🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <15...@csli.Stanford.EDU>, po...@csli.Stanford.EDU (Bill Poser) says:
>To my mind, what really shows the stupidity of some users is where
>they don't exhibit common sense, in situations where they could
>behave more appropriately without any computer knowledge. Two
>cases that come to mind (a user in our lab was recently guilty of both)
>are:
>        (a) ignoring error messages;
>        (b) refusing to read instructions.

Bingo!

When I first started taking computer classes, the university still give
most classes non-interactive (i.e. keypunch) accounts.  There were very
few terminals available, so this made sense.

Over time, more and more classes started getting interactive VM accounts.
Terminals were still at a premium.  I watched this happen:

User walks into room, sees one vacant terminal.  Walks up to it and
sees out-of-order sign taped on the terminal.

User removes out-of-order sign and attempts to sign on to the mainframe.

User gets (if I remember right) signed on, retrieves files to work on,
and keyboard won't work right - it either locked up, or an important
letter wasn't working, or similar problem.

User goes out and bitches at student programming consultant.  SPC
asks what happened to the out-of-order sign that was on that particular
terminal.

Incidentally, the SPC's were NOT known for holding terminals with out-
of-order signs, so if there was a sign on the terminal, it was 99%
likely to really be broken.

Incidentally, we went to all-interactive about nine years ago.  Many
of the keypunches were replaced with Braegan terminals, but that's
another legend right there.
--
Doug Sewell, Tech Support, Computer Center,
Youngstown State University, Youngstown,  OH 44555
E-mail: doug@ysub.bitnet, do...@ysub.ysu.edu, ...!uunet!ysub.ysu.edu!doug
>> I am not a wizard.  What I do isn't magic.  I am a computer professional.