(01-02-2026, 01:59 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.So if I understand correctly, you read You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. as an important anagram, but don't want to tell us yet what it is?

(01-02-2026, 01:40 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Hi all,

I think I made an important discovery about the VMS.  Not a theory, interpretation, guess, etc, but a fact. As certain as it could be.

Following a famous tradition, let me announce it as an anagram:

    ANIMUS NE IDEAS

This stratagem was used in the Renaissance by several scientists to announce their discoveries to friends.  Galileo used it twice in letters to Kepler, to announce his discovery of the phases of Venus and of the rings of Saturn (although he had no idea of what the latter were).  I recall some other astronomer (Huygens perhaps?) using it to announce a similar discovery (moons of Saturn?).

The primary purpose of these anagrams was to secure the claim to priority, without revealing the discovery itself.  The method could have two additional pluses: it avoided triggering any kind of "Holy Inquisition" that may see it, and it saved the author from embarrassment if he later found that the discovery was a dud.  I am counting on both pluses here.

The author generally tried to make the anagram itself be a Latin sentence.  But, as in my case, the attempt usually was less than successful.  The result usually had stilted grammar and strained words.  (I asked Google AI if my anagram above was proper Latin, and it gave me a page-long scolding like that of the centurion in Life of Brian.  For one thing, it said that "ideas" is not Latin but Greek.)  Sometimes the author gave up and ended the anagram with a nonsense string of leftover consonants, like one's tray at the end of a game of Scrabble.

Because of these features, especially the last one, back in 2000 or so I entertained the idea that the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. text could be such thing: an anagram of some text that the author wanted to hide, but still be able to prove that he wrote it, if and when needed.  It would explain the strained words, the nonsensical sentence, the "leftover" letters...  But I concluded that it was unlikely for several reasons; and now that I have seen the UV image of that page, I have a much better explanation, that is almost certain too.)

Anyway, thanks for reading.  I will announce here the discovery and its evidence, in the plain and in detail, in the near future.

All the best, --stolfi

(01-02-2026, 01:40 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Hi all,

I think I made an important discovery about the VMS.  Not a theory, interpretation, guess, etc, but a fact. As certain as it could be.

Following a famous tradition, let me announce it as an anagram:

    ANIMUS NE IDEAS

(01-02-2026, 11:14 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.This is the kind of thread people post only to then pursue a different hobby and never get back to it again. Like that guy that posted a cipher and then went away.