Computers — worst jokes

Less-Known Computer Languages Basic-Fortran-Cobol... Theseprogramming languages are wellknown and (more or less) wellloved throughout the computerindustry.

There are numerous otherlanguages however that are lesswell known yet still have ardentdevotees. In fact these little-known languages generallyhave the most fanatic admirers.

For those who wish to know moreabout these obscure languages -and why they are obscure - Ipresent the following catalog.

SIMPLE ... SIMPLE is an acronymfor Sheer Idiot's Mono PurposeProgramming LingusiticEnvironment.

This language developed at theHanover College for TechnologicalMisfits was designed to make itimpossible to write code witherrors in it. The statements aretherefore confined to BEGIN-END-and STOP. No matter how youarrange the statements you can'tmake a syntax error.

Programs written in SIMPLE donothing useful.

Thus they achievethe results of programs writtenin other languages without thetedious frustrating process oftesting and debugging.

SLOBOL ... SLOBOL is best knownfor the speed or lack of it ofits compiler. Although manycompilers allow you to take acoffee break while they compileSLOBOL compilers allow you to takea trip to Bolivia to pick up thecoffee. Forty-three programmersare known to have died of boredomsitting at their terminals whilewaiting for a SLOBOL program tocompile.

Weary SLOBOL programmers often turnto a related (but infinitely faster) language...

COCAINE.

VALGOL ... (With special thanks toDan and Betsy "Moon Unit" Pfau)- From its modest beginnings insouthern California's SanFernando Valley VALGOL is enjoyinga dramatic surge of popularityacross the industry.

VALGOL commands include REALLY-LIKE - WELL and YAKNOW. Variablesare assigned with the =LIKE and=TOTALLY operators.

Other operatorsinclude the "CALIFORNIA BOOLEANS"FERSURE and NOWAY. Repetitions ofcode are handled in FOR-SURE loops.

Here is a sample VALGOL program. 14 LIKE-YAKNOW (I MEAN) START. %% IF. PI A =LIKE BITCHEN AND. 01 B =LIKE TUBULAR AND. 9 C =LIKE GRODY**MAX. 4K (FERSURE)**2. 18 THEN. 4I FOR I=LIKE 1 TO OH MAYBE 100. 86 DO WAH + (DITTY**2). 9 BARF(I) =TOTALLY GROSS(OUT). -17 SURE. 1F LIKE BAG THIS PROGRAM. ? REALLY. $$ LIKE TOTALLY (Y*KNOW)VALGOL is characterized by itsunfriendly error messages. Forexample when the user makes asyntax error the interpreterdisplays the message GAG ME WITHA SPOON!

LAIDBACK ... Historically VALGOL isa derivative of LAIDBACK whichwas developed at the (now defunct)Marin County Center for T'ai ChiMellowness and ComputerProgramming as an analternative to themore intense atmosphere in nearbysilicon valley. The center wasideal for programmers who liked tosoak in hot tubs while theyworked. Unfortunately fewprogrammers could survive therefor long since the center outlawedpizza and RC Cola in favor of beancurd and Perrier.

Many mourn the demise of LAIDBACKbecause its reputation as agentle and nonthreatening language.

For example LAIDBACK responded tosyntax errors with the messageSORRY MAN I CAN'T DEAL WITH THAT.

SARTRE ... Named after the lateexistential philosopher.

SARTRE isan extremely unstructuredlanguage. Statements in SARTRE haveno purpose they are just there.

Thus SARTRE programs are left todefine their own functions.

SARTRE programmers tend to beboring and depressed and are nofun at parties.

FIFTH ... FIFTH is a precisionmathematical language in whichthe data types refer to quantity.

The data types range from CC-OUNCE-SHOT and JIGGER to FIFTH(hence the name of the language)LITER-MAGNUM and BLOTTO.

Commands refer to ingredientssuch as CHABLIS-CHARDONNAY-CABERNET-GIN-VERMOUTH-VODKA-SCOTCHand WHATEVERSAROUND.

The many versions of the FIFTHlanguage reflect the sophisticationand financial status of its users.

Commands in the ELITE dialectinclude VSOP and LAFITE whilecommands in the GUTTER dialectinclude HOOTCH and RIPPLE.

The latter is a favorite offrustrated FORTH programmers whoend up using the language.

C-...

This language was namedfor the grade received by itscreater when he submitted itas a class project in agraduate programming class.

C- is best described as a'Low Level' programminglanguage.

In fact the languagegenerally requires more C-statements than machine-codestatements to execute a giventask. In this respect itis very similar to COBOL.

LITHP ... This otherwiseunremarkable language isdistinguished by the absenceof an "s" in its character set.

Programmers and users mustsubstitute"TH". LITHP is said tobe useful in prothething lithtth.

DOGO ... Developed at theMassachussettes Institute ofObedience Training. DOGO heraldsa new era of computer literatepets. DOGO commands include SITSTAY-HEEL and ROLL OVER. Aninnovative feature of DOGO is'PUPPY GRAPHICS' in which a smallcocker spaniel occasionally leavesa deposit as he travels acrossthe screen.

