On Fri, 1 Jun 2007 08:09:37 EDT, IBM Mainframe Discussion List <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>A lighten-up topic for Friday which was, like, inspired by conversations with, >like, my 8- and 11-year-old grandsons who are currently, like, visiting with >us. >What if the dry, sometimes boring Principles of Operation had been written >in the pop American style of spoken English? We might see something like the >following: > >"LOAD, you know, ADDRESS?? [1] >Like, the address specified by the, you know, X2, B2, and, you know, D2 >fields is, like, actually placed in general register R1?? The address >computation, like, totally follows the rules for address arithmetic?? In the >24-bit addressing mode, the address is, you know, like totally placed in bit >positions, like, 40-63, bits 32-39 are actually set to, like, zeros, and bits >0-31 essentially remain unchanged?? Check it out, Dude! [3]" > >Thankfully, technical writers do not write the way people speak. > >Bill Fairchild >Plainfield, IL > >[1] The double question mark indicates that the declarative statement, >if spoken, should end with a rising tone of voice indicating extreme >tentativeness >[2] on the part of the speaker. >[2] The speaker must never give any indication that a dogmatic value >judgment has just been stated, such as a belief that the statement might >be true. >[3] An emphatic, non-tentative tonal quality is permitted if the statement >ends with "Dude!". > Fer shure.....like.....dude?! Oh the doo-dah day..... Speaking of POPs (gray old guys like us), but Principles of Operations for this discussion.....I remember a number of years ago when the two guys who write the code of IOF found an error in their Assembler instructions after we reported a problem. Upon futher research, they concluded that it was due to a misreading of the "Principles of Operations" manual. So they sent us a sign... ....a black & white pic of a Mickey Mouse head/face with a scowl, grimace and frown on his face.....and below it, the caption read: "Thou Shall NOT Disobey the Principles of Operations." I keep it hanging in my office to this day. .....mhyI ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
