Unutterably Silly Old Bad Computer/Computer Programming Jokes

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by RWood

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

heeheehee !

Originally Posted by jpchan

When ever I get stressed I think to myself:

10 There is no place like 127.0.0.1
20 GOTO 10

[GeoffC]

ah well, never mind....

Failed to Connect
The connection was refused when attempting to contact 127.0.0.1.

[Daithi]

I remember a tech support call that I heard about, and although I don't know if it is true, it is still pretty funny.

Tech support kept getting a call from a secretary complaining about random characters that would just start appearing in her MS Word documents without her typing anything. The tech support people tried everything; they replaced her keyboard; they uninstalled and reinstalled MS Office; they even replaced her entire computer. Nothing worked. Random characters kept appearing.

Finally, while tech support was standing around the lady's computer, one of them solved the mystery. It turns out that the secretary was far-sighted and she would lean in to get a better look at the screen. She was also, uhmm, well-endowed and her breasts were hitting the keys when she leaned in.

I'm sure this post will cost me Karma points.

[GeoffC]

I'm not too sure you could make that one up ....

[basschick]

happens to me when i try and start work before i put my glasses on.

Originally Posted by Daithi

I remember a tech support call that I heard about, and although I don't know if it is true, it is still pretty funny.

Tech support kept getting a call from a secretary complaining about random characters that would just start appearing in her MS Word documents without her typing anything. The tech support people tried everything; they replaced her keyboard; they uninstalled and reinstalled MS Office; they even replaced her entire computer. Nothing worked. Random characters kept appearing.

Finally, while tech support was standing around the lady's computer, one of them solved the mystery. It turns out that the secretary was far-sighted and she would lean in to get a better look at the screen. She was also, uhmm, well-endowed and her breasts were hitting the keys when she leaned in.

I'm sure this post will cost me Karma points.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by GeoffC

I'm not too sure you could make that one up ....

I don't think you can. An old friend of mine is a telecom tech. He described one client site where an employee was having odd and unreproducible problems. He finally discovered what was going on. She occasionally wore an outfit that included nylon pants. When she wore them, a static charge was produced when she her legs rubbed against each other. When it built high enough, it discharged, much to the discomfort of electronic devices she had to deal with. The answer was "Don't wear those pants to the office", but figuring it out took some doing.
______
Dennis

[DMcCunney]

I used to be Tech Support Manager for a small Unix systems house. At one point, one of my co-workers got sent to make some changes on a Unix system we had sold to a customer.

Unix systems have a userid called "root", also known as "super user". It's equivalent to, but even more powerful than Administrator privileges in Windows. Root has all power to do anything, and can shoot a system in the foot with a misplaced keystroke.

My guy had a bad habit I complained about, picked up while administering a small Xenix system: he always ran as root, to avoid pesky permissions problems. So when he got to the customer site, the first thing he did was use the menu driven system admin utility to create himself a userid with root privileges. He used that ID to make his changes. He then used the system administration utility to remove the ID.

What he didn't know was that on that model of the vendor's machine, unlike the one we had in the office, when you used the menu driven system administration utility to remove a userid, it not only removed the userid. It removed the user's home directory, and all directories beneath it.

The ID was a duplicate of root, and the home directory was "/". You guessed it: he completely wiped the file system on the machine.

He then had to reload Unix from the distribution media, and restore from complete tape backup the customer had (thank God!) made before he arrived, and then re-do his changes, while trying to keep the customer's very bright and inquisitive rep who was watching the entire time from realizing exactly what he had just done. (The client was a doctor's office. The system was keeping medical and billing records. Oh, my)

When he finally got back to the office and confessed what happened, all I could say was "Now do you understand why I don't like you always running as root? I bet you'll never do that again, right?"
______
Dennis

[RWood]

OK Dennis, how long was it before he did it again?

[GeoffC]

Way long ago, before Y2K, a frequent defrag on all our PCs was highly recommended and established as a routine in our office.

Except for one set of machines....

Deep on a dark winters night, during the quiet spell between midnight and 2am I defragged the office ssystem, and also this set of machines....(it was late, I was tired, the weather was lousy).

What I forgot was that the software running on them was supplied by an outside agent who, for reasons they understood, placed their software password into the file structure such that a defrag would remove it; thus at 3am the program no longer operated....

Luckily (!) for me, their support was first class and I was able to get up and running again, before the PCs were needed at 3.30 am, but it was frantic for a while....

