"Perishing peripherals, Roo-man! Is all of this IO stuff really necessary?" An icy glare freezes the kid where he stands. "IO stuff, you say. IO stuff! You should speak more carefully about the work of the gods." Roo-man, realizing the youth and inexperience of the boy, softens his composure and turning to poke up the fire he says in a fatherly manner, "Pull up a seat, kid, and let me tell you about the origin of these things." [Two hilariously turgid and confused pages then follow, punctuated in the middle by the dynamic duo's startled witnessing of a page break flying by. -jkh-] ---------- [Note: R16 and RUNING flags were status flags in the HP-75.] "Golly, Roo-man! Why didn't they use just one status flag?" "Arr-r-rh, me buck-o. Ya see, it be 'nother one of those seas where they be sail'n with neither compass er map. Fur as sure as the wind be blow'n round da horn, thar be no man alive worth his salt that know the mean'n of R16 enough to change it." "Gosh, Roo-man, where'd ye learn to talk like that?" "I had fish for dinner." "But Roo-man, I thought you were a vegetarian, and besides that, you hate fish." ---------- "Since we're in TEXT mode, 'decompilation' is just an identity mapping, Joey." "Huh?" Joey said, looking up from the TV. "Never mind, kid." ---------- "Holy heuristics, Roo-man! Wouldn't it be neat if we could just say: NOT#7 EQU ~BIT#7 or maybe: ANM R17,=~BIT#5 clear bit 5 Huh?? How about it? Huh?? Please???" Roo-man ignores Joey. ---------- "Roo-man," Joey looked up with a quizzical plea upon his boyish face. "I can't find any reason why the FOR and NEXT tokens can't follow a THEN statement." "Well, Joey," Roo-man paused for a moment, his eyes gazing off into some future that could never be. "Well, Joey," he started again, "there is no reason why they can't. There are those who fear what this new found power may be put to. It is a distrust of freedom, much like the bird in a cage, who, when the door is accidentally left open, huddles in a corner in fear of the open air -- his natural inheritance." ---------- Note: There might be more Roo-man and Joey episodes buried in the huge tome called the HP-75 Internal Design Specifications, but I sprinkled enough of them into Goodies Disks #2, 3, 5, 7, 8, and lastly here on #9. Thus ends an era of Roo-man-ations. *sigh* They just don't write documentation like they used to. -jkh-