The Numbers of the Beast OK, we all know that 666 is the Number of the Beast.

But did you know that:660 - Approximate number of the BeastDCLXVI - Roman numeral of the Beast666.0000 - Number of the High Precision Beast0.666 - Number of the Millibeast/ 666 - Beast Common Denominator666 ^ (-1) - Imaginary number of the Beast1010011010 - Binary of the Beast6, uh... what was that number again? - Number of the Blonde Beast1-666 - Area code of the Beast00666 - Zip code of the Beast1-900-666-0666: - Live Beasts! One-on-one pacts! Call Now! Only $6.66/minute. Over 18 only please.$665.95 - Retail price of the Beast$699.25 - Price of the Beast plus 5% state sales tax$769.95 - Price of the Beast with all accessories and replacement soul$656.66 - Walmart price of the Beast$646.66 - Next week's Walmart price of the BeastPhillips 666 - Gasoline of the BeastRoute 666 - Way of the Beast666 F - Oven temperature for roast Beast666k - Retirement plan of the Beast666 mg - Recommended Minimum Daily Requirement of Beast6.66 % - 5 year CD interest rate at First Beast of Hell National Bank, $666 minimum deposit.

Lotus 6-6-6 - Spreadsheet of the BeastWord 6.66 - Word Processor of the Beasti66686 - CPU of the Beast666i - BMW of the BeastDSM-666 (revised) - Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the Beast668 - Next-door neighbor of the Beast

Pest-by-Modem Here's how to be a pest-by-modem:*Make up fake acronyms. On-line veterans like to use abbreviations likeIMHO (in my humble opinion) and RTFM (read the f...... manual) to showthat they're "hep" to the lingo. Make up your own that don't stand foranything (SETO, BARL, CP30), use them liberally, and then refuse toexplain what they stand for ("You don't know? RTFM").*WRITE ALL YOUR MESSAGES IN ALL CAPS AND DON'T USE PERIODS OR RETURNS SOTHAT EVERYONE HAS TO SCROLL ACROSS THEIR SCREENS TO READ EVERY LINE ALSOUSE A LOT OF !!!!!! AND DDOOUUBBLLEESS TO SHOW THAT YOU'RE EXCITED ABOUTBEING HERE!!!!!!!*When replying to your mail, correct everyone's grammar and spelling andpoint out their typos, but don't otherwise respond to the content oftheir messages. When they respond testily to your 'creative criticism,"do it again. Continue until they go away.*Software and files offered on-line are often "compressed" so that itwon't take so long to travel over the phone lines. Buy a compressionprogram and compress everything you send, including one-word E-mailresponses like "Thanks."*Upload text files with Bible passages about sin or guilt and give themnames like "SexyHouseWives," then see how many people download them.

Challenge your friends to come up with the most popular come-on. Takebets and calculate odds on the results of each upload's popularity.*cc: all your E-mail to Al Gore (vice.president@whitehouse.gov) so thathe can keep track of what's happening on the information SuperhighwayInternet.*Join a discussion group, and tie whatever's being discussed back to anunrelated central theme of your own. For instance, if you're in adiscussion of gun control, respond to every message with the observationthat those genetically superior tomatoes seem to have played an importantrole. Within days, all discussion of gun control will have ceased aspeople write you threatening messages and instruct all other members toignore you.

Girlfriend Tech Support E-mail I am currently running the latest version of GirlFriend and I've beenhaving some problems lately. I've been running the same version ofDrinkingBuddies 1.0 forever as my primary application, and all theGirlFriend releases I've tried have always conflicted with it. I hearthat DrinkingBuddies won't crash if GirlFriend is run in background modeand the sound is turned off. But I'm embarrassed to say I can't findthe switch to turn the sound off. I just run them separately, and itworks okay.

Girlfriend also seems to have a problem co-existing with my Fishing 97program, often trying to abort Fishing 97 with some sort of timingincompatibility. I probably should have stayed with GirlFriend 1.0, butI thought I might see better performance from GirlFriend 2.0. Aftermonths of conflicts and other problems, I consulted a friend who has hadexperience with GirlFriend 2.0. He said I probably didn't have enoughcache to run GirlFriend 2.0, and eventually it would require a TokenRing to run properly. He was right - as soon as I purged my cache, ituninstalled itself.

Shortly after that, I installed GirlFriend 3.0 beta. All the bugs weresupposed to be gone, but the first time I used it, it gave me a virusanyway. I had to clean out my whole system and shut down for a while. Ivery cautiously upgraded to GirlFriend 4.0. This time I used a SCSIprobe first and also installed a virus protection program. It workedokay for a while until I discovered that GirlFriend 1.0 was still in mysystem. I tried running GirlFriend 1.0 again with GirlFriend 4.0 stillinstalled, but GirlFriend 4.0 has a feature I didn't know about thatautomatically senses the presence of any other version of GirlFriend andcommunicates with it in some way, which results in the immediate removalof both versions.

