🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <15174@well.UUCP> halespen@well.UUCP (harold m. espen) writes:
>
>	I am a writer doing some research into companies/groups who
>are developing or doing research into "artificial reality" systems
>on the west coast.
>	If anyone can mail me some replies detailing groups who are
>developing A.R. systems or technologies, or just send me any interesting
>info regarding this subject, I would be very grateful.
>
>	Hal Espen
>	halespen@well


Here's a file I found in /usr/pub/humor on one of our mainframes.  I
believe it came over the net about ten years ago, but I don't know the
author.


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Data Processing Division                        Date: January 30, 1979

                        PROGRAMMING ANNOUNCEMENT

New Operating System

Because so  many users  have asked  for an  operating system  of  even
greater  capability  than  VM,  IBM  announces  the  Virtual  Universe
Operating System - OS/VU.

Running under OS/VU, the individual user appears to have not merely  a
machine of his own, but an entire universe of his own, in which he can
set up and take  down his own programs,  data sets, systems  networks,
personnel, and planetary systems.  He  need only specify the  universe
he desires, and the OS/VU system generation program (IEHGOD) does  the
rest.  This program will reside in SYS1.GODLIB.  The minimum time  for
this function  is  6  days  of  activity and  1  day  of  review.   In
conjunction with OS/VU, all system utilities have been replaced by one
program (IEHPROPHET) which will reside in SYS1.MESSIAH.  This  program
has no parms or control cards as it knows what you want to do when  it
is executed.

Naturally,  the  user   must  have  attained   a  certain  degree   of
sophistication  in  the   data  processing  field   if  an   efficient
utilization  of  OS/VU   is  to  be   achieved.   Frequent  calls   to
non-resident galaxies, for instance, can lead to unexpected delays  in
the execution  of  a  job.  Although  IBM,  through  its  wholly-owned
subsidiary, The United States, is working on a program to upgrade  the
speed of light and  thus reduce the  overhead of extraterrestrial  and
metadimensional paging, users must be careful for the present to  stay
within the laws  of physics.  IBM  must charge an  additional fee  for
violations.

OS/VU will run on  any IBM x0xx equipped  with Extended WARP  Feature.
Rental is twenty million dollars per cpu/nanosecond.

Microcode assist will be available for all odd-numbered processors  to
allow the use of non-contiguous CPU clock times.  This feature will be
a prerequisite  for  the  implementation  of  the  Rutgers  University
virtual date package.

Users should be aware that IBM  plans to migrate all existing  systems
and hardware to OS/VU as soon as our engineers effect one output  that
is (conceptually) error-free.  This will give us a base to develop  an
even more  powerful operating  system,  target date  2001,  designated
"Virtual Reality".  OS/VR is planned to enable the user to migrate  to
totally  unreal  universes.   To  aid  the  user  in  identifying  the
difference between  "Virtual  Reality"  and  "Real  Reality",  a  file
containing a  linear  arrangement  of multisensory  total  records  of
successive moments  of now  will  be established.   Its name  will  be
SYS1.est.


For more information, contact your IBM data processing representative.

-- 
	Dana S. Nau
	Computer Science Dept.		Internet:  nau@mimsy.umd.edu
	University of Maryland		UUCP:  {allegra,uunet}!mimsy!nau
	College Park, MD 20742		Telephone:  (301) 454-7932