Cleaning out old materials part 1

Over the past 3 weeks, I've been cleaning out a lot of old materials. It's always interesting to see things you haven't seen for a long time but I don't like dwelling on them much. A couple of things caught my eye enough to share though. First was from my HP days in the 80's. There was a cute new product announcement passed around internally that talked about a 7903 MPU with an enhanced instruction set. I'm sure it was "borrowed" from another unknown source but I thought I'd share a few of the processor instructions I liked:

BH   Branch and hang

JRL   Jump to random location

DO   Divide and overflow

DC   Divide and conquer

ARZ   Add and reset to zero

SRZ   Subtract and reset to zero

XM   Exclusive maybe

UER   Update and erase record

CRN   Convert to roman numerals

PCB   Pause for coffee break

SSW   Scramble status word

and for those that have been around a long time to enjoy:

RASC   Read and shred card

RCI   Read card and ignore

PBC   Print and break chain (used to be called a "chain smash" - not a pretty thing)

BST   Backspace and stretch tape (I recall being at a site and seeing something that was more like: rewind, melt and mangle tape)

MET   Misread and eat tape (Yes, seen this instruction being carried out)

STT   Stretch and tangle tape (Also seen this one many times)

SSD   Seek and scar disk (Many long nights associated with this one)

BPB   Blob plotter pen

MPS   Move pen somewhere

and my all time favourite that I've also seen executed was:

HCF   Halt and catch fire

Wikipedia shows the last one as strictly metaphorical. I've seen a few where it wasn't :-)