🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <68...@helios.TAMU.EDU> mtm...@venus.tamu.edu writes:
>A girl had just checked out a computer (PC). All of the PC's in this lab are
>equipped with one 3.5" floppy drive. She was carrying a 5.25" floppy. She 
>looked at the disk in her hand, sized it up against the slot, and (before my
>friend could react) she folded the 5.25 disk, creased it, and shoved it in.
>

Before I transferred out of Georgetown, I used to work as repair technician/
customer support guy at a systems integration house in Rosslyn.  One morning,
a customer called demanding to know why his brand new 3.5" floppy drive 
wouldn't work with any of his files.  After about half an hour of talking
him through "drive not ready" messages, I asked him whether the metal slide
on the disk he was using might be jammed.  "What metal slide?" he replied.
It turns out that he and his assistant had spent the previous afternoon
cutting their old disks down from 5.25" to 3.5" so that they would fit in
their snazzy new drive with four times the storage!

-- Palmer Davis --

(But no, nobody ever asked me where the "any" key was....)

--
Palmer T. Davis                 |  dav...@scl.cwru.edu  -OR-  pt...@po.cwru.edu
Case Western Reserve University | {att,sun,decvax,uunet}!cwjcc!skybridge!davisp
------------------------------------------------------------+------------------
"I shout my barbaric RARP from the tops of the world...."   |   Life is short.

In article <68...@helios.TAMU.EDU> mtm...@venus.tamu.edu writes:
>A girl had just checked out a computer (PC). All of the PC's in this lab are
>equipped with one 3.5" floppy drive. She was carrying a 5.25" floppy. She 
>looked at the disk in her hand, sized it up against the slot, and (before my
>friend could react) she folded the 5.25 disk, creased it, and shoved it in.

   This has probably happened in every university in the country. For some
reason, Princeton had a lot of people who could barely cope with Mac word
processors (!). These same people did a lot of other weird things, too...

   The best story I ever heard (knowing half of the computer clinic people,
I heard a lot of stories) had to be the girl with the Mac disk that had
been run over by a truck and folded in half in the process. Undeterred, she
unfolded it, took it down to a Mac cluster, and popped it in. Of course it
didn't work, and it was so badly mangled that the Mac couldn't even eject
it. So she went and complained to somebody, and they got ahold of the guy
with the Mac cracker (this was a few years ago and the victim was a Mac
Plus). He popped the case and removed the disk. When he handed it back to
her, he said, clearly and distinctly, "DON'T PUT THIS DISK IN ANOTHER MAC."
   So she went upstairs to the clinic, said "My disk doesn't work," and 
inserted it into the nearest Mac (yet another Plus) before anybody could 
stop her. And the guy with the Mac cracker had just left...

-- 
---
James W. Birdsall        jwbi...@amc.com         71261...@compuserve.com
          Compu$erve: 71261,1731            GEnie: J.BIRDSALL2
For it is the doom of men that they forget. -- Merlin

In article <1990Jul27....@usenet.ins.cwru.edu> dav...@skybridge.SCL.CWRU.Edu (Palmer Davis) writes:


   In article <68...@helios.TAMU.EDU> mtm...@venus.tamu.edu writes:
   >A girl had just checked out a computer (PC). All of the PC's in this lab are
   >equipped with one 3.5" floppy drive. She was carrying a 5.25" floppy. She 
   >looked at the disk in her hand, sized it up against the slot, and (before my
   >friend could react) she folded the 5.25 disk, creased it, and shoved it in.
   >

   Before I transferred out of Georgetown, I used to work as repair technician/
   customer support guy at a systems integration house in Rosslyn.  One morning,
   a customer called demanding to know why his brand new 3.5" floppy drive 
   wouldn't work with any of his files.  After about half an hour of talking
   him through "drive not ready" messages, I asked him whether the metal slide
   on the disk he was using might be jammed.  "What metal slide?" he replied.
   It turns out that he and his assistant had spent the previous afternoon
   cutting their old disks down from 5.25" to 3.5" so that they would fit in
   their snazzy new drive with four times the storage!

   -- Palmer Davis --

   (But no, nobody ever asked me where the "any" key was....)


Yeah, along similar lines, I used to work at Magnetic Scrolls (UK
adventure games house) and we provided Amiga's for the artists to use
along with some s/w. We wrote some instructions for them about how to
get started along the lines of:

1. insert disk into drive

2. ...

We got a call from them "My computers not working, etc...", someone
went round to sort the problem out. Lo and behold, they didn't realise
you had to take out the disk that was already in the drive. They had
forced a second disk in there. Ho hum...

Steve.
--
                           -  Steve J Lacey - 
  Department Of Computing                                 In my opinion,     
  Imperial College Of Science, Technology And Medicine    my opinions are    
  180 Queen's Gate, London SW7 1BZ                        just that.   

  email : s...@doc.ic.ac.uk, ..!ukc!icdoc!sjl
  phone : 071-589-5111 x5085  fax : 071-581-8024 

How about a user, confronted by a typical "press any key" message,
calling tech support complaining...

	But I don't have an ANY key on my keyboard!

-- 
The above opinions are the opinions of (unless otherwise noted)
Terry Kane                                                   gatech!stiatl!tok
Sales Technologies, Inc    3399 Peachtree Rd, NE   Atlanta, GA  (404) 841-4000

Friend of mine was a researcher. He had an AT at home with two
floppy drives that he installed himself. There was a tiny space
between the two drives. One day he comes home and finds that he
forgot to lock the door to his study and his FOUR year old son got in.
He sees before him utter destruction, diskettes everywhere. He picks up all
the disks and sorts them and is missing four. He asks his son, where are the other four? His son points to the disk drives as any good four year would.
But both drives are empty. MY friend tears the house apart looking for the 
disks, even looking in the other baby's dirty diaper bin. Nothing.

