Thread: Senior Computer Skills.......

But not necessarily seniors?

The Darwin principal is alive and well

We had built a terminal emulator (IBM 2848) using a Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) PDP 11/34. In those days it was not unusual for the system to require restarting due to all sorts of things. (Power blip, static discharge, a general crash) To start this system it took pressing the control button and halt then control and boot. The problem was that the control button had to be released between the halt and boot buttons. Somehow we could never communicate the release the control button to the terminal operators.

Finally we wrote the instruction as Press and hold the control button and press the halt button. Clap your hands. Press and hold the control button and press the boot button. We gave the instructions to the senior terminal operator. She was the one that was having the most difficulty restarting the system. The expression on her face when the procedure worked was priceless.

Yes, really.

I was called at home one night as the printer stopped working. I asked the senior terminal operator to type on the computer console Hold control and press c.
M: What happened?
STO: A funny little thing and the screen moved up one.
M: Type MCR a space and return
M: What happened?
STO: Nothing
M: Try again
M: (After three or four iterations of the above) I'll be there in about 20 minutes.

Upon my arrival I looked at the computer console. There were three lines on the bottom of the screen, all the same.
>MCR RETURN

Just another reason support people drink.

PDP11! Luxury!

I used to be able to build a computer pretty much from scratch and program in machine code. These days I can barely use application level software...

Had someone send me another one on the same subject.

Customer: My computer isn't working.

Tech support: Are you sure it is switched on?

Customer: Yes, I already checked that,

Tech support: Is it plugged in and switched on at the wall?

Customer: Hmmm ... I can't see in there behind the computer - can you wait until I get a torch?

Tech support: Why is it so dark?

Customer: Because we are in the middle of a power cut.

Tech support: Do you still have all the boxes your computer came in?

Customer: Yes. Why?

Tech support: What I want you to do is pack up your computer and take it back to the shop.

Customer: OK. What do I tell them?

Tech support: Tell them you are too flaming stupid to own a computer. (Slam!)

C'arnt reply dumbfounded

It would have been in the late 1980's/early 90's when I was in the Army.

Our original computers we were sent had 5.25" floppy drives. These had just been replaced by new machines with 3.5" floppy drives.

A fairly senior officer asked me to help him with his computer as he could not get it to read his floppy disk.

All his data was on one of the old 5.25" disks and he had folded it in half and rammed it into the new 3.5" drive.

Apparently I was the idiot because "How else was I supposed to get it in there?"

Not being rude or anything Doug, but it sounds like typical Army inteligence, go in as a truck driver and they make you a cook!!!!
I knew a retired Army trained Mechanic, who worked where I did, when customer brought in his 4WD vehicle, because it was hard getting it into gear.
The gearbox was pulled out, and a clutch kit installed, the problem was still there, so out it came again. This time the gearbox was overhauled, reinstalled, only for the problem to still remain. The gearbox eventually was removed and installed another 5 times for clutch or gearbox O/H. Customer being repeatedly charged each time???
The customer went to an exhaust place to get some work done, where he was asked if he had trouble getting gears, his reply was "nothing but", and went on to tell the story. Turns out the slave cylinder was installed upside down, with the bleeder valve pointing downwards. When the customer asked at the 4WD place as to why this wasn't picked up initially, he was told by the mechanic, "I thought it was supposed to be like that!!!!"
Kryn

Originally Posted by KBs PensNmore

Not being rude or anything Doug, but it sounds like typical Army inteligence, go in as a truck driver and they make you a cook!!!!

Actually, Kryn, the senior officer in question was in the Navy.

What? Nobody mentioned the one where the woman got her first computer (A DOS based system) and couldn't get the foot pedal to work. (Just like her sewing machine.) She had the mouse on the floor.

Also I remember an interview with a high level exec at MS. He complained that all the support people did was read the manual to the customer.

When I worked at DEC, there were two classes of customers, the general industrial / laboratory defense users and the general business customers. The general business customers were the most difficult. The most common problem that we would get hit with was, "I just copied my disk and now I can't boot the system." The answer was so simple that the administrators knew the answer, "In manual ORUGA, see section 4.2.9 on page 4-20."
Yeah, all the business systems ran under RT-11.

I bought an old police computer.

You only have to punch it once to get the information out.

Again while working for DEC, I had to visit the Los Angeles area of the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Organization. To solve the problem I needed to get some clarification from headquarters in Maynard, Massachusetts. In those days any long distance phone call was billable by the minute and being at a government installation a vendor should NEVER cause the accountants to question the people that you were visiting about phone charges.

Trying to get an outside line to make the call on my telephone company credit card I dialed 9 and a 0 I got the automated intercept. Then I tried just 0 to get the base operator. I asked for an outside line to make a credit card call. Refused. I asked if the operator would make the call for me if I gave the information. Refused. Then I asked my host where a Pay phone was. In superb military jargon he said, "Why the eff do you need a pay phone?" I explained and he rolled his eyes saying that some Lieutenant was trying to make a name for himself by reducing communications costs. My host, a full Colonel, said that he could use his code to get to an outside line. After 3 or 4 attempts the Colonel asked what was the number I was trying to reach. I gave him the number and after what seemed like 20 digits on the phone he handed me the phone as headquarters was answering. He then stormed off into his office.

Originally Posted by rrich

When SWMBO said "I won't cook in metric."
The metric system died in the US.

now you are really in trouble https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-...-vote/10506974

"The Planck constant (denoted h, also called Planck's constant) is a physical constant that is the quantum of action, which relates the energy carried by a photon to its frequency. A photon's energy is equal to the Planck constant times its frequency. The Planck constant is of fundamental importance in quantum mechanics. "

One of my other kids is a PhD in some sort of physics and does wonders with the chips that make our smart phones work. One evening while flavoring ice cubes and discussing quantum mechanics he said, "Anyone who says that they understand quantum mechanics, exhibits a high probability that they don't."