDIC, EBCD - * even BAUDOT and MORSE! Nothing registers!"  J      Kirk's communicator warbled for attention. He pressed the RET button.     "Kirk here" L     "Scott here Captain. I dinnae think the Etherdrives will hold out on theK journey back to VAXbase. We need fresh, empty packets. ETA0: is down to 20% N free and ETA1: is nearly at 0%! We've detected natural ethercables down on theD planet. Our only chance is to try to interface to that thing with an
 Etherbridge!" H      "Impossible, Scotty" replied Kirk. "No-one has managed to interfaceJ to a system like that -  I've never come across this before - but I have a feeling ... it's a Unix"J      A hush decended on the bridge. Operator Sulu did not have to be told:E he declared Red Alert. Sirens echoed around the ship, as audit alarms 
 were enabled. A      "A Unix, Captain?" inquired NetManager Uhura. "What's that?" ?      "A Unix - Unnatural Network Interface eXtended - they were I outlawed by the Committee for the Continuation of Intergalactic Thankless F Tasks at their last meeting on Regulus IV. You know, the one where theI Institute for Badly-made Machines finally declared an end their fruitless L research into a Tokenring warpdrive after two centuries. But I never thought I'd actually see one. I      "Scotty, we have no choice - we'll have to PAD down. Could you break E that shell just long enough for the TRA0: to open a virtual channel?" E      "Aye, Cap'n" replied Scotty. "If we fire enough RTLLCUAs (Random K two-letter lower-case unintelligible acronyms) at it theres a chance we can K crash it's shell. But we could also zap our own root and I dinnae think the  engines'l take that!" L      "OK, Scotty, we'll have to risk it. Spock, join me in the PAD room withJ a portable Etherbridge. I'll also want a team of Security ACLs. Let's go!"  E      Kirk and Spock stood on the PAD. "Set your PHA0:s for high-water I marking" Kirk ordered. "We're taking no chances. Anything that attacks us & will get zeroed AND erased. Energise!"E      Scotty threw the Fast Select switch and Kirk, Spock and the ACLs F were dispatched to the surface of the hostile ball of electronic hell.  D      They reassembled on a barren wasteland. Kirk had to shout to beL heard above the noise. "Remember STOP/ID first and find out the process-name later!" 9      A voice boomed out. "su ; grep /user/vaxling/* | rm" > (roughly translated: load your guns and find the vaxlings, and when you do, destroy them).   J      Kirk and his party dived for cover. "I AM CAPTAIN KIRK OF THE STARVAX- ENTERP::. WE ARE HERE ON A PEACEFUL MISSION!" ,      The creature took no notice whatsoever.G      "Captain", Spock interjected. "I seem to recall that the Unix only  speaks in lower-case."B      "Uh, right, thanks Spock". Kirk turned to the creature again.J      "i am captain kirk of the starvax enterp::. we are here on a peaceful	 mission." L      A shadow of recognition and what might pass for intelligence registeredJ on the creatures face. But then it began roaring "urm star!" over and over  again. It approached menacingly.G     "Spock, try some SMTP on him" Kirk shouted. "Every half-intelligent + system in the Galaxy can converse in SMTP!"    Spock:      helo unix  Creature:   "helo: not found" ? Spock:      mail from: spock@enterp.vaxfleet.earth.sol.milkyway . Creature:   "Usage: mail [user] [-pxhduytbnc]"  D      Spock shouted. "Captain, try giving it some vowels. It seems to be somewhat lacking in those!"C      Kirk took out his VAXfleet Alien eXtended Gift Pack for eXtra- J terrestrials (VAXgpx) and slowly showed the vowels to the creature. "Here,K Creature. These are good, logical, vowels. See - SHOW TIME, DIRECTORY, COPY   even ANALYZE/ERROR/SINCE=TODAY!";      "CAPTAIN!! They're not in lower-case!!!" Spock warned. G      At the sight of the logical, case-independant vowels, the creature G seemed to get very annoyed and began to bear down on the landing party. G      "Take cover!", Kirk shouted, "Spock, try to locate his process ID, = I'll see if I can stun him with a Force Exit System Service".   H      Spock pointed his Tricorder and expertly searched for the creaturesK PID. "Urm star!" the creature kept roaring. Suddenly, a burst of electrical N energy erupted from the creatures talons and a plasma deletion-asterisk lancedP toward the party. An ACL wasn't quick enough and the asterisk caught him full inC the chest. He was instantly transformed into a symbolic stack dump.   