A week later he gets a call from his father in law for whom he had 
installed a small business system. It seems a secretary had lost a disk 
in the machine. He goes to take a look and sure enough the secretary 
had stuck the disk into the space between the two disk drives. He opens the
system and there is the diskette lying on the motherboard.

He rushes home and sure enough his four year old had done the same thing!



dsc

These disk drive stories reminded me of the time my brother visited me, and
wanted to try out my (then) new Mac SE.  He's a dBASE consultant, working
strictly with IBM's, so I thought I'd let him do everything on the Mac for 
himself, so he could see how intuitive and superior the interface is.  That's
why I wasn't concerned when he said "This disk is a little hard to shove in".  
I figured he just wasn't used to the 3.5" drives.  "Go ahead and push it
in", I said.  Next, he couldn't eject the disk.  And my Dark Castle disk was
missing.  I used tweezers to pull the disk out, but it wasn't the Dark
Castle disk.  I was confused, and he was not convinced of the superiority of
the Mac.

You've probably figured it out, but I didn't know until the next day, when
the service guy called me and said that I was going to need a new drive,
because someone had inserted a disk, and then inserted *another* disk into
the space formed when the tape-cassette-like disk mechanism drops down into
place.  Then, when we tried to eject the disk, the mechanism tried but failed
to move upward, mashing the disks, the heads and the drive mechanism.  The
tech said he had never seen that happen before.  Only $170 for labor and a
rebuilt drive!

I have had 30-40 people, all much less experienced than my brother, sit down
and use the Mac with minimal help.  None of them has ever done anything like
that.  I'm not sure what this means, but my brother still hasn't bought a Mac.

From: co...@moore.seas.upenn.edu (Curtis Organ Restoration Society)
Path: moore.seas.upenn.edu!cors

>A week later he gets a call from his father in law for whom he had 
>installed a small business system. It seems a secretary had lost a disk 
>in the machine. He goes to take a look and sure enough the secretary 
>had stuck the disk into the space between the twoisk drives.
>

Yeah, I felt _real stupid_ the first time this happened to me... I wasnt' 
really looking where I was putting the disk, and voila!, the disk disapeared!

One small piece of tape solved the problem.

Hank

In article <SJL.90Ju...@unknown.doc.ic.ac.uk>, s...@doc.ic.ac.uk (Steve J Lacey) writes:
> 
> We got a call from them "My computers not working, etc...", someone
> went round to sort the problem out. Lo and behold, they didn't realise
> you had to take out the disk that was already in the drive. They had
> forced a second disk in there. Ho hum...
> 

The original IBM AT had this nice little gap between the 1.2 meg and the
360K drives that was just exactly the right size to slip a diskette into,
which I did numerous times while tired and trying to hurry. ARgh.

-- 
===============================================================================
Roger Ivie

35 S 300 W
Logan, Ut.  84321
(801) 752-8633
===============================================================================

In article <24...@amc-gw.amc.com> jwbi...@europa.amc.com (James Birdsall) writes:

>   The best story I ever heard (knowing half of the computer clinic people,
>I heard a lot of stories) had to be the girl with the Mac disk that had
>been run over by a truck and folded in half in the process. Undeterred, she
>unfolded it, took it down to a Mac cluster, and popped it in. Of course it
>didn't work, and it was so badly mangled that the Mac couldn't even eject it.

OK, here's one that happened to someone I actually met one time.  At that
time, 8-inch diskettes were a popular distribution medium and 5.25-inchers
were just beginning to catch on.  The guy had ordered some software by mail.
(This means the post office; e-mail wasn't so widely known then either.)
The guy lived in an apartment and had a mail box typical for an apartment.
So, what happened?  You think a letter carrier can read "DO NOT FOLD"?
The amazing thing is ... the guy somehow managed to read and copy the data.

-- 
Norman Diamond, Nihon DEC     dia...@tkou02.enet.dec.com
This is me speaking.  If you want to hear the company speak, you need DECtalk.

In article <10353@stiatl.UUCP> tok@stiatl.UUCP (Terry Kane) writes:
>
>How about a user, confronted by a typical "press any key" message,
>calling tech support complaining...
>
>	But I don't have an ANY key on my keyboard!

While working as a consultant at North Carolina State University (Raleigh), I
was in one of the terminal clusters one day, minding my own business when a
user walked up and asked a question about his terminal.

Well, this was a Televideo 910 connected via an IBM 7171 Protocol converter
to the campus Iron Pig.  This guy's problem was that his screen was so burned
in that he could not read any of the 'normal' text, so only the highlighted
(bright) text showed up on the screen. 

To get around this problem, the 7171 allowed special escape sequences to turn
off things like highlighting, underline, etc.  I explained to the user that
he needed to type "Escape, Tick, and a lower case k".  I went into great detail
explaining where the 'Escape' key was, and that the 'Tick' is one of these -> ` 

Anyway, as he was walking away, he turned back to me and said, and I quote:

		"How do I type a lower case k?"

Arrrrgggghhhhhhhh......  I decided at that point to get out of consulting and
into system administration...
Arrrrgggghhhhhhhh......

