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From: rfrye@netexa.UUCP (Rob Frye)
Newsgroups: net.rumor
Subject: Re: Computer Horror Stories
Message-ID: <437@netexa.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 19-Mar-86 11:56:50 EST
Article-I.D.: netexa.437
Posted: Wed Mar 19 11:56:50 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 30-Mar-86 07:27:42 EST
References: <14700001@hplabsb.UUCP> <476@mmm.UUCP>
Distribution: net
Organization: NetExpress, Inc., Vienna, VA
Lines: 36

Not a computer horror-story, really, but a friend of mine in the
Human Engineering field tells of a particular typewriter repairman
who was well known for fixing some of the strangest typewriter
problems rather quickly.  The prime example was one day a female
secretary complained that her typewriter was occassionally putting
extra spaces between letters and words for no apparent reason.
He showed up, with an assistant and toolkit, and asked the secretary
to demonstrate the problem.  She sat down and started typing, and
sure enough, the extra spaces appeared.

The repairman said she could go get a cup of coffee, and it would
be solved as soon as she got back.  She did, and the assistant
started pulling out various tools, but the older guy didn't need
them.  He went over to her chair and lowered it an inch or two.
When asked, he just said "watch".  She came back, was asked to try
again, and lo and behold it was fixed!  No extra spaces!  Why?
The chair was too high, and as she leaned over the typewriter,
the rather-well-endowed secretary's bust kept hitting the space
bar as she typed...

Same friend also has a tape DEC has made of one of their early
design failures of the Rainbow and its disk drives.  It is
affectionately known as "Debbie does DEC" and involves two
rather "techno-peasant" types trying to use the Rainbow and
instruction manual and end up wedging the floppy disk between drive
and cover (a small opening there in early design).  DEC redid
both the equipment and the manual, but kept the tape [which was
to have been a training film!] as an example of poor human engineering.

-- 
--->
--
"You can Telenet, but you can't tell it much."

				Rob Frye, NetExpress Inc.
				{seismo,rlgvax}!hadron!{netex,netexa}!rfrye