Since the "getty"/"login" you talked to already had a process slot, which it
gave up to your super-user shell, you still can take the last process slot for
one process/command, so you can still type the "ps" (unless, of course, it's
a privileged process that's running wild).
Guy Harris
{seismo,mcnc,we13,brl-bmd,allegra}!rlgvax!guy