-abc

In article <Fw+c...@cs.psu.edu> d...@osteocyber.ortho.hmc.psu.edu (david s. channin) writes:
>Friend of mine was a researcher. He had an AT at home with two
>floppy drives that he installed himself. There was a tiny space
>between the two drives. [..text deleted..]

Another one from the consulting room:

Apple designed the Mac II to be able to contain 2 3.5" drives in the
front, and made their plastics accordingly.  Well, if you buy a Mac II
with only ONE floppy disk, the other hole leads nowhere, and has only
a thin plastic 'breakaway' door covering it.

After several disks were inserted into non-existant drives, tape was
used to cover the 'phantom slot.'

The users peeled off the tape to get at the second drive.

-abc

In article <68...@helios.TAMU.EDU>, mtm...@venus.tamu.edu writes:
> 
> A girl had just checked out a computer (PC). All of the PC's in this lab are
> equipped with one 3.5" floppy drive. She was carrying a 5.25" floppy. She 
> looked at the disk in her hand, sized it up against the slot, and (before my
> friend could react) she folded the 5.25 disk, creased it, and shoved it in.
> 
A story of disk mutilation was told to me by an engineer visiting our site
once.  He was on the phone, trying to give a user instructions on how to use
a disk, and had finally resorted to step-by-step commands.

   `Have you taken the disk out of the envelope?'
   `Umm, no.'
   `Well, do that then and put it in the drive.'
   `No, still doesn't work!'

Eventually, the engineer had to go around and sort it out.  When he got there,
he discovered that the user had carefully cut the end off of the 5.25 disk
sleeve, slid out the actual circular, magnetic disk and put *that* in the drive.

Ian

> She 
> looked at the disk in her hand, sized it up against the slot, and (before my
> friend could react) she folded the 5.25 disk, creased it, and shoved it in.
>

   This story reminds me of two articles (part I and II) that appeared sometime
in PC Magazine last year.  The author told stories of his experience with
situations like this.  It was really funny.  Unfortunately, I'm away from home
and don't know the volume or numbers of the particular magazines.  If anybody
else has seen these articles and knows which issues they were in. please inform
the news group!



Jordan Slott

My vote for dumbest user in the galaxy goes to the soul who called
the dial-up consulting lab with this problem:

USER: I was told I needed a modem to use the campus mainframes...  Well
I bought a modem.  Now how do I use it?

CONS: First you have to hook it up to your computer, or install it in
one of the card slots.

USER: Computer?  I need a computer?

This was chuckled over for months.

Nick Vargish
ban...@cscwam.umd.edu

>My vote for dumbest user in the galaxy goes to the soul who called
>the dial-up consulting lab with this problem:

>USER: I was told I needed a modem to use the campus mainframes...  Well
>I bought a modem.  Now how do I use it?

>CONS: First you have to hook it up to your computer, or install it in
>one of the card slots.

>USER: Computer?  I need a computer?

>This was chuckled over for months.

Bzzt!  Sorry, but thanks for playing.  He didn't need a computer, just a
terminal.  The consultant shouldn't be so narrow-minded...

Kenneth Herron

In article <10353@stiatl.UUCP> tok@stiatl.UUCP (Terry Kane) writes:
>
>How about a user, confronted by a typical "press any key" message,
>calling tech support complaining...
>
>	But I don't have an ANY key on my keyboard!
>
>-- 

Yes! I've had a user complain about not having an 'ANY' key.

So, I said to her "Pick a key .. any key you like!"

She pressed the SHIFT key ... and (you guessed it) nothing happened.

I had to then try and explain to her why she couldn't use the 
SHIFT , CTRL and CAPS LOCK keys.

____________________________________________________________________________
Alright men! Let's dooooooooo it  - Lord FlashHard

d...@batserver.cs.uq.oz.au (David Anderson) writes:

}In article <10353@stiatl.UUCP> tok@stiatl.UUCP (Terry Kane) writes:
}>
}>How about a user, confronted by a typical "press any key" message,
}>calling tech support complaining...
}>
}>	But I don't have an ANY key on my keyboard!
}>
}>-- 

}Yes! I've had a user complain about not having an 'ANY' key.

}So, I said to her "Pick a key .. any key you like!"

}She pressed the SHIFT key ... and (you guessed it) nothing happened.

}I had to then try and explain to her why she couldn't use the 
}SHIFT , CTRL and CAPS LOCK keys.

And of course, after you reflect on it there is hardly any reason to be so
'helpful' and make the program so general, instead of simply having it read
  "And then hit the space bar"
and be done with it -- no ambiguity, no confusion, no nothing...

  /bernie\

d...@batserver.cs.uq.oz.au (David Anderson) writes:

>In article <10353@stiatl.UUCP> tok@stiatl.UUCP (Terry Kane) writes:
>>
>>How about a user, confronted by a typical "press any key" message,
>>calling tech support complaining...
>>	But I don't have an ANY key on my keyboard!

>Yes! I've had a user complain about not having an 'ANY' key.


I've got an even better story.

When I was running a programming bureau, we got a call one day from a
user of some of our custom software, who had a minor problem.  In the
course of talking him through the fix over the phone, I asked him to
change the value in a certain field on the screen.  I heard lots of
typing; too much for the minor edit I had asked him to do.  It turned
out that despite our nice help screens, our personal training, and
our carefully-written printed manual, he had never discovered (in over
a year) what the Insert key was for.  Yikes.

