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Path: utzoo!watmath!watnot!crshnider
From: crshnider@watnot.UUCP (Charles R. Shnider)
Newsgroups: net.rumor
Subject: Computer Horror Stories
Message-ID: <11616@watnot.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 14-Mar-86 10:42:04 EST
Article-I.D.: watnot.11616
Posted: Fri Mar 14 10:42:04 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 15-Mar-86 03:16:54 EST
Distribution: net
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 42

Here are a couple of interesting, but not too horrible things that happened 
while I was on a co-op job with a mining company in Western Canada.  The site
had two HP 3000 minis.

We had a program on our system that I think was given to us by an HP system
engineer.  The program was called KILROY, and started by displaying a face
drawn in characters on the terminal.  The eyes would look both ways, the face
would go away, and the program would give the user "the finger".  Well one
programmer decided to install KILROY on an account used by a co-worker to
test out a new system.  The program was run automatically at logon.  Little
did he know that the system being tested was slated for a demo to *top          
management* the next day...........

The HP 2626A terminal has a programmable bell character in it.  You can 
vary the pitch and maybe the duration of the bell.  One of our programmers 
spent the better part of a month working with this feature at the expense
of his other work.  When the MISmanager came to see how his system was doing,
all he could demonstrate was a program that would play "Happy Birthday" on
any 2626A not logged onto the system.......

We also had a program called TERMLOCK designed to let you secure your 
terminal for a few minutes while you stepped out of the room.  It would
lock up the terminal until a password was entered to unlock it.  A favorite
trick to play on unsuspecting users was the "instant termlock".  What you did
was:

1.  Log on your session and TERMLOCK it.
2.  Find a hapless user that needs to be termlocked.
3.  Have someone go into his/her office to distract them.
4.  Break into a panel on the wall which connected terminals in the office
    to ports on the cpu, and connect your terminal to his/her session, and
    his/her terminal to your session.

The user would then go to use his terminal, and would be greeted with
"Enter Password>" even though he had never left his desk.  Various cat and
mouse games would then ensue....



Charles R. Shnider
University of Waterloo   Waterloo, Ontario
crshnider@watnot.uucp