Re: GLOAT BLOAT (Was: Boot messages, Ideas for v2.1)

Fred Love (flove@mindspring.com)
Mon, 24 Jun 1996 19:44:15 -0400

Systemkennung Linux wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> > When I did my Linux parallel port driver rewrite some years ago, the
> > original author had put a comment something like "/* unknown error;
> > on fire? */ under a conditional. I liked it so much I turned it into
> > an error message (for better or worse...) that said "lp on fire".
> > I had never seen that error message in any other unix (at the time,
> > I had only used BSD on a VAX and SunOS, none of the machines I used
> > *had* an lp device, and I wasn't the sysadmin anyway).
> >
> > Just out of curiousity, can you name any of those older unices with
> > the same error message?
>
> Not a UNIX, but a CPU with a similar thing. One of the first versions
> of a CPU, I think it was the Z80, had a debugging instruction left in
> the instruction set that would toggle the voltage levels on one pin
> as fast as possible. This turned out to be let lethal to the electronics
> and so the instruction was named "Halt and catch fire".
>
> Can't even remember where I got this story from or if it's a urban legend
> of the computer bussines, so just take it for your personal amusement,
>
> Ralf

No debug instructions in the Z80 instruction set, only one output
instruction was left undocumented by Mostek.

Fred 

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