--richard

d...@batserver.cs.uq.oz.au (David Anderson) writes:

}In article <10353@stiatl.UUCP> tok@stiatl.UUCP (Terry Kane) writes:
}>
}>How about a user, confronted by a typical "press any key" message,
}>calling tech support complaining...
}>
}>     But I don't have an ANY key on my keyboard!
}>
}>--

}Yes! I've had a user complain about not having an 'ANY' key.

}So, I said to her "Pick a key .. any key you like!"

}She pressed the SHIFT key ... and (you guessed it) nothing happened.

}I had to then try and explain to her why she couldn't use the
}SHIFT , CTRL and CAPS LOCK keys.

You told her "Pick a key .. any key you like!", and she picked
the wrong key? How very stupid of her! :-)

If the program prompts "Press any key", and then don't accept
ANY key, it is a bug. BTW, would the program accept accent or
umlaud (or trema)?

Klaus Kristiansen

cos...@bbn.com (Bernie Cosell) writes:

>And of course, after you reflect on it there is hardly any reason to be so
>'helpful' and make the program so general, instead of simply having it read
>  "And then hit the space bar"
>and be done with it -- no ambiguity, no confusion, no nothing...

>  /bernie\

Whoah! Talk about de'ja vu. :->O<-:
-- 
Terry Kane						gatech!emory!stiatl!tok
BOWLING as ATTITDUDE.  I'm making myself EMOTIONALLY AVAILABLE to a 7-10 split!
YOW!  We're HAVING fun yet!					   -the Zipster

In article <58...@bbn.BBN.COM> cos...@bbn.com (Bernie Cosell) writes:

   d...@batserver.cs.uq.oz.au (David Anderson) writes:

   } [...]
   }So, I said to her "Pick a key .. any key you like!"
   }She pressed the SHIFT key ... and (you guessed it) nothing happened.
   }I had to then try and explain to her why she couldn't use the 
   }SHIFT , CTRL and CAPS LOCK keys.

   And of course, after you reflect on it there is hardly any reason to be so
   'helpful' and make the program so general, instead of simply having it read
     "And then hit the space bar"
   and be done with it -- no ambiguity, no confusion, no nothing...

*BUT* someone will eventually hit, say, RET (or <CR> or whatever!)
instead of the space key and that too, will work and cause no end of
confusion.  Which means the program would have to be changed to accept
only the space bar, and beep-error-message all the other non-modifier
keys... Argh!

Parenthetically, the "arrow" and "function" keys are non-modifer keys,
but may cause problems as well on certain terminals under certain
apps.

Finally, a certain bit of documentation for a certain product which
shall rename nameless, but runs on a "user-friendly" machine known for
it's ease of use, describes keys like this (not direct quote):

  Pressing the key labelled `A' generates the letter `A' or the letter
  `a'... Keys that produce letters of the alphabet like this, or keys
  that produce numbers or other symbols like `!'  or `%', will be
  referred to as, for example, (bold) "the `A' key" (unbold).

So guess what they called the space bar?  Yup, the

  (bold) "the ` ' key"  (unbold)

I wonder why they didn't call the return key the

  (bold) "the `
' key" (unbold)

:-) :-)


[ No, wait, that's both LF and CR!... ]

[  M.P.Gerlek (mi...@lanl.gov)                 -
[  Los Alamos Nat'l Lab / Merrimack College    -
[  Disclaimer: Yes, Mom, I'll play nice.       -
[  "My other machine's a multi-threaed YMP."   -

But we have to realize that stupid users do have their uses. I worked in
a lab once, where some of the machines were not covered under a maintenance
contract. One day a workstation's screen remained blank when it was turned
on and rebooted after being turned off for a while.

After the engineers and maintenance people had checked all the obvious things
like power supply etc, they concluded "the tube's gone" and abandoned it.

After a couple of weeks, when most workstations were in use, a novice walked
in, found the abandoned workstation and switched it on. All the engineers
around chuckled under their breath as the novice sat looking at the blank
screen and waited and waited. Nothing happened.

Then this "stupid user" turned round and asked his neighbour, a hardware wizard,

	"Where's the brightness control, on this thing?"

As the chilling truth dawned, the wizard reached round the back and - voila!

	Steve Austin

In article <58...@bbn.BBN.COM> sau...@bbn.com (Steve Austin) writes:
>But we have to realize that stupid users do have their uses. ...

A collegue of mine describes users as "a test load on the system."

							spl (the p stands for
							perhaps they do have
							some use after all...)
-- 
Steve Lamont, SciViGuy -- (408) 646-2752
NPS Confuser Center, Code 0141/Naval Postgraduate School Monterey, CA 93940
"You're okay," said Honeysuckle.  "The dogs like you."
			- Charles Bukowski, "How to Get Published"

sau...@bbn.com (Steve Austin) writes:

[..]

The awful truth is that us over-intelligent ;-) users are often too snotty 
for our own good. I used to kid that the only reason that there was 
a BIG RED lamp signaling power on was that the non-expert user could actually
see that the darned thing was turned on. This became somewhat less 
funny after I once spent 10 minutes pondering over *why* a piece of equipment
didn't seem to respond too much; the power was of. SIGH.

Jens
Jens Tingleff MSc EE, Institute of Computer Science, Copenhagen University
Snail mail: DIKU Universitetsparken 1 DK2100 KBH O
"It never runs around here; it just comes crashing down"
	apologies to  Dire Straits 

While I worked for `a previous employer', I heard a tail about a field
service problem. Not even FOAF, so this is REAL folklore.

