Discussion on:

Safest way to buy online by credit card (Computer bloopers and blunders from the technically clueless)

While smirkingly laughing at the picture, I instinctively tried to drag the window of the device manager down! Argggh! (Bet the radio buttons don't work either. Better ring help desk) There for the grace of god etc. Shame shame. Tch tch.

'make a copy of the disk before you install the software'.. In the early 80's I ran a small computer company that made hardware for PC's. We sent the software out on 5.25" floppy disks, and an instruction manual I had written. (I said small company). I also did some of the tech support. One customer called a few times, and seemed to be having a lot of trouble with the software installation.

I went through the steps, and he confirmed that he had done each correctly.
1) Make a copy of the software disk
2) Insert the copy of the disk into the computer
3) Run the setup.bat file (Opps no files on the disk Hmmm)

After 3 retries and recalls of making the copy, I had him tell me the steps he took in detail (figuring he was making a backup with the wrong commands or the like).

He replied:
1) I make a copy if the disk
2) I trim off the excess so it will fit in the drive (Opps why is there excess?
because the photo copier only makes 8.5 by 11 copies...

Here's your sign! (for both of us, I rewrote the manual that afternoon)

Tom

thats some amazing work....

Back in the day of local UG's (User Groups) and caddy-loading CD-ROM players, we had a user bring her computer to our UG meeting. She complained that her CD-ROM player had quit working and wondered if we would look at it. My pal Jim said sure and peeked inside. He audibly groaned and said "Ray, grab my needle noses out of my tool bag." I handed him the pliers and Jim proceeded to extract a 3.5" floppy disk a la picture 1 from the drive. He then proceeded to extract TWO more diskettes. In over 16 years, I've seen nearly every example of what these pictures depiect.

RE: Insert into drive D and a half - perhaps they thought it was like the Harry Potter Hogwart's railway station at #9 3/4? Otherwise I would wonder if they can see that well, or couldn't find the Open button? Lots of ummmm good? explanations for this one. Maybe they thought it was like the CD player in their car.

In the old days of floppy disks I gave a teaching colleague some learning materials I'd saved to disk. She rang to say the disk was empty, useless, or so faulty the computer wouldn't even read it. I was puzzled until I discovered she was putting it into the disk drive SIDEWAYS. And this woman was teaching word-processing at the time!

I was sent to look at a printer that would not communicate with the PC.
On arrival I found an old style printer with a font card slot and a parallel port.
a test showed that it powered up OK but could not communicate, so I tried another cable.
No luck there so I pulled the covers off and peered inside. The card slot in the case lined up with the back of the main board and I could see something shiny lodged down the back.
I loosened the board and tilted the machine. A total of ??1.86 in various denominations of loose change spilled out and rolled across the table. There was a 50p coin wedged on the back of the parallel connector, effectively shorting it out. Having halved the value of the printer I replaced the covers and it worked fine. The owner was delighted to be re-united with her fortune and explained that her two year old son had recently been given a money box and was getting into the habit of 'finding' coins and putting them into any slot he could find.

A lot of these odd happenings (not counting grandpa's beard, of course) happen either at the hands (literally) of children or because no one ever 'splained the basics to the end user.

Sometimes that could be the end user's fault. People hate to start out looking dumb so they don't ask for help, and what happens? They get to pay good money to look dumb.

As the generation that teethed on computer chips hits its stride this sort of thing probably doesn't happen as often -- except, of course for grandpa's beard, and as the PC's get off the floor or replaced by laptops and tablets even that probably doesn't happen so much any more.

That's where I was hiding my cards............... Forgot to remove them.

The more cd's the better. I have a slot feed player that holds four disca. THis person must have seen me load up.

The ide cable from CD to HDD was the best!

I got the job of cleaning a bunch of PC's that had not been covered with plastic before a remodeling project. DRY WALL DUST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was told a couple cans of air should do it. HA! Used my small air compressor and a vacuum. 5 HOURS.

