Mailing List Archive

[Martijn Faassen]
> This isn't official, but have you all heard about the Python chip?
> ... [recklessly premature disclosure deleted] ...

[Chad Netzer]
> April fools, right?

[Martin]
> No, no, this is as serious as a ten ton weight! Just ask Tim about the
> stress tests if you still don't believe it. :)
>
> Is-it-april-already-ly yours,

As Martijn reported, the stress tests are going *amazingly* well, modulo a
subtle space/tab screwup in the hardware. I've completed VLSINANNY.py,
which will verify future hardware conformance to generally accepted
international leading whitespace principles, but the Russian part of the
team is refusing to cooperate in protest of Kosovo (although if you ask me,
they're just pissed at the Swedes for sneaking herring into the borscht ...
again).

Delicate international diplomacy aside, the tests are *so* promising that
the Steering Committee has delayed announcement of the 1999 Pythonic Award,
pending completion of a successful run of GuidoStone.py, a full real-time 3D
simulation of a gawky Dutchman throwing rocks at a Sicilian mobster, from
the back of a galloping camel. This was supposed to complete yesterday, but
was interrupted when Larry Wall ran up from the back of the room and smashed
the chip with his bare hands. Guido-- the very definition of grace under
pressure --quipped "But, Larry, *we've* known for a decade that you've
wasted your life!", and pulled a backup chip out of his sneer.

The most important thing, though, is that until they say otherwise, I'm
*still* the Only Living Pythonic Award winner!

no-joking-matter-ly y'rs - tim

Hi everybody,

For those who are still anxiously itching to get their hands on a Python
machine, this was of course an April Fool's joke. :)

You can now all come to destroy me now. (any other jokes in this
newsgroup which I missed?)

Martijn

In article <000501be7da7$450ddf20$879e2299@tim>,
Tim Peters <tim_one@email.msn.com> wrote:
>[Martijn Faassen]
>> This isn't official, but have you all heard about the Python chip?
>> ... [recklessly premature disclosure deleted] ...
>
>[Chad Netzer]
>> April fools, right?
>
>[Martin]
>> No, no, this is as serious as a ten ton weight! Just ask Tim about the
>> stress tests if you still don't believe it. :)
>>
>> Is-it-april-already-ly yours,
>
>As Martijn reported, the stress tests are going *amazingly* well, modulo a
>subtle space/tab screwup in the hardware. I've completed VLSINANNY.py,
>which will verify future hardware conformance to generally accepted
>international leading whitespace principles, but the Russian part of the
>team is refusing to cooperate in protest of Kosovo (although if you ask me,
>they're just pissed at the Swedes for sneaking herring into the borscht ...
>again).
.
.
.
The metajoke is that, as I've learned from the
comp.arch crowd, it's all turtles anyway. That
is, *no* chips actually run the instruction sets
they present to their consumers; they all emulate,
even, or perhaps especially, including Intel's
latest mass-market offerings. Maybe we're just a
tweaked microcode store away from the Python chip
now, but it doesn't matter.
--

Cameron Laird http://starbase.neosoft.com/~claird/home.html
claird@NeoSoft.com +1 281 996 8546 FAX

[Martijn Faassen]
> Hi everybody,
>
> For those who are still anxiously itching to get their hands on a Python
> machine, this was of course an April Fool's joke. :)

Oh, *now* you tell me, just hours before we were to tape out final silicon!
Wonder whether I can get my money back.

> You can now all come to destroy me now. (any other jokes in this
> newsgroup which I missed?)

Marc posted a nice amendment to his conference's menu, but all in all c.l.py
was a deadly serious gaggle of humorless geekoids this year. Maybe that's
appropriate, though, since Guido *was* run over by an April 1st bus.

thank-god-for-the-fully-automated-python-release-process-ly y'rs - tim

Tim Peters wrote:
>
> [Martijn Faassen]
> > For those who are still anxiously itching to get their hands on a Python
> > machine, this was of course an April Fool's joke. :)
>
> Oh, *now* you tell me, just hours before we were to tape out final silicon!
> Wonder whether I can get my money back.

Sorry. :) Actually it thought it was a nice example of
comp.lang.python's flame/spam immune system that this thread immediately
mutated into a quite serious discussion on Forth/Java/Pascal/etc chips.

> > You can now all come to destroy me now. (any other jokes in this
> > newsgroup which I missed?)
>
> Marc posted a nice amendment to his conference's menu, but all in all c.l.py
> was a deadly serious gaggle of humorless geekoids this year. Maybe that's
> appropriate, though, since Guido *was* run over by an April 1st bus.

I missed this one. :)

> thank-god-for-the-fully-automated-python-release-process-ly y'rs - tim

yeah-good-thing-Guido's-time-machine-can-travel-forward-in-time-too-ly
yours,

Martijn