Unutterably Silly Old Bad Computer/Computer Programming Jokes

[Daithi]

About 20 years ago I remember a cartoon with a computer scientist type guy standing in front of a huge computer. In the computer scientist's hands was a PC, and while looking at the huge computer the guy says, "Now look at who's getting replaced by modern technology."

Another one I liked showed an office with a bunch of desks, and clothes line that ran above all the desks. Hanging from the clothes line were pieces of paper. An office worker in the picture is saying, "Maybe our new system could use those ribbed clothes pins, and we wouldn't lose as many documents." The caption under the picture said, "Why the Computer Dept. doesn't ask for your opinion."

Lastly, several years ago we had a refrigerator sized computer called a Pyramid that ran UNIX, and while looking through the manual I came across a page that had the name of a command, and where the description of the command should have been it said,

"Someone stole this page out of the manual."

This was actually printed in their manual.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Daithi

Lastly, several years ago we had a refrigerator sized computer called a Pyramid that ran UNIX, and while looking through the manual I came across a page that had the name of a command, and where the description of the command should have been it said,

"Someone stole this page out of the manual."

This was actually printed in their manual.

Ah, the early days of UNIX. I loved reading man pages, with Bugs: entries that said things like "If you do <this> without first doing <that>, absolute chaos is guaranteed." I also like Bugs: like "Small bird dropping like things may appear in your output"

Browsing through old copies of the termcap database also had amusing moments. Old termcap hackers could be blunt about the terminals they were trying to support.
______
Dennis

[rowjimmy]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

IBM mainframes are batch processing machines, where jobs are submitted to be run in batches. The MVS operating system has a component called JES (Job Entry Subsystem), and JCL (Job Control Language) that you use to control it. All mainframe batch jobs are run from "procs" -- sets of JCL statements that define the job, what programs will be run as part of it, what data those programs will process and where it resides, and where to send the output.

______
Dennis

Everything operated on a different time scale then. I'd submit a job at a remote terminal and then purposely take the long way to the building where the printer was located (buy a soda, shave, maybe make a little chalk drawing on the sidewalk outside, my own little Turner or Constable . . .) to give time for my program to get through the queue, run, and output.

I remember wondering why the printer and its handler had to be inside a cage. It was like a floor to ceiling chain link cage with a little slot to slide the big green and white fanfold zebra paper through. Were they worried someone would steal a five hundred pound printer?

Then one day, after the use of a poor choice of text separator, an expected one page output ended up using around 150 pages of paper with just one number printed on each. Apparently, the cage was there to protect us students from the ire (and spittle) of the printer technician. Candy bars slipped through the slot seemed to appease him, though.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by rowjimmy

Everything operated on a different time scale then. I'd submit a job at a remote terminal and then purposely take the long way to the building where the printer was located (buy a soda, shave, maybe make a little chalk drawing on the sidewalk outside, my own little Turner or Constable . . .) to give time for my program to get through the queue, run, and output.

I got in trouble once by diddling the JCL on a job to boost the priority. About 30 seconds after I submitted, I got a "Call XXXX now!" message on my screen. It was the VP of Applciations development, who wanted to chew me out for line jumping.

The DBA went on at one point about the "unheard of" support he had. At his previous job, programmers got two compiles a day, whenever the operators thought they could fit them into the job stream, and you scrutinized your crash dumps very carefully to correct your code. At this site, if your compile blew up, you made a change or two and resubmitted...

I remember wondering why the printer and its handler had to be inside a cage. It was like a floor to ceiling chain link cage with a little slot to slide the big green and white fanfold zebra paper through. Were they worried someone would steal a five hundred pound printer?

Then one day, after the use of a poor choice of text separator, an expected one page output ended up using around 150 pages of paper with just one number printed on each. Apparently, the cage was there to protect us students from the ire (and spittle) of the printer technician. Candy bars slipped through the slot seemed to appease him, though.

<grin>

Ah, the big mutha line printers, complete with a controller that had its own programming language. At one point I looked into possible post processing of jobs on the printer to pretty print reports. Since it was a bank, and the reports were the columnar output we do know with spreadsheets, there wasn't a whole lot of room for creativity.
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Dennis

[zelda_pinwheel]

you know, i honestly enjoy writing css and xhtml code and take pride in trying to make my code as clean and elegant as possible, but somehow i'm not very disappointed to have missed these early days (of course, technically i'm not a dev, just a designer who also writes code when it's not too difficult).

the stories are amusing me though... i would have had to find other ways to waste time before going to the printer, since i don't shave. perhaps two sidewalk chalk drawings ? or just one really big one ? a reproduction of the ceiling of the sistine chapel perhaps ? (not complex enough ?)

