I understand that they had access to other computer culture, too ... some of the nonsense noises that Dr. Memory makes as Clem hacks into the backend of the ‘President’ are terms that come from the DEC PDP-10 ...
Around 1970, the Firesign Theatre used to do live broadcasts on the KPPC radio station in Pasadena, from a studio in a church basement. On one show they read what was apparently some piece of avant-garde poetry. A Caltech classmate of mine recognized that it was an example from Knuth's Art of Computer Programming, whose Vol.1 had recently appeared.
All I can remember from the "poem" is the repeated phrase "leave system." Sure enough, in section 2.2.5 p. 280 - 295 of Vol 1 in the Second Edition, Knuth presents an extended example that "simulates the elevator system in the mathematics building of the California Institute of Technology." The "poem" quoted the comments in the execution trace shown in Table 1 on p. 284.
jonjacky•2mo ago
Around 1970, the Firesign Theatre used to do live broadcasts on the KPPC radio station in Pasadena, from a studio in a church basement. On one show they read what was apparently some piece of avant-garde poetry. A Caltech classmate of mine recognized that it was an example from Knuth's Art of Computer Programming, whose Vol.1 had recently appeared.
All I can remember from the "poem" is the repeated phrase "leave system." Sure enough, in section 2.2.5 p. 280 - 295 of Vol 1 in the Second Edition, Knuth presents an extended example that "simulates the elevator system in the mathematics building of the California Institute of Technology." The "poem" quoted the comments in the execution trace shown in Table 1 on p. 284.