3 ms·

The SAIL source to Les Earnest's finger program is here[0]. [0] https://www.saildart.org/FINGER.SAI[P,SYS] https://www.saildart.org/FINGER.SAI[P,SYS]

by tjalfi 8y ago

imglorp 8y ago
SAIL, that's a name I haven't heard in a long time. Fun story, VLSI Technologies (chip maker, later eaten by Phillips in 1999) wrote a bunch of its internal CAD systems in SAIL. It was stuff like routing and layout and simulation. They had a group maintaining SAIL tools as well. Oh they were also big into ClearCase, and had a whole team administering a policy layer for that. Not optimal.
stevenAthompson 8y ago
I have a hard time believing that this isn't all an elaborate prank, given the name Les Earnest (less earnest). I wonder if that was a regular problem for him?
- tjalfi 8y ago
  He also got an FBI record at the age of 11[0]. HN discussion is here[1]. [0] http://web.stanford.edu/~learnest/les/crypto.htm http://web.stanford.edu/~learnest/les/crypto.htm [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14229412 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14229412
49bc 8y ago
> ! SORT does a bubble sort by PN on the active jobs.; “Thank you for applying for a job here. We took a look at your code examples and don’t think you have enough experience with algorithms to meet the high bar here at $BIGCO.”
Mister_Snuggles 8y ago
That source code seems very strange. I'm not even sure what language it is. On one hand, some things feel a high-level as C - such as many of the procs starting with "proc oops". On the other hand, things like "proc netloc" seem to have a chunk of assembly embedded in the middle of it. The use of symbols in the code (e.g., "←", which seems to be the assignment operator) is also interesting. Even though I don't fully understand it, I find old code like this absolutely fascinating. I also feel the same way about old electronics/electrical manuals.
- TurkTurkleton 8y ago
  Like tjalfi said, it's SAIL [0]. It was an ALGOL derivative. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAIL_(programming_language) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAIL_(programming_language)
  - Mister_Snuggles 8y ago
    Oh! I thought SAIL meant Stanford AI Lab in that context, I had no idea that it was a programming language too. Thanks!
- sebcat 8y ago
  > The use of symbols in the code (e.g., "←", which seems to be the assignment operator) is also interesting. Looks like they had their own character set [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_Extended_ASCII https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_Extended_ASCII

The SAIL source to Les Earnest's finger program is here[0]. [0] https://www.saildart.org/FINGER.SAI[P,SYS] https://www.saildart.org/FINGER.SAI[P,SYS]

by tjalfi 8y ago

The SAIL source to Les Earnest's finger program is here[0]. [0] https://www.saildart.org/FINGER.SAI[P,SYS] https://www.saildart.org/FINGER.SAI[P,SYS]

imglorp 8y ago

SAIL, that's a name I haven't heard in a long time. Fun story, VLSI Technologies (chip maker, later eaten by Phillips in 1999) wrote a bunch of its internal CAD systems in SAIL. It was stuff like routing and layout and simulation. They had a group maintaining SAIL tools as well. Oh they were also big into ClearCase, and had a whole team administering a policy layer for that. Not optimal.

stevenAthompson 8y ago

I have a hard time believing that this isn't all an elaborate prank, given the name Les Earnest (less earnest). I wonder if that was a regular problem for him?

tjalfi 8y ago
He also got an FBI record at the age of 11[0]. HN discussion is here[1]. [0] http://web.stanford.edu/~learnest/les/crypto.htm http://web.stanford.edu/~learnest/les/crypto.htm [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14229412 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14229412

49bc 8y ago

> ! SORT does a bubble sort by PN on the active jobs.; “Thank you for applying for a job here. We took a look at your code examples and don’t think you have enough experience with algorithms to meet the high bar here at $BIGCO.”

Mister_Snuggles 8y ago

That source code seems very strange. I'm not even sure what language it is. On one hand, some things feel a high-level as C - such as many of the procs starting with "proc oops". On the other hand, things like "proc netloc" seem to have a chunk of assembly embedded in the middle of it. The use of symbols in the code (e.g., "←", which seems to be the assignment operator) is also interesting. Even though I don't fully understand it, I find old code like this absolutely fascinating. I also feel the same way about old electronics/electrical manuals.

TurkTurkleton 8y ago
Like tjalfi said, it's SAIL [0]. It was an ALGOL derivative. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAIL_(programming_language) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAIL_(programming_language)
- Mister_Snuggles 8y ago
  Oh! I thought SAIL meant Stanford AI Lab in that context, I had no idea that it was a programming language too. Thanks!
sebcat 8y ago
> The use of symbols in the code (e.g., "←", which seems to be the assignment operator) is also interesting. Looks like they had their own character set [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_Extended_ASCII https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_Extended_ASCII