E      "$REPLY/TO=SYSTEM 'PID found Captain. It's 2CF!'" shouted Spock. 7      "$PHASER = 2CF            (= Set phasers to kill)" )      "$STOP/ID =''PHASER'      (= Fire!)"   H      The Super-User crashed to the ground in the midst of a core dump asJ the entire landing party opened multiple input channels from their PHA0:s.C      Kirk walked over to the remains of the entity. "A core dump is  always an ugly sight!"G      "Looks like the shell is disintegrating also, Captain" said Spock. D      Kirk agreed. "Let's get our Etherdrive packets then PAD back toM the ENTERP::. I've had enough of this Unix. There's a natural ethercable over I there. System Programmer Spock, attach the etherbridge, enable NETMBX and  send up the packets"  K Spock attached the H4005 and plugged the AUI cable into the etherbridge. He   flipped opened his communicator.        "FTP ENTERP" /      %I-TRYCONN-Attempting to connect to ENTERP 0      220 USS Enterprise, go ahead landing party.      "Login Spock"&      331 Please verify identification.      "UHURA-HAS-A-CUTE-BUM" #      230 Password correct, proceed.       "SEND ETHERPACKETS"%      200 Port 42,1701,1,1,138,80 Okay 0      125 Packets are present - sending contents.      226 closing connection.2      %I-FTP-GONE-Transferred 1008700 bytes in 4 s.      "Exit" 6      221 closing connection, may the Force be with you  K      "Smart ass FTP server", mumbled Spock. "15 recoverable media errors on  device TRA0, captain".7      "OK, Spock. let's get out of here", answered Kirk. 5      Kirk pressed the RET button on his communicator.       "Kirk to ENTERP::"       Static hiss answered.  F      Spock held up his tricorder. The words "Unexpected System Service! Exception" lit up on the display.aD      "Captain, we appear to have lost our connection to the ENTERP::, Tricorder indicates Network Partner Exited".  F      "%F-COMMAND-EXPLETIV-Damn it Spock, we're stranded -- and it's at+      least 50 parsecs to the nearest Inode"e  H      "%I-OPCOM-RESPONSE-Captain, I suggest we take cover among that pileE      of free blocks to the east, until we can regain contact with theS      ENTERP::"  G The Free Blocks turned out to be the remains of a small inode which had2I been wiped out by a recent plague. From the remains of several log files, I they tried to deduce what had happened, but the only clue was the cryptictK message scrawled in blood on a nearby struct which said "remember to relink-& it nodebug before you distribute it!".  K By that monument to Secure Software Distribution they set their translatione0 attributes to Concealed and entered a HIB state.  %                             * * * * *s  L Field Service Engineer Scott was worried as he sat in the console chair. TheH Enterprise had lost contact with the landing party. The etherdrives wereI replenished and had passed all the diagnostic tests, but the ethernet wasr a different story.  H Well, in fact, it's really part of this story, so we'll tell you anyway.  K Somebody was jabbering. The whole ether, presumably as far as the AndromedaeI Repeater was jammed by a continuous burst of noise from the planet below.bF "If we cannae get this sorted oot, it'll be back to the Async drives",H he said to the hushed bridge, "and that'll mean nearly five years to get= to the nearest Router, assuming no data overruns, of course."o  C McCoy, the Diagnostic Supervisor, was in no better mood.  "It's alldE that pointy-eared programmers fault", he said, "why couldn't he leavea it to remote diagnostics ?"e  G "Mr Scott", said Operator Uhura, "message coming in on Port 25 from theX# planet. Switching to Bridge relay".t  H "attn aln spccrft", intoned the voice, "y wll srrndr yr shp immdtly, r y$ wll b blstd by r plntry dfns systms"    E WHAT IS THIS LATEST THREAT TO THE BRAVE CREW OF THE STARVAX ENTERP::?o8 WILL KIRK AND SPOCK SURVIVE ON THE DESOLATE /usr/planet?* WILL SCOTTY BE ABLE BREAK THE ETHERBABBLE? DOES UHURA HAVE A CUTE BUM?d   TUNE IN TO THE NEXT EPISODE OF:n  &                          V A X T R E K  ?                                          ON A NETWORK NEAR YOU!a   fade out ...: swish ... uuuuu ... uuuuu uu uuu uu uu uuuuu ... swish ... (thats the theme)l