The scenario:

	A warehouse, with loads of shelves of stuff.  A few terminals in
	the warehouse.  When an item is removed from the shelves, the
	information on its tag is entered into the computer. There's a
	chart on the wall behind each terminal which has the code to enter
	for each part. The computer then knows whats in stock. Easy really.

	So... the system has been working for a while, and then
	the support team receive a telephone call from them.
	``We're getting spurious spaces on one of our VDUs, can
	you send a chap round to fix it?''

	Now, these VDUs are RS232 at 9600 baud, running at about the
	limit of their range. So, the field engineer expects that its
	noise on the line, so he follows the routing, unwraps the wire
	from various hazards (you know the sort of thing, electric motors,
	fluorescent lights, telephones, the usual problems with long serial
	wires). Having made sure that the cable is now well protected from
	external magnetic fields, only earthed at one end and all that
	jazz, he leaves.

	And the system is fine.

	For a week.

	Then the support engineers are phoned again:
	``Those spurious spaces are back.''

	So, in goes a new VDU. The wire is replaced. The serial interface
	card is replaced. The operating system is upgraded (one visit to
	the sight for each modification).

	By now the support guys are getting worried. The customer is getting
	a bit p****d off. Words are being said. You know the sort of thing.

	Eventually, a field service engineer is sent to watch for these
	spurious spaces. So he waits near the VDU, watching.

	The warehouse people take items off the shelf. Most of them know
	most of the computer codes already, so just go to the VDU and
	tap in the code. Sometimes, someone looks up a code.

	And then it happened.

	One of the ladies comes upto the VDU with several items.
	Now, she's a big girl (now what I mean?) and she put here
	little collection down beside the VDU, sat down, picked up
	each one in turn, and typed it's number in. Then she picked
	up one she didn't recognised, *leaned forward* to read the
	number from the list on the wall, and the VDU started beeping.
	Her bosoms had made firm contact with the space bar....

+-------

	And then there's the MD that I heard about, who had to send a
	memo to all the WP staff, asking them not to wear nylon panties
	at work, as the wriggling of the nylon on the typist's chairs
	created enough static to blow the WP line driver chips up.
	No-one knows if the MD checked all the WP staff himself.....

	(MD: Managing Director - very important chap in UK companies.)
	(WP: Word Processing [I believe thats something like using
	vi and troff])

+-------

-- 
     "These opinions are made up on the spur of the moment, and bear no
      relationship to my actual beliefs, let alone those of Specialix"

Jon Brawn, jo...@specialix.co.uk  (or for you bangers: ..!mcsun!ukc!slxsys!jonb)

(I heard this one a while back, think it's true, but you never know...)

The software support people were called out to sort out a problem with
somebody's PC application. It wasn't coming up with the correct
prompts and suchlike. The guy who went round looked for a while,
turned the colour up and left...

BTW, setting dec keyboards into Scandanavian modes really confuses
people trying to log in (I know, took me the best part of an hour to
figure it out) -unless you're a Scandanavian, of course ;-)

bob
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
bob nutter, computer officer     | There's a time to live,
UMIST dept of computation        | And a time to die.
po box 88 manchester m60 1qd uk  | -I smoke Elvis Presley's toenails
tel:+44 61 200 3386              | When I wanna get high...
emai...@ap.co.umist.ac.uk       |                      Butthole Surfers

In article <58...@bbn.BBN.COM> cos...@bbn.com (Bernie Cosell) writes:
>d...@batserver.cs.uq.oz.au (David Anderson) writes:
>
>}In article <10353@stiatl.UUCP> tok@stiatl.UUCP (Terry Kane) writes:
>}>
>}>How about a user, confronted by a typical "press any key" message,
>}>calling tech support complaining...
>}>
>}>	But I don't have an ANY key on my keyboard!
>}>
>}>-- 
>
>}Yes! I've had a user complain about not having an 'ANY' key.
>
>}So, I said to her "Pick a key .. any key you like!"
>
>}She pressed the SHIFT key ... and (you guessed it) nothing happened.
>
>}I had to then try and explain to her why she couldn't use the 
>}SHIFT , CTRL and CAPS LOCK keys.
>
>And of course, after you reflect on it there is hardly any reason to be so
>'helpful' and make the program so general, instead of simply having it read
>  "And then hit the space bar"
>and be done with it -- no ambiguity, no confusion, no nothing...

... until you find the keyboard in pieces.  Waybackwhen, when the Apple II's
and PET computers were starting to come out, in Berkeley, the Lawrence
Hall of Science (just above the UC campus and the LBL), a sort of hands-on
science museum had strings of them sitting on tables, where people would
pay a buck or two to spend an hour in front of them, playing games or
whatever.  This was just before the idea of personal computers was considered
a reality to the laypeople.

Anyway, you would have been astounded at the number of people who saw the
message "Hit any key to continue", and actually SLAMMING their hands down
on they keys!

Later, those in charged noticed this trend and spend a couple days running
through their software changing all instances of 'hit' to 'press'.

>
>  /bernie\

	'stair

-- 
Alastair Sutherland, Computing Services Projects Guy, The Santa Cruz Operation
alas...@sco.com (E-I-E-I-O)  - or -  uunet!sco!alastair  - or - (408) 425-7222

       Theory is close to practice more often in theory than in practice.

