054 Digitus

on the finger ring.

i think the finger protocol is neat.

as per section 2.2.5 of RFC 1288:

2.5.5.  Vending machines

   Vending machines SHOULD respond to a {C} request with a list of all
   items currently available for purchase and possible consumption.
   Vending machines SHOULD respond to a {U}{C} request with a detailed
   count or list of the particular product or product slot.  Vending
   machines should NEVER NEVER EVER eat money.

read an NBS report about implementing a UNIX-like pipe on the HP-1000 minicomputer.

the RTE-6/VM OS doesn’t have a ‘shell.’

all the session management and job control is handled by system commands.

it has something similar to a shell called the ‘file manager’ (FMGR), that runs programs instead.

the solution was to have a library that would write the output to a temporary unique file that would be deleted after it was read by the subsequent program.

the other option would be an in-memory buffer file that would pass the data, but that might cause OOM.

i couldn’t find a copy of the report on the NIST archive.

the report is NBS technical report 1208.