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Sharky

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With enough help, anything fits

58 comments

TAGS:modem, PS/2
IT TOPICS:Desktops & Servers, Internet, Management

It's the late 1980s, and all the mainframe developers at this big company have been given PCs to replace their programming workstations, reports a pilot fish there.

"My boss was really 'technical,' or so he thought -- he had his own PC at home, after all," fish says. "And being a manager, he was able to get away with some unapproved upgrades including a 28.8 Kbps modem that he used to dial out to various bulletin boards.

"After a year or so, the managers were upgraded to IBM PS/2 systems. In the manager ranks, there was great rejoicing -- except in the office of my boss. The new machines didn't come with modems."

One morning about two weeks after the managers' upgrades, fish is called into his boss's office. The new PC won't come on for some reason, boss tells him.

The area on the desk around the PS/2 is unusually clear, and fish notices an odor of smoke in the air as the boss explains that all he did was to install a modem in the new machine the day before.

Fish takes the cover off the PS/2 and immediately spots the problem. The modem card has been installed, all right -- and it's the same modem card that worked fine in his old PC.

But the PS/2 uses IBM's new proprietary Micro-Channel Architecture bus. The slots are different, and the modem card won't fit.

At least not without help.

"Being fairly cheap but also being a really 'technical' guy, my boss took wire cutters and cut slots in the old ISA card so that he could mash it down into the MCA card slot," says fish.

"Needless to say, things went south when he turned on his system. Panicking, he unplugged the smoking box and left it for for me to deal with.

"I never did hear how he explained things to the official support guys when he called them."

You can help Sharky by sending me your true tale of IT life at sharky@computerworld.com. You'll score a sharp Shark shirt if I use it. Add your comments below, and read some great old tales in the Sharkives.

Now you can post your own stories of IT ridiculousness at Shark Bait. Join today and vent your IT frustrations to people who've been there, done that.

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drown in the now

Submitted by mad bad bear box on July 26, 2009 - 7:04 P.M.

true to form - things go south, prehistoric and time travel. everywhere and anywhere. har har har.

long time ago, far away...i said to Loard Slit Eyes, we can't have hell be a place for these US modems. Eh, wouldnt listen. 3 months later, users complaining, modems hanging. i slip down to the site, well, twas hot. this was before those nasty, pentrium processors.

ok...so now, RAP TRACK!

[real heinously Excellent, bass beats and disco synth] Rock when I rip it when I'm rollin' on clouds...

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F L U F

Submitted by F L U F on July 24, 2009 - 1:37 P.M.

so I think next week I'm going to begin a campaign on the sharkbait area.

Whose with me?

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Campaign for what?

Submitted by The Arch Demon on July 24, 2009 - 1:46 P.M.

Congress? November 2010 is not that far off.
Mandatory MCSE certification? A topic near and dear to your heart.
Calling mainframe dinosaurs names? That'll go over big.
Magic lessons? It's only software; it ain't magic. It's BLACK magic.

CAPTCHA: commission's absconds - a new congressional activity?

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Campaign -

Submitted by Jam on July 24, 2009 - 2:22 P.M.

I'm betting he is thinking campaign in the military sense - as in F L U F goes F L U F on astinik and the other Shark Bait newbs.

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HEEeeEEYY FUUuUUFFY!!!

Submitted by binab on July 26, 2009 - 10:48 P.M.

you got a long way to go there. top one is near half-million points. but maybe you ain't be after score but...gore?

http://sharkbait.computerworld.com/?q=node/22

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heeheehee

Submitted by Trapper John on July 24, 2009 - 2:26 P.M.

Sounds like fun. JTB posted over there once, and he REALLY made them mad with his spelling and grammar!

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If nothing else,...

Submitted by The Arch Demon on July 24, 2009 - 3:19 P.M.

...JTB is consistent.

CAPTCHA: skim company's - what the Fat Cats on Wall Street do on a daily basis

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Interstellar Data Exchange gone terribly wrong

Submitted by Dr. Neutronium on July 24, 2009 - 11:01 A.M.

I am reminded of a story my father used to tell me when I was a child. He worked for a consortium of bat-like people who required real-time communication 24-7 (actually it was more like 17-31, but I digres) with the home office located on a sunless planet. One day the chief of his division flew in and took her perch hanging upside-down, and demanded that my father find a way to communicate with the Walphram-zelapha search engine sponsored by a rival software maker centered several hundred light years away. To do so, my father explained, he would have to install an Anstil Rhodem, which used the nuclei of rhodium atoms vibrating in the seventh dimension to create and receive tachyon-omega rays from anywhere in the galaxy, which were the carriers of the information published by Walphram-zelapha. He warned her that tachyon-omega rays would interfere with current rhodems and the outcome could have deleterious effects on future offspring, but was shouted down, so my father did as instructed.

Well, no smoke or ruined hardware, but what he did have to contend with was a passel of albino, wingless rodent-like two-meter tall (that's about six feet seven inches for you primitives not yet using the metric system) creatures that spoke with an Elvis accent and had some rather suggestive means of locomotion onstage. Shortly thereafter he quit to start his own concern (the same one I now run), but he hears on the grapevine that those children are now grown and have started their own Punk group. They call themselves the Rat Bas...oh, that's right. I can't say that word on this forum. I suspect you get the idea anyway.

Oh, by the way, E does not equal mc squared, but you humans will figure that out soon enough.

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I have to ask...

Submitted by Vyper3000 on July 24, 2009 - 11:33 A.M.

...but since the vibration of Rhodium atoms is unstable past dimension 6 without bathing the substrate in ulraviolet light AND this was on a sunless planet (ergo - no UV), how did he control the vibration without sending the entire sample into trans-dimensional collapse? I know that on on planet with did this by using the larval state of one of the indiginous watercreatures (well, it wasn't really water, but H20 - liquid methane.... poTAYto, poTAHto...). It seems the would emit varying amounts of UV when exposed to some of the steamier Cetaurian pornography. We simply controlled the amount of UV emissions by varying the number of larva and the raunchiness of the porn.

By the way, I've met MC Squared and he has no idea what all this "E" stuff is anyway, so you obviously are correct.

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Rhodium atom vibration and Centauri porn

Submitted by Dr. Neutronium on July 24, 2009 - 1:45 P.M.

Being mostly a software specialist who knows enough about hardware to assemble a few servers I am not quite sure how they solved that particular bugaboo. I will say, however, that when activated, the rhodem radiates the tiniest amount of bluish light, that, if it falls on my skin for very long, causes a burn. I also understand that they incorporate a "pionizer" in their circuitry--and a pionizer is well known for helping to stabilize trans-dimensional conversation (in the general sense not the specific, anthropomorphic sense).

WRT Centauri Porn, you humans are right up there with them, you know. I happen to have heard of a human porno title called "My Little Pak'ma'ra" that has been banned from most galactic servers because it burns up the circuitry whenever requested by a user, which was happening far too often until they banned it. The story goes that when the porno wienie was tracked down, far too often the downloader had a url located in Earthdome at an anonymous location (such as a library). So he who casts the first stone, and all that...

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