Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcvax!unido!sbsvax!greim
From: greim@sbsvax.UUCP (Michael Greim)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: computer follies
Message-ID: <622@sbsvax.UUCP>
Date: 7 Sep 88 09:29:05 GMT
References: <5856@ihlpf.ATT.COM> <627@uwovax.uwo.ca> <2045@cuuxb.ATT.COM> <5693@utah-cs.UUCP>
Organization: Universitaet des Saarlandes, Saarbruecken, West Germany
Lines: 82

Hello,
here are some computer follies published some time ago.

From Jack Campin (jack@cs.glasgow.ac.uk) on Nov 27 1987

<I have had the doubtful privilege of looking after an ICL 3930 over the last
<couple of years. This machine has a prodigious number of ways to reboot; most
<of them are reasonably documented, but one - I think the one you use when you
<want to save an image of a set of virtual machines to disk to speed up future
<routine reloads - comes up with a prompt:
<ENTER DATE AND TIME
<and leaves you guessing. It only accepts ONE date format, and the manuals
<nowhere say what it is. I first got the answer on Monday morning on the first
<of January 1986 and it's this:
<TUE.1986/01/07__08.32
<Intuitive, eh? - I think it took about four phone calls before I found someone
<at ICL who knew what it ought to be.

From  Tim Olson (tim@amdcad.UUCP) on Dec 1 1987

<Back to the original discussion, here is an example Alan Kay gave in a
<talk at Stanford about 2 years ago (paraphrased by me and my potentially
<faulty memory!):
<
<To test out new user interfaces, Xerox would videotape novice users
<working with the system.  In one particular instance, one person was to
<perform a task that required a DoIt command at the end (from a pull-down
<menu).  He kept repeating the cycle of performing everything up to the
<DoIt, pulling down the menu, going to the DoIt entry in the menu,
<muttering something under his breath, then quitting out of the menu.
<
<Upon review of the tape, the researchers discovered that the person was
<muttering "DOLT!..  I'm not a dolt".  They then realized that DoIt (with
<an uppercase I) *did* look like the word "dolt" in the sans-serif font
<they had for the system.  They later changed it to "doit" (lowercase
<'i'). 

From Clif Flynt (clif@.chinet.UUCP) 15 Dec 1987 :
<In article <1943@ncr-sd.SanDiego.NCR.COM> matt@ncr-sd.SanDiego.NCR.COM (Matt Costello) writes:
<>The real problems in interface design generally occur because of
<>unstated assumptions.  We had a hilarious incident occur here
<>recently...
<>
<>  Imagine our suprise when a worried secretary called
<>to say that she had been able to fit only 5 of the disks into the
<>disk drive.  
<>
<
<  A similar incident happened to a friend, diagnosing a floppy disk read 
<problem over the phone.  
<  "Have you cleaned the disk?"  He inquired, thinking that the heads might
<be dirty.
<  "I'll try it and call you back", said the person at the other end, and
<about 10 minutes later called back to inform my friend.  "I took the disk
<out of that black wrapper, and you were right, it was covered with brown
<dusty stuff.  I cleaned that all off, but it still doesn't work."
<
<
<  There is also the tale of the DP manager who wanted to make sure that
<nobody would overwrite the data on his tapes.  He filled the slots where
<the write-enable rings would go with epoxy, so that no-one could put
<a write enable ring in.  He didn't realize that ANYTHING in that slot will 
<enable the tape for writing.
<
<  Another friend of mine tells the tale of a system where people 
<could log in OK as long as they sat in front of the terminal.
<If they stood in front, then their password was rejected.
<  It finally turned out that two key-caps on the keyboard had been swapped.
<When people sat, they put their fingers on the 'home row' and typed,
<but standing, they typed with two fingers, and looked at the key-caps to 
<see which keys to press.

	Sorry, I missed the above cited article,
		-mg
-- 
UUCP:  ...!uunet!unido!sbsvax!greim   | Michael T. Greim
       or greim@sbsvax.UUCP           | Universitaet des Saarlandes
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# include <disclaimers/std.h>