The version I have now works pretty well, but there are still someproblems. Like all versions of GirlFriend, it is written in some obscurelanguage I can't understand, much less reprogram. Frankly I think thereis too much attention paid to the look and feel rather than the desiredfunctionality. Also, to get the best connections with your hardware,you usually have to use gold-plated contacts. And I've never liked howGirlFriend is totally "object-oriented."

A year ago, a friend of mine upgraded his version of GirlFriend toGirlFriendPlus 1.0, which is a Terminate and Stay Resident version ofGirlFriend. He discovered that GirlFriendPlus 1.0 expires within a yearif you don't upgrade to Fiancee 1.0. So he did, but soon after that, hehad to upgrade to Wife 1.0 which he describes as a huge resource hog.

It has taken up all his space, so he can't load anything else. One ofthe primary reasons he decided to go with Wife 1.0 was because it camebundled with FreeSexPlus. Well, it turns out the resource allocationmodule of Wife 1.0 sometimes prohibits access to FreeSexPlus,particularly the new Plug-Ins he wanted to try. On top of that, Wife1.0 must be running on a well warmed-up system before he can doanything. Although he did not ask for it, Wife 1.0 came withMotherInLaw which has an automatic pop-up feature he can't turn off. Itold him to try installing Mistress 1.0, but he said he heard if you tryto run it without first uninstalling Wife 1.0, Wife 1.0 will deleteMSMoney files before doing the uninstall itself. Then Mistress 1.0won't install anyway because of insufficient resources.

Any Ideas???

The Technologically Challenged Just in case you think YOU are TC (technologically challenged), there'sstill hope:1. Compaq is considering changing the command "Press Any Key" to "Press Return Key" because of the flood of calls asking where the "Any" key is.2. AST technical support had a caller complaining that her mouse was hard to control with the dust cover on. The cover turned out to be the plastic bag the mouse was packaged in.3. Another Compaq technician received a call from a man complaining that the system wouldn't read word processing files from his old (5-1/4") diskettes. After troubleshooting for magnets and heat failed to diagnose the problem, it was found that the customer had labeled the diskettes, then rolled them into the typewriter to type the labels.4. Another AST customer was asked to send a copy of her defective diskettes. A few days later a letter arrived from the customer along with photocopies of the floppies.5. A Dell technician advised his customer to put his troubled floppy back in the drive and close the door. The customer asked the tech to hold on, and was heard putting the phone down, getting up and going across the room to close the door.6. Another Dell customer called to say he couldn't get his computer to fax anything. After 40 minutes of troubleshooting, the technician discovered the man was trying to fax a piece of paper by holding it in front of the monitor screen and hitting the "send" key.7. Yet another Dell customer called to complain that his keyboard no longer worked. He had cleaned it by filling up his tub with soap and water and soaking the keyboard for a day, then removing all the keys and washing them individually.8. A Dell technician received a call from a customer who was enraged because his computer had told him he was "bad and an invalid". The tech explained that the computer's "bad command" and "invalid" responses shouldn't be taken personally.9. A confused caller to IBM was having troubles printing documents. He told the technician that the computer had said it "couldn't find printer." The user had even tried turning the computer screen to face the printer - but his computer still couldn't "see" the printer.10.

An exasperated caller to Dell Computer Tech Support couldn't get her new Dell Computer to turn on. After ensuring the computer was plugged in, the technician asked her what happened when she pushed the power button. Her response, "I pushed and pushed on this foot pedal and nothing happened." The "foot pedal" turned out to be the mouse!11.

Another customer called Compaq tech support to say her brand-new computer wouldn't work. She said she unpacked the unit, plugged it in and sat there for 20 minutes waiting for something to happen. When asked what happened when she pressed the power switch, she asked "What power switch?"12.

True story from a Novell NetWire SysOp: Caller: "Hello, is this Tech Support?" Tech: "Yes, it is. How may I help you?" Caller: "The cup holder on my PC is broken and I am within my warranty period. How do I go about getting that fixed?" Tech: "I'm sorry, but did you say a cup holder?" Caller: "Yes, it's attached to the front of my computer." Tech: "Please excuse me if I seem a bit stumped, it's because I am. Did you receive this as part of a promotion, at a trade show? How did you get this cup holder? Does it have any trademark on it?" Caller: "It came with my computer, I don't know anything about a promotion. It just has '4X' on it." At this point the Tech Rep had to mute the caller, because he couldn't stand it. He was laughing too hard. The caller had been using the load drawer of the CD-ROM drive as a cup holder, and snapped it off the drive.13.

Another IBM customer had troubles installing software and rang for support. "I put in the first disk, and that was OK. It said to put in the second disk, and I had some problems with the disk, but I squeezed it in. When it said to put in the third disk - I couldn't even fit it in..." The user hadn't realized that "Insert Disk 2" meant to remove Disk 1 first.