PEBCAK

[kentauros]

PEBCAK, Episode IV (Problem Exists Between Chair And Keyboard)
University Tech Support | Connecticut, USA

(The head of a department wants her word processor upgraded to the latest version.)

Manager: *on phone* “Okay, I’ll send Jeff over to upgrade you. Please back up all your documents, because he’s going to delete the existing version and install the new one.”

(I go to her office.)

Me: “Hi, I’m here to upgrade for you. Have you backed up your documents?”

Customer: “Of course I have.”

Me: “Great!”

(I wipe out the existing directory and install the new version. A few minutes before I get back to the faculty computing center, the phone rings.)

Customer: on phone “Where are all my letters and papers? They’re all gone!”

Manager: “Jeff says you backed up your documents.”

Customer: “Well, I didn’t know what you guys meant by that. I didn’t want to look stupid, so I said yes.”

[HopeHoops]

1. Been there. Done that. The sum value of the documents was probably squat.

I'm thinking on the same level with saved games of Freddi Fish.

[kentauros]

2. I don't know what "Freddi Fish" is,

but I get the gist of it ;)

That whole PEBCAK series is a constant facepalm.

[HopeHoops]

3. Well, it came out about 1995. One of the first interactive story CD's.

It is a problem solving game (with sequels). I had to upgrade my 386 from 4MB to 8MB (at a cost of $300) just to get the damn thing to work. The kids all loved it. For a long time I thought Freddi was a guy, but I'm pretty sure it is intended to be a girl. You have to collect items to get through gates to other parts of the story. It was really years ahead of other such games.

[kentauros]

4. Okay, sounds like fun.

The simple games usually are. Like "Spelunker". I think it was an Atari game, but I played it on my old C-64 :)

[HopeHoops]

7. WHO! C=64!!!! My favorite game was Globulus.

It was a cute green thing that ran around on a Marble Madness type maze with classical music for the background - wait, that was on the Amiga.

I got through most of college on my C=64 with a Star Micronics 24 pin dot-matrix printer.

[kentauros]

8. Oh, you had a fancy printer!

All I had was an HP 9-pin dot-matrix. I might even have some of the printouts still, with the clean-edge tear-off sprocket tracks :)

[HopeHoops]

9. Well, now that I think about it, the Star Micronics might have been a 9 pin.

The Epson I had hooked up to the Amiga was a 24 pin. And not only do I still have a shitload of printouts, I just looked at some old assembly code from the C=64 last week.

[WillParkinson]

5. I feel for them...

I've been bugging our web hosting people with a ton of questions that seem relevant to me, but I'm sure they've heard them all before.

[kentauros]

6. However, if you're polite and willing to let them take you step by step

then you'll never end up featured on Not Always Right ;)

[HopeHoops]

10. It is alarming that so few younger IT sorts know what PEBCAK means.

The same is true of "ID-ten-T".