In article <61...@specialix.co.uk> jo...@specialix.co.uk (Jon Brawn) writes:
%While I worked for `a previous employer', I heard a tail about a field
%service problem. Not even FOAF, so this is REAL folklore.
%
%	And then there's the MD that I heard about, who had to send a
%	memo to all the WP staff, asking them not to wear nylon panties
%	at work, as the wriggling of the nylon on the typist's chairs
%	created enough static to blow the WP line driver chips up.
%	No-one knows if the MD checked all the WP staff himself.....
%
%Jon Brawn, jo...@specialix.co.uk  (or for you bangers: ..!mcsun!ukc!slxsys!jonb)

   This reminds me of my first job in "computers" - field service on  W.P.
   equipment.

   Now the hardware was "Toytown" stuff...  we're talking Z80, 64K of  mem
   and 8" floppies here (and  no, that is not a  pun on the first part  of
   Jon's anecdote!), but the real fun part of the job was that all of  the
   operators were female, mostly young and  mostly single (it was a  great
   job for a young, single guy and I enjoyed it...  despite the fact  that
   I wasn't either!).

   Anyway, the  `static'  problem that  Jon  mentions did  crop  up  quite
   regularly.  The  "classic" situation  would have the  operator using  a
   swivel chair with castors occasionally  zooming over to the printer  to
   pick up her work (one good shove off the desk on the outward `zoom' and
   a good shove off the  printer stand to get  back) and then zapping  the
   keyboard when she started typing again.

   The "classic"  cure  was  to  get the  floor  area  sprayed  with  some
   anti-static gunk and  put some sort  of discharge device  on the  chair
   (trailing chain ala MKII Cortina - Sorry America, disregard that..  the
   Brits know what I'm talking about) .

   The fun part was always the banter, though.  It was always great fun to
   trot into some company where the M.D.  (or whoever) was hopping up  and
   down because the system was down.  Operator and F.E.  would immediately
   launch into a colourful and intimate conversation on the pros and cons
   of various types of underwear, much to the amusement of the other staff
   and chagrin of management type!  ;^>

   All of this, by the way, was brought to mind not only by Jon's posting,
   but also by an entry in our  database which I came across this  morning
   (I kid you not!).   The entry was related  to a CPU/Memory failure  and
   the symptoms were listed as:-

		PANIC: PANTY ERROR

				     ...well, it makes a change from jokes
   about Long John Silver, I suppose!

  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
 |   John Little - gai...@Japan.Sun.COM  |  Sun Microsystems. Atsugi, Japan  |
  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
              - A fool must now and then be right by chance -

In article <58...@bbn.BBN.COM> cos...@bbn.com (Bernie Cosell) writes:
>d...@batserver.cs.uq.oz.au (David Anderson) writes:
>}In article <10353@stiatl.UUCP> tok@stiatl.UUCP (Terry Kane) writes:
>}>How about a user, confronted by a typical "press any key" message,
>}>calling tech support complaining...
>}>	But I don't have an ANY key on my keyboard!
>}I had to then try and explain to her why she couldn't use the 
>}SHIFT , CTRL and CAPS LOCK keys.
>And of course, after you reflect on it there is hardly any reason to be so
>'helpful' and make the program so general, instead of simply having it read
>  "And then hit the space bar"
>and be done with it -- no ambiguity, no confusion, no nothing...

Except that since 'space'  is not labeled  some more clueless  users manage to
have problems finding it...
                                        reb
*-=#= Phydeaux =#=-*       r...@ingres.com   reb%ing...@lll-winken.llnl.GOV
ICBM:  40.55N 74.11W       h:182 Market St.Saddle Brook, NJ 07662 201-845-0256

   ...I'm now Looking for a job in the NYC *area*, preferably Northern NJ...

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.

	I worked as a computer lab monitor while I was attending college.  We
had an IBM PS/2 Model 25 out front, running a "Welcome" message.  Taped
to it was a sign that said "You must give your I.D. to the monitor".  So, the
new users, eager to demonstrate their new-found computer knowledge, did just
that.  They gave their ID to the "monitor" buy putting it in the drive slot!!

	Some other good ones:

The guy who kept losing his disk, so he decided he'd stick it to the fridge
with a magnet...

The guy who was running an application, and got an error message "door open",
so he got up and closed the office door....

The guy who tried to format 6 disks at once by stuffing them all in the drive..

The guy who read in the manual that he needed a 'clean disk', so he put one
in the dishwasher...

In article <90238.14...@ysub.ysu.edu> DO...@ysub.ysu.edu (Doug Sewell) writes:
>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.

Shhhh..... not so loud.  You want the *users* to find out?

:-)

							spl (the p stands for
							personally, I *want*
							them to think I AM a
							wizard...)
-- 
Steve Lamont, SciViGuy -- (408) 646-2752 (subject to change at random)
NPS Confuser Center / Code 51 / Naval Postgraduate School / Monterey, CA 93940
"You're okay," said Honeysuckle.  "The dogs like you."
			- Charles Bukowski, "How to Get Published"

gor...@osiris.cso.uiuc.edu (John Gordon) writes:
>The guy who kept losing his disk, so he decided he'd stick it to the fridge
>with a magnet...

....The company running Structured Programming courses, who issued a free
yuppyfax type notebook/time manager, with a pocket for floppies, the pocket
being held shut by a magnetic catch...
-- 
 "These opinions where made up on the spur of the moment, to a formula kept
 secret from prying eyes for hundreds of years, and bear no relationship to
       my actual beliefs, let alone those of Specialix International"
Jon Brawn, jo...@specialix.co.uk  (or for you bangers: ..!mcsun!ukc!slxsys!jonb)

In article <13...@cs.nps.navy.mil> s...@cs.nps.navy.mil (Steve Lamont) writes:
>In article <90238.14...@ysub.ysu.edu> DO...@ysub.ysu.edu (Doug Sewell) writes:
>> I am not a wizard.  What I do isn't magic.  I am a computer professional.
>Shhhh..... not so loud.  You want the *users* to find out?