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

you know, i honestly enjoy writing css and xhtml code and take pride in trying to make my code as clean and elegant as possible, but somehow i'm not very disappointed to have missed these early days (of course, technically i'm not a dev, just a designer who also writes code when it's not too difficult).

the stories are amusing me though... i would have had to find other ways to waste time before going to the printer, since i don't shave. perhaps two sidewalk chalk drawings ? or just one really big one ? a reproduction of the ceiling of the sistine chapel perhaps ? (not complex enough ?)

You could submit a job that would print out a copy of the Mona Lisa.

I have a lucite cube with 81 bits of ferrite core memory embedded in it as a memento of those days. The amazing thing was how much got done with so little processing power. We throw away more processing power (like into the trash) each day today than the world had in 1975. Possibly even in 1980. Sad.

[WillAdams]

At one point in time, the man page for tex in NeXTstep noted that it would not process a file w/ ``ibm'' in the filename.

Which brings up a joke that only old-timers will get:

Three women are sitting in a bar discussing their lovers, the first woman says, ``My lover is a wrestler, he's so strong and forceful, it's wonderful!''

To which the second woman replies, ``My lover is a poet, he's so sensitive and romantic, it's wonderful!''

The third woman just looks sad, and when asked replies, ``My lover is an IBM computer salesman, he just sits on the edge of the bed and tells me how good it'll be when I finally get it.''

William

[rowjimmy]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

You could submit a job that would print out a copy of the Mona Lisa.

Ahhhh! the ASCII Mona Lisa. . . what a smile! - or should I say:

;' ";llllll;
;"Y88bd888P";
; `"PPP";;;

FIG #1: ASCII Mona Lisa Smile

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by rowjimmy

Ahhhh! the ASCII Mona Lisa. . . what a smile! - or should I say:

;' ";llllll;
;"Y88bd888P";
; `"PPP";;;

FIG #1: ASCII Mona Lisa Smile

Actually, the EBCDIC Mona Lisa...

[Bob Russell]

I remember when I learned to program how frequently I was reminded that computer time was very expensive, so I should be careful to do all my debugging manually on paper, using my time and not wasting the computer's time!

My favorite ASCII picture was a really simple one... a "Kilroy was here" signature line.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Bob Russell

My favorite ASCII picture was a really simple one... a "Kilroy was here" signature line.

       (o o)
----W---U---W---

______
Dennis

[RWood]

       (o o)
----W---U---W---

______
Dennis

Wow! I had forgotten about that one. Thanks for jogging the old memory banks (both bits.)

[RWood]

Back in the days before terminals when all programs were entered via cards, they were punched out on a klunky machine that sounded a lot like sitting next to the engines on some jet planes. The chads (as Florida election officials call them) punched from the cards were collected in a "bit bucket." After punching your program there would be chads in your hair, inside your shirt, throughout your sweater (never wear a sweater when using a card punch), and more than one time in your nose.

I remember punching one FORTRAN program and never noticing that the ribbon broke half way through the deck of cards. This left half of the cards with punches but no readable marks at the top to identify the contents of the card.

[RWood]

10 Ways you can tell an IT worker is *NOT* up to the job:

1. You ask them to burn a DVD and they literally set fire to it.
2. You send them to the shop to buy a dozen new mice and they come back with hamsters because they were cuter.
3. You ask them to clean up their cluttered screen and they reach for a can of Spray N Wipe.
4. Looking admiringly at their new computer, you ask them how much memory did they get, and they reply "I can remember back to when I was 3 years old !"
5. You ask them if the database they are meant to be working on is in 3rd Normal Form, and they reply "It should be, it was fine yesterday !"
6. You ask them how many bits in a byte, and they ask "Are we talking dogs or rats ?"
7. You ask them to backup the office computers, and they reverse their car up.
8. You ask them to virus scan the office computers, and next thing you know, they have latex gloves and a microscope.
9. You ask their opinion about which language would be the most suitable for developing the new accounting system, and they reply "English ... probably ... umm ..."
10. You ask them to point at something on screen with the mouse and they physically lift the mouse off the desk and hold it against the part of the screen you indicated.

[jpchan]

When ever I get stressed I think to myself:

10 There is no place like 127.0.0.1
20 GOTO 10