back to article Did you test that? No, I thought you tested it. Now customers have it and it doesn't work

Welcome again to “Who, me?”, The Register’s Monday mess – because it tells readers tales of breaking things. This week meet “Harvey” who told us a tale from 1986 when he worked for a company that decided Commodore 64 owners deserved a cheaper disk drive than the official model 1541. Said drive was called the SuperDrive 2000* …

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  1. Rich 11

    Have you sent a dud product or program into the world?

    Yes, but the less said about my children the better.

    1. macjules

      Re: Have you sent a dud product or program into the world?

      I used to work in government. I think the question should be "Have you sent a product or program into the world that wasn't a dud?

  2. Anonymous South African Coward Bronze badge

    What about Windows?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      What about Windows?

      Never let reality intrude when people earn a living from telling the same lie, they are more than willing to game any system inorder to discredit the truth.

      Windows has indeed always been broken and even with constant "updates" Microsoft has never managed to remove all the errors.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: What about Windows?

        "Windows has indeed always been broken and even with constant "updates" Microsoft has never managed to remove all the errors."

        There's a modern (or old) OS without errors? Do tell, I'd love to give it a spin.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: What about Windows?

        "Windows has indeed always been broken and even with constant "updates" Microsoft has never managed to remove all the errors."

        Yes because Linux or any other OS never receives patches whilst still in support.

        1. Tigra 07

          Re: What about Windows?

          A simple Windows security update: 50MB+

          Average Linux security update: ~100KB

          Any particular reason for such a big gulf between the two?

          1. JulieM Silver badge

            Re: What about Windows?

            This is a bit like comparing apples to oranges, though.

            With Linux, a "patch" consists of a file which is basically machine-readable instructions for editing the Source Code (which you are expected already to have). You then recompile the modified parts of the Source Code and link them against other software already on your box, to produce new binaries. (Or, more probably, you simply let your package manager automatically download the binaries which were recompiled by your kernel distributor.)

            With Windows, a "patch" consists of the whole new compiled binaries.

            Something like "Close the speech marks on line 269, delete lines 454-568 and insert a new line at 455 with nothing on it but a closing posh bracket" -- especially when expressed as commands that a computer could understand -- takes rather less space than the whole program.

            1. Tigra 07

              Re: What about Windows?

              Good explanation Julie

          2. Nutria

            Re: What about Windows?

            <i>Average Linux security update: ~100KB</i>

            LOL no.

            The latest kernel update Ubuntu wants to install on 16.04 is 112MB.

            1. Tigra 07
              FAIL

              Re: Nutria

              *Cough * "Average" *Cough *

              Never mentioned Kernel, i said "security".

              Sincerely, an Ubuntu user

      3. Alan Bourke

        Re: What about Windows?

        Yeah, point me at the codebase of tens of millions of lines that has zero bugs. You have no idea do you.

  3. jake Silver badge

    Well ...

    Not just me, but a bunch of us managed to infect the planet with TCP/IP ... We knew it wasn't secure, and we knew it couldn't be made secure. But that was the entire point ... it was designed to make it easy to share stuff globally, not to block the sharing of that stuff. Not our fault that a bunch of technically clueless marketing types decided to bring it to the even more technically incompetent masses.

    1. Prst. V.Jeltz Silver badge

      Re: Well ...

      Vint? Bob? is that you?

      1. jake Silver badge

        Re: Well ...

        Nope. I'm just a nameless, faceless engineering student who got to Berkeley at roughly the same time as UNIX ... ken wandered onto campus half a year later, or thereabouts.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Well ...

        No, this is jake. He's done everything, especially when an article or commentard mentions having done it.

        1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

          Re: Well ...

          No, this is jake. He's done everything, especially when an article or commentard mentions having done it.

          I've said this before, but it's really not hard to have done the number of things jake says he's done, when you're in that demographic group.

          Hell, that post was nearly 5 years ago, and by now I could add a bunch of other things to my list. (Was granted a patent. Taught myself to plaster walls. Finished my Master's degree, and so on.)