Shhhh..... not so loud. You want your *boss* to find out?

                                ;-) ;-) ;-)
                                                reb
*-=#= Phydeaux =#=-*       r...@ingres.com   reb%ing...@lll-winken.llnl.GOV
ICBM:  40.55N 74.11W       h:182 Market St.Saddle Brook, NJ 07662 201-845-0256

       ...The USPS is the worlds best example of the Peter principle...

In article <57...@rtech.Ingres.COM> r...@squid.rtech.com (Phydeaux) writes:
   In article <13...@cs.nps.navy.mil> s...@cs.nps.navy.mil (Steve Lamont) writes:
   >In article <90238.14...@ysub.ysu.edu> DO...@ysub.ysu.edu (Doug Sewell) writes:
   >> I am not a wizard.  What I do isn't magic.  I am a computer professional.
   >Shhhh..... not so loud.  You want the *users* to find out?

   Shhhh..... not so loud. You want your *boss* to find out?

Shhh!  My *mother* reads the net, too.


[  M.P.Gerlek (mi...@lanl.gov)                 -
[  Los Alamos Nat'l Lab / Merrimack College    -
[  Disclaimer: Yes, Mom, I'll play nice.       -
[  "My other machine's a multi-threaded YMP."  -

In article <1990Aug28....@specialix.co.uk> jo...@specialix.co.uk (Jon Brawn) writes:

>gor...@osiris.cso.uiuc.edu (John Gordon) writes:
>>The guy who kept losing his disk, so he decided he'd stick it to the fridge
>>with a magnet...

>....The company running Structured Programming courses, who issued a free
>yuppyfax type notebook/time manager, with a pocket for floppies, the pocket
>being held shut by a magnetic catch...
>-- 

Many women's wallets (and some men's) now have the "hi-tech" magnetic
catch. I wonder how long it will take the credit card people (or the wallet
manufacturers) to realize that those magnetic stripes on cards soon
become useless.

Tom.

In article <90Aug29.123...@me.utoronto.ca> zou...@me.utoronto.ca ("Athanasios(Tom) Zougas") writes:
>In article <1990Aug28....@specialix.co.uk> jo...@specialix.co.uk (Jon Brawn) writes:
>>....The company running Structured Programming courses, who issued a free
>>yuppyfax type notebook/time manager, with a pocket for floppies, the pocket
>>being held shut by a magnetic catch...
>>-- 
>Many women's wallets (and some men's) now have the "hi-tech" magnetic
>catch. I wonder how long it will take the credit card people (or the wallet
>manufacturers) to realize that those magnetic stripes on cards soon
>become useless.

I guess that you've missed the problems with eelskin wallets?

I think it was the local paper that printed the suggestion that
the ellskin wallets somehow produced too much static that (I
guess magically) erased the magnetic stripe.

This in a town with a *serious* percentage of PHDs... 

Actually: a sufficiently large static discharge through a mag 
stripe *could* erase it through heating past the Curie(sp) point 
or by simply vaporizing it.  But such a discharge couldn't go 
unnoticed by the person carrying said card.

BTW: the eelskin wallets were being held closed by a thin 
magnetic clasp.

-- 
Russ Kepler - system admininstrator for bbx - Basis International
SNAILMAIL:  5901 Jefferson NE, Albuquerque, NM 87109
UUCP:  {backboneishsite}!unmvax!bbx!russ    PHONE: 505-345-5232

In article <1990Aug28....@specialix.co.uk>, jo...@specialix.co.uk (Jon Brawn) writes:
> gor...@osiris.cso.uiuc.edu (John Gordon) writes:
>>The guy who kept losing his disk, so he decided he'd stick it to the fridge
>>with a magnet...
> 
> ....The company running Structured Programming courses, who issued a free
> yuppyfax type notebook/time manager, with a pocket for floppies, the pocket
> being held shut by a magnetic catch...
>
Nothing to do with computers, but some University in the UK included in their
`welcome to freshers' package a leaflet on sexually transmitted diseases,
including a condom.  They stapled the condom to the leaflet!!

Ian

use...@bbx.basis.com (news manager ) writes:

>In article <90Aug29.123...@me.utoronto.ca> zou...@me.utoronto.ca ("Athanasios(Tom) Zougas") writes:
>>In article <1990Aug28....@specialix.co.uk> jo...@specialix.co.uk (Jon Brawn) writes:
>>>....The company running Structured Programming courses, who issued a free
>>>yuppyfax type notebook/time manager, with a pocket for floppies, the pocket
>>>being held shut by a magnetic catch...
>>>-- 
>>Many women's wallets (and some men's) now have the "hi-tech" magnetic
>>catch. I wonder how long it will take the credit card people (or the wallet
>>manufacturers) to realize that those magnetic stripes on cards soon
>>become useless.


>Actually: a sufficiently large static discharge through a mag 
>stripe *could* erase it through heating past the Curie(sp) point 
>or by simply vaporizing it.  But such a discharge couldn't go 
>unnoticed by the person carrying said card.

>BTW: the eelskin wallets were being held closed by a thin 
>magnetic clasp.

