2. Out of the Past: Of Short Fingers and Boris the Kitty

Short Fingers

From: Eric Pouliot

Hi! I wanted to add a little story that goes back a few years to when Windows 98 was everywhere. We still laugh about it.

I received a phone call about a problem, after trying a few things I said that the only thing to do was a Ctrl-Alt-Delete.

Pretty simple, you press the Ctrl and Alt key at the same time; then you push the Delete key one time.

After a few seconds, the user responded: "I can push the Ctrl and Alt keys, but my fingers can't reach the Delete key!"

After a few seconds I suggested that he try using his other hand.

Boris the Kitty

From: Andrew Gray

I took this call sometime around 1993. Windows 3.1 was relatively new, and we had a lot of customers still on plain ol' DOS. I was working tech support for a screensaver company - the famous After Dark "Flying Toaster" people. Our product included a screensaver named "Boris" which featured a kitten that would run around the screen doing kittenish stuff.

This is a modern version of the Flying Toasters screensaver. Screensaver courtesy of Screensaver.com, Sierra Entertainment Inc., "After Dark" © Berkeley Systems, Inc.

We had a version of the product that would run on MS-DOS. The nice thing about supporting a DOS-based screensaver is that it generally either works or it doesn't. There's not much troubleshooting involved. There were only a handful of known showstopper problems - unfortunately, one of them involved Boris and a particular and quite popular PC model.

The caller is already crying when I answer. Boris has this effect on people. "My co-worker has Boris on her screen, but it won't work on mine!" "Do other screen savers work on your computer?" I ask. "Yes," she answers, "just Boris doesn't work."

Though I really don't need to at this point, I ask, "OK, what kind of computer do you have?" I have asked this question thousands of times. Asking is such a routine no-brainer for me that it takes me a moment to process her answer.

She says, sobbing, "I'm not going to tell you."

I say, "Why won't you tell me?"

She says, "If I tell you what computer I have, you're going to say it won't work."

I already know exactly which computer she has. If none of the screensavers work, then it's a Tandy 1000. Her problem is specific to Boris. That nails it down.

I ask, "It's an IBM PS/2 Model 50z, isn't it?" The Dark One. The Unspeakable Menace. The Model 50z is an abomination before all that is right and decent and chocolaty. It was a botched hybrid between the aging ISA bus and the "Betamax" of PC architectures, the MicroChannel bus. KILL IT! KILL IT WITH FIRE!

In 1987 IBM's PS/2 Model 50z cost over $3,500 with a 10 MHz Intel 80286 CPU, 2 MB of memory (16 MB with an optional expansion board), 1.44 MB 3.5 inch diskette drive and 60 MB hard drive.

She is inconsolable. After a minute or so she calms down enough to say, "See? I knew it. You're going to tell me it won't work!"

What can I do? I say, "Well, it's true. There is nothing that will make Boris work on a 50z. I'm very sorry."

I'm now a grief counselor. "I thought I was being smart! I thought I was getting the best! I bought an IBM! Why does nothing work on my IBM?"

I tell her, "It's OK. You didn't do anything wrong. You knew that it's all about being 'IBM Compatible', so you bought an IBM. It's IBM who did a bad thing. They made a computer that, frankly, is not 'IBM Compatible'."

After a few more moments of sobbing and consoling, I transferred her to Customer Service for a refund.

I respect the old saw that "Nobody ever got in trouble buying IBM", but every time I hear it, I've gotta laugh.

Anyone have the old Boris screensaver? We couldn't find it. Let us know by clicking on my name near the top of the screen. Thanks, Barry.