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  • xkcd

    From BCFD 36@3:633/10 to All on Mon Jul 27 11:18:05 2026
    https://xkcd.com/3277/

    I didn't get it until seeing the alt text.

    --
    ----------------

    Dave Scruggs
    Senior Software Engineer - Lockheed Martin, et. al (mostly Retired)
    Captain - Boulder Creek Fire (Retired)
    Board of Directors - Boulder Creek Fire Protection District (What was I thinking?)


    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Cryptoengineer@3:633/10 to All on Mon Jul 27 17:44:21 2026
    On 7/27/2026 2:18 PM, BCFD 36 wrote:
    https://xkcd.com/3277/

    I didn't get it until seeing the alt text.


    I got it, but I'd was doing a little Forth
    programming back in the 80s.

    Postscript is very similar. Early PS
    printers had full fledged computer
    capabilities, and you could write
    programs for them in PS. I did this.

    Very soon, the security issues of
    having a networked computer that anyone
    could send executable code to led to
    the PS interpreters being locked down,
    with all the fun stuff removed.

    pt

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Garrett Wollman@3:633/10 to All on Mon Jul 27 22:51:11 2026
    In article <1148jfl$3idt1$1@dont-email.me>,
    Cryptoengineer <petertrei@gmail.com> wrote:

    Postscript is very similar. Early PS
    printers had full fledged computer
    capabilities, and you could write
    programs for them in PS. I did this.

    There was an International Obfuscated PostScript Code Contest in 1993.

    I still have a copy of `Tiny_RayTracing.ps`, one of the entries, which
    took about half an hour to render on a LaserJet 4Si MX (much longer on
    an original LaserWriter); it's only 762 bytes (not including the
    initial comment). You can see the whole results at <https://stuff.mit.edu/afs/sipb/contrib/postscript/obfuscated-1993/>.
    The overall winner was labyrinth.ps by David Bau, who (after a couple
    of decades in industry) got a Ph.D. in machine learning in the 2010s
    and now tries to explain how large models actually work.

    I don't think there was another contest after 1993.

    -GAWollman

    --
    Garrett A. Wollman | "Act to avoid constraining the future; if you can, wollman@bimajority.org| act to remove constraint from the future. This is Opinions not shared by| a thing you can do, are able to do, to do together."
    my employers. | - Graydon Saunders, _A Succession of Bad Days_ (2015)

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Paul S Person@3:633/10 to All on Tue Jul 28 09:08:24 2026
    On Mon, 27 Jul 2026 22:51:11 -0000 (UTC),
    wollman@hergotha.csail.mit.edu (Garrett Wollman) wrote:

    In article <1148jfl$3idt1$1@dont-email.me>,
    Cryptoengineer <petertrei@gmail.com> wrote:

    Postscript is very similar. Early PS
    printers had full fledged computer
    capabilities, and you could write
    programs for them in PS. I did this.

    In the early 80s, I used Loeliger's /Threated Interpretive Languages/
    to write one on a North Star Horizon. This experience helped me when I
    had to figure out why a program I was trying to replicate was failing
    to to subscripts in PS but could do superscripts fine: I recovered my
    ability to think my way through the stack and found the error. My
    version of the program does subscripts just fine.

    There was an International Obfuscated PostScript Code Contest in 1993.

    There were several Obfuscated C contests over the years as well. And,
    for all I know, for other languages as well.

    I still have a copy of `Tiny_RayTracing.ps`, one of the entries, which
    took about half an hour to render on a LaserJet 4Si MX (much longer on
    an original LaserWriter); it's only 762 bytes (not including the
    initial comment). You can see the whole results at ><https://stuff.mit.edu/afs/sipb/contrib/postscript/obfuscated-1993/>.
    The overall winner was labyrinth.ps by David Bau, who (after a couple
    of decades in industry) got a Ph.D. in machine learning in the 2010s
    and now tries to explain how large models actually work.

    That, after considerable churning, produces an FTP page in the
    browser. The file mentioned is listed there, and may be useable, who
    can say?

    I don't think there was another contest after 1993.
    --
    "Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,
    Who evil spoke of everyone but God,
    Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)