Berkeley California

Sung to the tune "Hotel California" by the Eagles
Written by David Barr and Ken Hornstein and a little help from Greg Nagy

In a dark dim machine room
Cool A/C in my hair
Warm smell of silicon
Rising up through the air
Up ahead in the distance
I saw a Solarian(tm) light
My kernel grew heavy, and my disk grew slim
I had to halt(8) for the night
The backup spun in the tape drive
I heard a terminal bell
And I was thinking to myself
This could be BSD or USL
Then they started a lawsuit
And they showed me the way
There were salesmen down the corridor
I thought I heard them say

Welcome to Berkeley California
Such a lovely place
Such a lovely place (backgrounded)
Such a lovely trace(1)
Plenty of jobs at Berkeley California
Any time of year
Any time of year (backgrounded)
You can find one here
You can find one here

Their code was definitely twisted
But they've got the stock market trends
They've got a lot of pretty, pretty lawyers
That they call friends
How they dance in the courtroom
See BSDI sweat
Some sue to remember
Some sue to forget
So I called up Kernighan
Please bring me ctime(3)
He said
We haven’t had that tm_year since 1969
And still those functions are calling from far away
Wake up Jobs in the middle of the night
Just to hear them say

Welcome to Berkeley California
Such a lovely Place
Such a lovely Place (backgrounded)
Such a lovely trace(1)
They’re livin’ it up suing Berkeley California
What a nice surprise
What a nice surprise (backgrounded)
Bring your alibis

Windows NT a dreaming
Pink OS on ice
And they said
We are all just prisoners here
Of a marketing device
And in the judges’s chambers
They gathered for the feast
They diff(1)’d the source code listings
But they can’t kill -9 the beast
Last thing I remember
I was restore(8)’ing | more(1)
I had to find the soft link back to the path I was before
sleep(3) said the pagedaemon
We are programmed to recv(2)
You can swap out any time you like
But you can never leave(1)

(substitute whirring of disk and tape drives for guitar solo)

Share this article:   f g t l