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Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.bugs Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!constellation!osuunx.ucc.okstate.edu!moe.ksu.ksu.edu!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!torn!nott!cunews!revcan!gjk!diana!db From: db@diana.ocunix.on.ca (Dyane Bruce) Subject: Re: bcd bug Message-ID: <1993Nov7.134038.18575@diana.ocunix.on.ca> Organization: db Software References: <1993Nov4.171732.8141@diana.ocunix.on.ca> <18891@auspex-gw.auspex.com> Date: Sun, 7 Nov 1993 13:40:38 GMT Lines: 45 In article <18891@auspex-gw.auspex.com> guy@Auspex.COM (Guy Harris) writes: >> This bug is also in SUNOS 4.1 so it is in the original bsd sources. > >Try "original AT&T sources", unless the V7 version of "bcd" didn't have >the bug. > >(I.e., Berkeley didn't invent "bcd".) I realized that. The source to the bsd version quite clearly states it was a clone of the original V7 'bcd' done by looking at the man page, and using a shell script to observe the output. Steve Hayman says in the comments at the top... /* * bcd -- * * Read one line of standard input and produce something that looks like a * punch card. An attempt to reimplement /usr/games/bcd. All I looked at * was the man page. * * I couldn't find a BCD table handy so I wrote a shell script to deduce what * the patterns were that the old bcd was using for each possible 8-bit * character. These are the results -- the low order 12 bits represent the * holes. (A 1 bit is a hole.) These may be wrong, but they match the old * program! * * Steve Hayman * sahayman@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu * 1989 11 30 * */ I am amused by the comment at the end. "These may be wrong, but they match the old program!." I am curious if the same bug is indeed in the V7 version. As I said it is not a big deal, it's only a "whimsy" program after all. A bug like this in a _real_ program would have been spotted before. (Well, it would have been right? ;-) ) However, it looks to me like it's been in the BSD cloned version of bcd since it was written. -- Dyane Bruce db@diana.ocunix.on.ca 29 Vanson Ave. Nepean On, K2E 6A9 Am I the only one who has trouble 613-225-9920 thinking up witty sayings for here?