Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!yale!spolsky-joel
From: spolsky-joel@CS.YALE.EDU (Joel Spolsky)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: computer follies
Message-ID: <38997@yale-celray.yale.UUCP>
Date: 28 Sep 88 05:40:21 GMT
References: <5856@ihlpf.ATT.COM> <37600006@pyr1.cs.ucl.ac.uk>
Sender: root@yale.UUCP
Reply-To: spolsky-joel@CS.YALE.EDU (Joel Spolsky)
Organization: Yale University, New Haven, CT
Lines: 26

In article <37600006@pyr1.cs.ucl.ac.uk> william@pyr1.cs.ucl.ac.uk writes:
| 
| I once typed "rm *.old" to get rid of some old editor backup files,
| and came out as "rm * old".  It sat there for a few moments, and then
| said "old: file does not exist".  Damn.

echo "alias rm rm -i" >> /.login

| 
| I used Televideo 910 terminals as an undergrad, and when you logged off,
| the system cleared your screen. Once, I typed LOGOFF and then realised
| I needed the data currently on the screen, so I hit CTRL-S hard just
| as the first carriage returns came through to scroll the screen.  And
| the terminal just stopped - no logoff message, nothing - and nothing
| that I did made any difference.  It was definitely the terminal that
| went, as I tried plugging different terminals into the same socket,
| and power-off didn't help.  I couldn't believe this, so I replicated the
| situation and killed another terminal.  
| 
| Later on, I mentioned this to a friend who didn't believe it either, so
| he promptly killed one and demoed it to someone else.  Within an hour,
| half of the college terminals were extinct which was amazingly popular
| as it was the middle of the project season, and about a week later
| the dead terminals were taken away and were replaced after a further week.

Then somebody hit ctrl-Q and everything was fine, right? :-)