Default password for Pick system on an AT?

[Jay West]

Jim wrote...
> I'm not aware of any obvious ways to break in if the password are set. 
> One can
> bring up a disk editor, and with a knowlege of the drive, can edit the 
> sysprog
> or some other account passsword to have no password, then log in.
One can usually - even on much more recent machines, log in to things like 
ERRMSG, just to break to the debugger. Once you get the debugger, you can do 
magic. As an alternative, yes, you can boot off a floppy with a disk editor 
and patch the system file that way too. He could also try some of the 3rd 
party accounts like "PROF" or "TUTOR" or "ACCU-PLOT".

> The holes that were there went away in the 2.x days, long before the code 
> upon
> which the R83 release was based on.  This release was the descendent of 
> Pick
> R80, and was a "peer" in quality and features to the Royale 3.0 releases 
> on
> microdata hardware.
I didn't think ANY of the reality releases hashed passwords... at least on 
the pre-spirit machines. I could very well be wrong. I think Pick R83 did 
though.

> With a file stats listing, or a file save tape (the stats are t-dumped at 
> the
> end of a normal file save) we could possibly break in.  It would take a 
> raw
> disk editor tht booted from dos, such as norton old utilities, or such, 
> and a
> lot of finagling to find the system dictionary and byte fiddle it.
With a disk editor you don't need the filestats or anything... you can 
search for SYSPROG:@AM:SYS2 and the like. But if you want to use the break 
key to get to the debugger, a filesave listing would be handy to get the 
system base. However, you CAN get the system base arithmetically in the 
absence of filestats.

> If he has the install goods on a release as old as it sounds, maybe 
> replacing
> the hard drive and installing the system again would give him a tste of 
> pick.
Unfortunately, the version of Pick he has used laserburns on a floppy. Ick. 
*I'M* not capable of getting around that, probably some here are. I don't 
know x86 code well at all. I *DO* have an original full install set of Pick 
R83/XT though, but I don't think that will work on an AT.

Someone on the list pointed me to an opensource Pick-alike... I believe it 
ran on BSD/Linux. Nifty!

Now, of all the Pickheads here, who remembers the "4gl" called Wizard? The 
code that thing generated was incredibly incredibly NASTY!

Someday, I really *MUST* add a PR1ME to my collection. I really miss PRIMOS 
and PRIME INFORMATION! I have NEVER found one in the wild though :\

Jay