• vindico (unregistered) in reply to The guy
    The guy:
    Captcha: gravis. I only mention it because these stories all seem about as old as the Gravis Gamepad I used to have plugged into my SoundBlaster 16 sound card. Maybe even the 8-bit sound card...
    Soundblaster? Why? Ultrasound was waaayy better. And a gamepad? Analog Pro for me, thanks.
  • (cs) in reply to FIA
    FIA:
    Aside: Being a bit of an old OS geek I recently installed NT3.51 under a VM, it takes about 5 minutes and it's quite odd seeing such an old os in 1600x1200x32 on a dual core VM (which it delt with) using 1G of memory.
    Hey, it was designed to work on AlphaStations and some other cool platforms (MIPS, I think). Those had huge screens, lots (for back-then) of RAM and SMP long before x86 PCs did.
  • (cs) in reply to Herby
    Herby:
    If you want customer support tales, go visit: http://www.techtales.com While it hasn't been updated in almost a year, they DO have LOTS of older funny stories about the ins and outs of customer support.

    Ugh. That site is a huge WTF. Half the stories are rambling, poorly-written, and have no funny punchline. And is that body text written in the font that I think it is?! shudder

  • A. Cube (unregistered) in reply to Jeremy Friesner
    The obligatory car analogy: You take your car to a repair shop, and after two hours of waiting in the lobby, they come out and tell you that the car is a Honda and this is a Toyota repair shop, and therefore there's nothing they can do for you.

    CompuMart was the dealer, not a general repair shop. It would be more like you pulling your Honda into a Toyota dealership and asking them to fix it.

  • (cs) in reply to Carl
    Carl:
    Debug Gone Wild:
    "Type 'md' space 'appdir', then press the enter key" was the next prompt. We quickly learned to listen for the keystrokes. Too many indicated that the user has typed 'mdspaceappdir'.
    Back in the good old days (you kids have it so easy) the computer was in a large room halfway across town, and you did your work on a teletype connected by dial up modem.

    Now, picture a college lab full of these teletypes, students all working on the same assignment. Someone makes a typo; code won't compile. Error message prints. You can hear each letter clacking out onto the paper. After a while, certain patterns sound familiar. So you just yell across the room to the doe eyed airhead who decided to take Fortran to round out her psych degree "you left out a comma in your FORMAT statement" and bask in the bewilderment and awe.

    //second submit//

    Ah... The days of "INVALID FORM INVOLVING THE USE OF COMMA OR REDUNDANT PARENS."

  • Anonymous (unregistered)

    Sorry but the Missing Icons story is completely ludicrous. We're expected to believe that the user hid things behind her hand and immediately forgot they were there? If so she had far more serious problems than a lack of understanding of computers...

    (Although I guess a great way to waste time at the office... "Oh no, my spreadsheet just disappeared! calls tech support with other hand)

  • (cs) in reply to SR
    SR:
    ubersoldat:
    Interestingly, my optical mice do work on my TFT... yes, I had to try that!

    TRWTF is I just tried it, too.

    1st attempt. Whoo!

    Code challenge: Devise an algorithm that displays a pattern on the monitor that when you move your mouse over it, tricks the optical sensors and makes it think it's moving in some other direction. Then make a maze game :)
  • (cs) in reply to r2k-in-the-vortex
    r2k-in-the-vortex:
    really? ive had to explain my grandfather that no, a mousepad is not an advanced mousetrap
    Of course a mousepad is not a mousetrap. It's a swinging funky place, where all the cool bachelor mice hang out!
  • (cs) in reply to tB
    tB:
    3) I once convinced a user that ethernet cables could store data, and they should cut it into 1 inch pieces before they threw it away.
    WIN! [image]
  • Peter (unregistered) in reply to Carl
    Carl:
    Debug Gone Wild:
    "Type 'md' space 'appdir', then press the enter key" was the next prompt. We quickly learned to listen for the keystrokes. Too many indicated that the user has typed 'mdspaceappdir'.
    Back in the good old days (you kids have it so easy) the computer was in a large room halfway across town, and you did your work on a teletype connected by dial up modem.

    Now, picture a college lab full of these teletypes,

    Been there, done that. Had my own TTY & modem in my dorm room. No walking down to the lab for me. Worked repairing Teletypes for the Computing Center. Good times.