          Life is short, but it's not that short.

  4. The Oncoming Scorn Silver badge
    Mushroom

    Superdrive 2000 - I think I remember those being sold at Commodore Trade Shows back around that time, back in the day when I worked for a company selling modems out of a house in Exeter.

    The one story I'm comfortable telling is the time we picked up a load of freshly & untested Mustang cartridges for the C64 half way to yet another Commodore Trade Show from the assembly company.

    We didn't get time to set up the stand until the following day (I was superbly hung over as well) & none of the cartridges worked in any of our demo machines. I took our SX64 (Luggable C4), my tools & the box of cartridges to investigate the issue.

    In investigating the issue I resoldered the cable connections on the main board & in my drunken hungover state I was refitting the boards back in their cases the right way around without recognising what I was doing until I was supremely ill in the hotel bedroom (I'll let you draw the comparisons between the chilli I ate on the M4 some 10 hours earlier & how the bathroom smelt afterwards) & the synapses started firing in a slightly less painful manner.

    Having unplugged my soldering iron & the mini bar back in I eventually went downstairs with more working cartridges then went off to get something approaching food back in my stomach.

    On returning to the hotel room I picked up my soldering iron only to discover that housekeeping had unplugged the mini bar to hoover & plugged my iron back in instead, my synapses functioning a little bit better after some lunchtime food eventually noted the heat searing into my hand as I stupidly picked up the iron by the shaft & not the handle.

    Human flesh really does smell like pork.

    1. MarkB
      Facepalm

      Soldering irons

      Funnily enough this topic came up in a different forum recently. Many decades ago (about half a century) I discovered the hard way that if you drop a soldering iron, you should NOT try to catch it.

      1. Roger Kynaston
        Coffee/keyboard

        Re: Soldering irons

        You sir, owe me a new keyboard!

      2. DuchessofDukeStreet

        Re: Soldering irons

        The female half of the species learn that from curling tongs and hair straighteners, although I still manage to forget once a year or so...

      3. You have not yet created a handle
        Facepalm

        Re: Soldering irons

        or hook the soldering iron on the edge of your desk with the ever so handy handle, and then proceed to drop something on the floor, bend down and pick it up... I still to this day remember the sound and smell as it burnt into my forehead.. fortunate not to have been 1 inch lower and in the eye!

        Very appropriate icon!

      4. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Soldering irons

        > ... if you drop a soldering iron, you should NOT try to catch it.

        How does your brain not recognise "safe bits to catch by", and let you go for the dangerous areas?

        Hmmm, maybe my catching reflexes are just more paranoid than yours. :)

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Soldering irons

          Hmmm, maybe my catching reflexes are just more paranoid than yours. :)

          Reflexes can be dangerous. I remember a friend, some years back, who dropped a mug in the kitchen. Trying to stop it smashing on the floor she stuck her foot out to catch it. Her timing was off, she kicked it through the kitchen window...

          1. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

            Re: Soldering irons

            Her timing was off, she kicked it through the kitchen window...

            And now plays for Arsenal?

          2. AndyMulhearn

            Re: Soldering irons

            I remember a friend, some years back, who dropped a mug in the kitchen.

            With me it was a china bowl and a shelf while I was washing the dishes. Put the bowl on the shelf, but not completely. Having been a regular participant in a full-speed, full-contact combat sport (OK it was Fencing) my reactions are still relatively quick and in some cases, the body reacts before the conscious mind has a chance to insert a little bit of sanity. So as the bowl started to fall, I put my left-hand out to catch it and managed to smash the bowl and then put my hand through the resulting sharp-edged mess.

            As I have no ability to look at my own blood outside the normal meat-bag context, i.e. running down my arm from what looked at the time like a nearly amputated finger, without feeling queasy, I proceeded to faint on the bathroom floor and ended up in casualty having my left middle finger butterflied. What a tw@...

