[Info-vax] OT: Halt and Catch Fire

[Bill Gunshannon]

In article <556e73bf$0$59523$b1db1813$2411a48f at news.astraweb.com>,
	JF Mezei <jfmezei.spamnot at vaxination.ca> writes:
> Yeah, I know , "HCF, Halt and Catch Fire"  was an IBM 370 instruction in
> many "hacked" university documents.
> 
> It is also an AMC TV series now available on Netflix (at least in Canada).
> 
> Seems to deal with the emergence of the PC in early 1980s.
> 
> A curious to see if Digital will ever be mentioned or ignored. So far,
> one conversation had many companies listed and DEC was ignored.
> 

DEC computers didn't "Halt and Catch Fire".  :-)

I seem to remember that the original HCF instruction refered to a certain
Motorolla processor that had a test mode that blocked all interupts and
put the CPU into an extremely tight internal loop which resulted in the
chip literally overheating to the point of self destruction with no way
to stop it other than yanking the plug out of the wall.

bill

-- 
Bill Gunshannon          |  de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n.  Three wolves
billg999 at cs.scranton.edu |  and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
University of Scranton   |
Scranton, Pennsylvania   |         #include <std.disclaimer.h>