  • Val (unregistered) in reply to Anonymous
    Anonymous:
    WhiskeyJack:
    OK, I'll grant you Windows 96.5 as totally incompetent tech support.

    But the rest of the stories were just dumb or rude users. That could have happened with any tech company (if they happened at all -- the foot pedal sounds pretty apocryphal, has someone really seen that happen?)

    Yeah, I agree. The setup sounds plausible, little old lady gets a computer and her only frame of reference is her trusty old sewing machine. But in reality, it just doesn't wash. A sewing machine pedal is basically just a rheostat and by definition it has travel - push a little and the machine goes slow, push a lot and the machine goes fast. A mouse button is obviously that - a button. It doesn't have travel and it cannot be engaged to varying degrees like a sewing machine pedal. It is simply a button and even little old ladies know how buttons work - you press them, with your finger generally. I doubt that even the most senile of old ladies would see a mouse and assume that it's foot operated.

    You can never underestimate cluelessness. I once had to repair the computer of a neighbor. Once I found out that because of a recent Windows reinstall (by a helpful and just slightly less clueless neighbor) the motherboard drivers were not reinstalled, I asked for the installation CD. Or, better yet, as I knew they would not understand it, I showed them a CD, and asked them to give me a shiny round thing which looks like this one in my hand, and which they got when they bought the computer. They said they will search the cupboard where they have all their "computer stuff". In a few minutes they returned with... a power cable. "This is the only thing we found, but you're the specialist, so you should be able to fix it with this as well!"

  • Rick Sarvas (unregistered) in reply to Val

    On the subject of mouse/foot pedal confusion, I can authoritatively say that this really did happen. I was doing MS Word support back in the mid 90s at a call center company called <suck>Stream</suck>, and I had heard of similar stories shortly after I arrived from the other techs, but completely discounted them - that is, until I got a call one myself from an older lady having general Word issues. I don't remember what the reason for the call was, but its was nothing unusual up until that point.

    Anyway, towards the end of the call she mentions something about her "shift pedal" not working well. I'm thinking "what the heck is a shift pedal?", so I start asking some questions. Eventually I figure out that she's talking about the mouse she put on the floor, and it moves too easily. When I asked why she did that, she explained that she thought it was a shift key pedal like the one that was on her former office word processor (for some reason I think it might have been a Wang system). Up until that point I had never heard of one of these things, she told me that fast typists liked the shift pedals because you could supposedly increase you typing speed by using your foot to control the shift keys.

    Anyway, that's my story. While I remember this type of call not being all that common (I think that was the only one I ever had), I suspect other former Word processing support techs from that era might have similar foot pedal stories.

  • Arenlor (unregistered)

    I've actually had a person using the cd tray as a cup holder. I'm from right near where the Amish come from though, I mean seriously, we give them rides into Harrisburg and stuff. Most of the people around here are complete technophobes, and I do in home computer support. I mainly end up working with elderly ladies. The one who used it as a cup holder did use it as a cd tray also, but when she didn't have a cd in it held her cup. I started laughing the instant I saw it. I thought it was a prank.

  • (cs) in reply to Lady Nocturne
    Lady Nocturne:
    5.) Problem: "My internet is broken." Solution: set user's home page to a new website (the old website they were using was 404ing.)

    Another way to get this, is to set your browser to restore your last session on load, and then close it while it's showing a file in %TEMP% in the current tab (I've never cared to memorise what these files are but it's happened twice).

    Browser loads, can't find file, shows error page in active tab. User thinks Internet connection is down.

  • Fredrik (unregistered) in reply to SR
    SR:
    ubersoldat:
    Interestingly, my optical mice do work on my TFT... yes, I had to try that!

    TRWTF is I just tried it, too.

    1st attempt. Whoo!

    Mine does too!!!

    but now my icons keep disapearing :(

    ..help?

    CAPTCHA "LETATIO", I don't even know any more..

  • (cs)
    She had broken the foot pedal as it was made of plastic and didn't look very strong.

    The foot pedal, eh? You don't say!

    Oh, Alex, I've heard this really funny and really fresh story about a CD-ROM drive being used as a coffee cup holder...

Leave a comment on “CompuMart Support, Part 1: Windows 96½ & More”

Log In or post as a guest

Replying to comment #:

Log Out

« Return to Article