            And the root cause of this accident? It was Friday, it was beer-o'clock, the pub was calling and I'd not done my share of the washing up that week. Didn't get to the pub but I did make it to the off-licence...

          3. J. Cook Silver badge

            Re: Soldering irons

            Heh- I did that stunt about a year ago with a glass canning jar that I used as a drinking mug- it slipped out of my hands from the dishwasher, and in my attempt to catch it, slammed it into the granite countertop, shattering the jar and giving me a fairly decent cut in my hand.

            I know well enough that you let a falling knife fall, and to back up to get your feet out of the way. :)

          4. This post has been deleted by its author

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Soldering irons

          as to catching reflexes: they need proper training. Some of the, um, more well seasoned, technicians I've worked with had stories from their technical school days. In labs one of their pranks was to toss vacuum tubes (gives you an idea of how long ago this was) to unsuspecting lab mates. If you worked inn that lab, you quickly honed your reflexes, or you got really good at cleaning up broken glass.

          Once everyone got good at catching, they started to substitute high-voltage capacitors. Fully-charged HV caps.

      5. H in The Hague

        Re: Soldering irons

        "I discovered the hard way that if you drop a soldering iron, you should NOT try to catch it."

        Just under half a century ago a gentleman of the very old school showed me how to assemble a radio - a valve radio, outdated even then. The first two things he taught me were: Yes, a 60 W soldering iron is perfect for electronics assembly (and if you do have to solder those newfangled transistors just do it quickly), and: If you drop the soldering iron _don't_ try to catch it. (I later graduated to rather smaller soldering irons.)

      6. Terje

        Re: Soldering irons

        And don't hold them like the models in the advertisements do....

      7. The Oncoming Scorn Silver badge
        FAIL

        Re: Soldering irons

        Had a lady in a factory whose normal way to test her soldering iron was up to temperature each day was to stick it in the inside of her mouth or close to her cheek.

        Worked fine until she was startled one day.....

      8. Unicornpiss
        Flame

        Re: Soldering irons

        Painful too is soldering with bare feet and dropping a big ball of molten solder right onto the webbing between your toes. I'm sure you can guess how I know this.

      9. Andrew Punch
        Thumb Up

        Re: Soldering irons

        I learned in my engineering degree - never try to catch anything.

        Anything mechanical or electrical will elicit an automatic "hands up" response if it drops.

        Hand icon... cause I'd like to keep mine thanks

        1. imanidiot Silver badge

          Re: Soldering irons

          I've got the stripe of a soldering iron on my right hand. Lost my balance while using a heavy duty (1kW) soldering iron in a ditch below me to solder some heavy gauge stuff. Landed right on top of the business end before I knew what had happened. Got some nasty burns from that as it took a while to get my hand off of the iron.

          And in terms of stupidity rather than clumsiness I've also burned the top of my head with welding rod. While practicing TIG welding, went to scratch my head without thinking and stuck the (recently melted) tip of the filler material right onto my scalp. Smelled a bit...

    2. jake Silver badge

      Indeed on the pork ...

      A friend of mine reached behind a large bank of relay racks and managed to get his Rolex watchband across the 48V supply ... The resulting loud "CRACK!" and fans spinning down, coupled with the smell of roasting/burning pork, were rather disturbing. To say nothing of the screaming. I managed to calm him down & get him to the ER ... Xrays showed little balls of gold melted into his wrist behind the 3rd degree charring. The surgeons later told him he was lucky to still have full use of his hand. Today, 25 years later, the scarring is still impressive, despite skin grafts. He got a new band for the watch, and now wears it on his other wrist. It still works.

      And people wonder why I always take off my wedding ring when working on electrical stuff. Yes, that includes the cars, trucks, boats etc.

      1. wyatt

        Re: Indeed on the pork ...

        I'm the same, no jewellery any time it may get caught. Story was told to me in Junior school (7/8 years old) where a child had a ring on and climbed a fence, got it stuck and fell off stripping their finger to the bone. Ever since then it was a no no, really upset the wife until she got her ring caught and damaged one of the stones, fortunately nothing else. So easy to short a circuit or get something stuck.