The 24-hour "gets you all access" card for staff in a local educational
institution had a magnetic strip on it (by magnetic i mean the card had
an attraction to metal surfaces, not quite enough to stick the card to 
a filing cabinet, but enough to notice it) that would eventually render
auto-teller and similar cards useless when placed together in a wallet.

"up 'ere for thinking"

rik.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rik Harris - Faculty of Computing and Information Technology
Monash University, Caulfield Campus (was Chisholm Institute), Australia
edp...@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au     <-- what the computer says it is
edp367s@monu6.cc.monash.oz[.au]    <-- SEEMS to work more reliably
Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will want to use it.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In article <92...@scorn.sco.COM>, alas...@sco.COM (I forgot my mantra) writes...

[... Ancedote Deleted ...]

>Anyway, you would have been astounded at the number of people who saw the
>message "Hit any key to continue", and actually SLAMMING their hands down
>on they keys!
> 
>Later, those in charged noticed this trend and spend a couple days running
>through their software changing all instances of 'hit' to 'press'.

Remeber, the HARDER you hit the keys, the FASTER the computer thinks... (or so
the users in OUR labs think!!)
Believe me... Watch someone frustrated, they hit they keys FASTER and HARDER...
(which of course makes more mistakes, more frustration, etc...)

Not a pretty site to see a CIT-101e with its space bar springs hanging out!!


>Alastair Sutherland, Computing Services Projects Guy, The Santa Cruz Operation
>alas...@sco.com (E-I-E-I-O)  - or -  uunet!sco!alastair  - or - (408) 425-7222
> 
>       Theory is close to practice more often in theory than in practice.

Marc A. Casillo                         AXMAC@ALASKA.BITNET
Student User Consultant                 AX...@ACAD3.FAI.ALASKA.EDU
University Of Alaska, Anchorage         CAS...@HAYES.FAI.ALASKA.EDU

          Quit worrying about your health, it'll go away...

ax...@acad2.anc.alaska.edu (CASILLO MARC A) writes:

>Remeber, the HARDER you hit the keys, the FASTER the computer thinks... (or so
>the users in OUR labs think!!)
>Believe me... Watch someone frustrated, they hit they keys FASTER and HARDER...
>(which of course makes more mistakes, more frustration, etc...)

>Not a pretty site to see a CIT-101e with its space bar springs hanging out!!

Even sadder when the little card notice appears on the (broken) keyboard:


	D A N G E R !
	  5000 mV


-- 
Here I speak neither for Specialix, nor myself. What you see is all you get.
Jon Brawn, jo...@specialix.co.uk  (or for you bangers: ..!mcsun!ukc!slxsys!jonb)
  ``Once upon a time, not so very long ago, in a place not so very far away''

In article <92...@scorn.sco.COM>, alas...@sco.COM (I forgot my mantra) writes...
>Anyway, you would have been astounded at the number of people who saw the
>message "Hit any key to continue", and actually SLAMMING their hands down
>on they keys!

	I can tell you the funny story about stupid users -
	they were unable to do anything when they saw the message
	"Hit any key". Problem was solved by marking space bar
	with bold "ANY".

	Vadim Antonov
	DEMOS, Moscow, USSR
	(It is NOT a joke!)

In article <1990Sep7.2...@hayes.fai.alaska.edu> ax...@acad2.anc.alaska.edu writes:
>In article <92...@scorn.sco.COM>, alas...@sco.COM (I forgot my mantra) writes...
>
>[... Ancedote Deleted ...]
>
>>Anyway, you would have been astounded at the number of people who saw the
>>message "Hit any key to continue", and actually SLAMMING their hands down
>>on they keys!
>> 
>
>Remeber, the HARDER you hit the keys, the FASTER the computer thinks... (or so
>the users in OUR labs think!!)
>Believe me... Watch someone frustrated, they hit they keys FASTER and HARDER...
>(which of course makes more mistakes, more frustration, etc...)
>
During my Freshman year I saw this principle taken to the extreme.  One of my
classmates had an explosive temper and tended to shout unspeakable things and
pound keys when his programs didn't work.  One day he was livid and pounding
keys pretty hard.  I looked over in time to see him plant his fist squarely
in the middle of his keyboard.  Keys went everywhere!  It was quite a sight.

Right now I'm playing lab assistant and teaching FSE users about the wonders
of Vi.  It's rough going...

|      |      |      |     |    |    |    |   |   |   |   |  |  | | | | |||||||
     ___  __   ___                 Kirk Pearson
    /   \/  \ |   \                uunet!csu-cs!pearson
  _/         \|    \               pea...@handel.cs.colostate.edu
DoD #173 (the Cause \_             pearson%handel.cs.colostate.edu@cunyvm
          without a Rebel)
"Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage."
 -- H.L. Mencken
|      |      |      |     |    |    |    |   |   |   |   |  |  | | | | |||||||

*many* years ago I worked at Datapoint Corporation in San Antonio, TX. We
received a call one day (tech support) from a customer who said that he
couldn't get his system to read a particular diskette. Our rep asked the 
guy to make a copy of the diskette, send it to us, and we'd see what we
could do. Well, a few days later, an envelope arrived from the customer. 
When we opened it, there was a copy of the diskette --- a nice, 8-1/2 x 11
Xerox copy. THIS IS A TRUE STORY!!! Kind of scary, isn't it...
-- 
____*_  Janet Christian             ju...@indetech.com
\  / /  Independence Technologies   {sun,sharkey,pacbell}!indetech!juser
 \/ /   42705 Lawrence Place        FAX: 415 438-2034
  \/    Fremont, CA 94538           Voice: 415 438-2054