[Bob Russell]

I heard a story about when they first rolled out computers to field locations at my company. The guy was not sure how to use the mouse. So for his first attempt, he placed it up on the display screen and moved it around! (That's just like the joke about pressing any key, and being told by the user that there isn't an "ANY" key on the keyboard!)

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by RWood

OK Dennis, how long was it before he did it again?

Not while that company still existed, at least. (The owner, General Manager, and several other employees were members of the Church of Scientology. They know an awful lot about L. Ron Hubbard, and awfully little about anything else, including the business they were in. I once intercepted a package on the receptionist's desk - a co-worker was returning copies of disks for software to the vendor for credit, retaining the originals. "Oh. Maybe I should read the license." "Yes, I think that would be a very good idea...")

I left before they actually folded, but did have to inform the GM that while they were incorporated in Delaware, they did business in the state of NY, were subject to state laws and regulations, and if they didn't make good on a bounced paycheck. I'd call a friend in the State Department of Labor, and they'd find out the hard way just how true that was...

What my associate might have done in his next position I didn't know and didn't want to.
______
Dennis

[RWood]

Back in the late 1980s I was working with a national organization non-profit organization that everybody knows. I was assisting them in the logistics area (read supply distribution area.) Being the only one that knew anything about microcomputers in the building, they brought me all of their stuff from home to fix. Since a large part of them were giving their time and labor free, I did not mind. One day someone brought in an old PC clone that he said just stopped working. When I opened it later that afternoon there was about 1" of dirt on top of the motherboard. Calling the person it seems that there was a flood in their house and they cleaned the outside of machine a week later and it ran fine for a month.

Given that this person was the third highest ranking management person in the division (and in the chain that signed off on my paychecks), I went to work cleaning out the machine. I worked on it on and off for two days and finally got a clean machine. The 40 MB hard disk was fine so all of their programs and data survived. Total replacement: 2 floppy drives and a power supply -- from the used parts box.

[DMcCunney]

UNIVACky by Walter Gilbert

(For proper rhythm, the symbol “@” is pronounced “at” and “$” is pronounced “dollar”.)

'Twas BRKPT and the I/O queue
Was SYMMING FASTRAND like the wind.
All idle was the CAU
As the last run had just FINNED.

"Beware the UNIVAC, my son,
Its FASTRAND and its high-speed drum,
And FIELDATA, and listen for
The CTMC's hum."

He quickly dialed a low-speed line
And then keyed in his SITE-ID.
He typed @RUN and then sat back
To wield his CRT.

NO ACTIVE RUN, it answered back,
And WAITING ON FACILITY;
BAD STATUS WORD FROM CSF,
And then just SYMB 03.

"I'll fix you now," he shouted out,
"You've finally got me ired.
I'll use a systems terminal:
1200 baud, hard-wired!"

"I'll write a loop in SSG
To make your ferrite holler
1000 runs, and in each one
Ten ER's to FORK$."

"Each fork," he smiles, "@ADDs 10 files,
Each file starts 10 runs more.
Each run contains 10 COBOL jobs
To grind along in core.

"Each job will write 10 9-track tapes,
And then rewind and read them.
Each tape, of course, is punched to cards,
For backup, if I need them."

As fast as light his fingers write:
@SETC, then @TEST, @JUMP,
@XQT, and then for spite,
A full post-mortem dump.

He wiped his hands upon his shirt
And then he FINNED his run,
And scurried to the console
To sit and watch the fun.

MEMORY FAULT, the system cried,
And PARITY-07 ADG,
And PANIC DUMP IMPOSSIBLE,
And ERROR 53.

"Oh frabjous day, callou callay;
I've made the system stall."
He tore it from the PAGEWRITER
And hung it on the wall.

'Twas BRKPT and the I/O queue
Was SYMMING FASTRAND like the wind.
All idle was the CAU
As the last run had just FINNED.

______
Dennis

[Freeshadow]

Why do male *nix geeks have so much trouble getting a girlfriend?
Because their first lines start with a #!.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Freeshadow

Why do male *nix geeks have so much trouble getting a girlfriend?
Because their first lines start with a #!.

Oh, it's not that bad:
Linux: gawk, date, finger, wait, unzip, touch, nice, suck, strip, mount,
fsck, umount, make clean, sleep. (Who needs porn when you have /usr/bin?)


______
Dennis