        1. Chris G

          Re: Indeed on the pork ...

          No jewellery was one of the first things we were taught at college many years ago.

          When I was a teenager I was working up a ladder, I slipped going down the ladder and a ring my girlfriend had given me caught on one of the rungs and produce a deep cut 3/4 of the way round my finger, after that no rings at work.

          One of my friends was a toolmaker at a fax machine manufacturer in the '70s,he told me one of electrical techs electrocuted himself by dangling his silver Saint Christoper necklace into the live chassis of a fax he was working on.

          1. jake Silver badge

            Re: Indeed on the pork ...

            Re: neckware. Ever get a tie caught in a cooling fan or a line printer? There's a reason that ties were fair game for anyone with a pair of scissors at most early Silly Con Valley companies.

            I see my boo-bird/fanboi is having a busy morning. Glad I can give you something to look forward to. Have a nice week! :-)

            1. sandman

              Re: Indeed on the pork ...

              When I was taking a metal-working course at a local Tech College back in the mid-70s, wearing a tie was compulsory. Of course, you were wearing it under a boiler suit, but one guy nearly did a face-plant into a lathe doing 1500rpm when his tie got free. Moronic policy.

              1. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

                Re: Indeed on the pork ...

                metal-working course at a local Tech College back in the mid-70s, wearing a tie was compulsory

                At college in the mid-80's (doing Computer Studies) we were required to do a metalwork section - presumably so we could learn CnC - except none of the machines *were* CnC.

                Anyway - we were required to wear the brown workshop coats - most of which were in a pretty bad way. After the second time[1] that the trailing sleeve of mine got caught in the mechanism of a (fortunately) slow-turning lathe I started carrying rubber bands to bind the sleeves with.

                [1] First time, the sleeve material was so rotten that the cuff tore straight off and no damage. Second time, I got a nasty friction-burn from the sleeve as it started to tear and pull off. Fortunately, the emergency stop button also applied a brake otherwise I suspect that I wouldn't have most of my right hand.

              2. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: Indeed on the pork ...

                When I worked at fry's They insisted on dress shoes in receiving and ties every were even when working the banding machine.

              3. John H Woods Silver badge

                Re: Indeed on the pork ...

                I'd have worn a bow tie... Medics wear them for similar reasons.

              4. J. Cook Silver badge

                Re: Indeed on the pork ...

                "...but one guy nearly did a face-plant into a lathe doing 1500rpm when his tie got free."

                I happened to see pictures of what happens when a person wearing a long-sleeve shirt got caught in a turning lathe. They were *not* pretty, and almost vomit inducing.

                I stopped wearing watches and rings for similar reasons long, long ago.

                1. D-Coder
                  Thumb Up

                  Re: Indeed on the pork ...

                  First man on the moon suffered a similar accident (after the moon): Wikipedia:

                  While working on his farm in November 1978, Armstrong jumped off the back of his grain truck and caught his wedding ring in its wheel, tearing the tip off his left ring finger. He collected the severed tip, packed it in ice, and had surgeons reattach it at the Jewish Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky.

            2. heyrick Silver badge

              Re: Indeed on the pork ...

              "Ever get a tie caught in a cooling fan or a line printer?"

              When I did tech support for an office: long hair and laser printer. Never yanked a power cable out so fast in my life...

          2. Stuart21551

            Re: Indeed on the pork ...

            St Chris - the one who protects you on your journey? Hurried this guy on his!

          3. Tigra 07
            Thumb Down

            Re: Indeed on the pork ...

            I remember someone at school jumped over one of those construction fences on the school field and the ring on their finger got caught on the top...Leaving a ripped off finger up there.

            It wasn't a thumb but it's an appropriate icon >>>

        2. IsJustabloke
          Coat

          Re: Indeed on the pork ...

          It's not a wedding band unless it's causing you pain.

          1. Omgwtfbbqtime

            Re: Indeed on the pork ...

            From wedded to welded?

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