The "CD in the wrong slot" blooper happened to me once with a 5.25" diskette (remember those?). I was working on an IBM RT server that was standing on the floor under the table where I was sitting. I had been feeding it diskettes for a while, and had the whole "unlatch drive, remove diskette, insert diskette, latch drive, press Enter" down pat. I was doing all this without ever looking down at the machine. Well, one time I inserted a diskette in the drive, but the drive wouldn't latch. When I looked down at the machine, there was no diskette in the drive. It had disappeared! I had managed to insert it through an opening between the top of the drive and the blank faceplate above it. Retrieving the diskette wasn't a big deal -- I just popped out the blank faceplate. But the diskette had been slid over the top of a very dusty diskette drive, and had to be discarded.

Isn't that how dual-layer discs came to be?

For example the multiple US Robotics Modems. I saw Windows do that sort of trick many times. No technically clueless involved at all. That stuff kept me and my peers in a job. And still does.
The Multiple Folders - I have also seen Windows do that type of thing.
I should point out that I am talking Windows in it's original incarnation not the fluffed up over engineered monster that is currently sold as Windows.
The Autoexec.bat file with a Deltree command.? If it worked would also have deleted the autoexec.bat file so there would be no record. Suspect this is a recreation of actual events.
However I used to support some one who periodically used to issue the following command to free up disk space.
del C:\*.*
This person kept forgetting to put in the path to the temp directory. We are talking DOS 3.0 days.

I actually got a service call on this one, back in the day. It was 5.25" diskettes as well.

As I recall, she said the machine was eating her floppies. I opened it up and there were five or six of them inside.

...didn't look so funny to me, as it brought back painful memories.
the screen of my Toshiba Satellite laptop got a big crack just from opening and closing, no big shocks. the cheap plastic encasing of the 17" widescreen may have helped adding to the daily stress on the screen. the starting point of the crack was located somewhere near the bottom left corner of the screen and was already two-branched (1-2 in each branch) right after it happened. it quickly grew to a full screen coverage before the new screen I ordered came.
at least mine was done after 6 months of use. when i started reading reviews I found about a similar case happening after 1 month of just regular use.
try to explain this for warranty refund...

Oh the memories. Back when life was simple.
But, no dead mice? The four legged ones.

Back in the 70's my company sold systems with floppy drives to tire stores. The computer with floppy drives were installed on a shelf under the counter. At night (do to the energy crisis) the store thermostats were set to 80 degrees or more. Also I think the shelf doors were closed but the computers left on. The heat continued to recirculate within the cabinets. Saw one of the drives brought in with the floppy actually melted in the drive. Wow. We had to reengineer the fan cages so they stayed further away from the back of the cabinet and I think have grills put in the cabinet doors. Fixed the problem but an unhappy customer.

When I went to grad school, we were presented with a VERY BIG "portable" Compaq computer, the size of a small suitcase. The software included Lotus 1,2,3. We were tol to bring the thing home and install Lotus 1,2,3. I could not understand the directions, and asked a self proclaimed computer expert. "Well, he said, first yo put each disc in and FORMAT it" Are you sure I asked? Oh yes, he said, that gets it ready to install. He then provided me with complete directions for formatting each disc, and I did as directed. I then tried again and again to install the program, with no luck. Finally, I brought the whole thing back to class, and announced that there was "something wrong" with MY program. The instructor, could not stop laughing when I told him what I had done, and I learned it is better to NEVER accept everything from a self proclaimed expert without proof of his expertise!

Yea.. keep installing it..
Anyone remember when you could get software that allowed two modems to connect to your service provider and split the downloads. I think one modem did text and the other images ?
I would believe this was way before 56K connections and when service providers could limit your connections. I think I tried it but you needed two telephone lines. I had a separate modem line as well as a phone line. I was on, some times, for 10 hours straight back in the late '90s. I had a good company then. I still have the E-Mail address from them, 15 years.

I worked at a college from "85 to '98. In '86 I had a computer lab and found one of those suitcase computers.. think I finally threw it out in 1990... worth a few bucks now ! Slow as could be with 5 1/4 disks.