BOFH: If another meeting is scheduled, someone is going to have a scheduled accident

BOFH logo telephone with devil's horns The new Boss is a serial meeting taker – and by that I don't mean someone who can't say no to a meeting. He'll think nothing of back-to-backing meetings with vendors, the Head Beancounter, then the vendors again, the Head Beancounter again, a business analyst for the Beancounters, then …

[Korev]

The end was shocking!

[Michael H.F. Wilkinson]

If not entirely unsurprising

[Doctor Syntax]

It was a bit surprising. I was expecting a nasty accident with a heavy but unstable rack.

[blu3b3rry]

I was wondering how manipulating the rack would lead to another defenestration.

I guess electricity is yet another weapon in the BOFH's arsenal.

[Charlie Clark]

Been there for a while, which is why you always check for cattle prods…

[Charlie Clark]

That may be waiting for when the bods from Health and Safety come to inspect…

[herman]

Yup, an ancient 27.3V E-core transformer PSU could really hurt if it would fall on your head.

[Charlie Clark]

I thought it lit up things nicely. A toast to that negotiator!

[Pete Sdev]

The BOFH always was a bright spark.

[Korev]

He has flashes of brilliance...

[Groo The Wanderer - A Canuck]

An electifying story that kept me on the edge of my seat... :)

[Pickle Rick]

The end was shocking!

I agree! How unusual to see a vendor so well grounded and, er, dying to review the amount charged!

[Michael H.F. Wilkinson]

I love the smell of burnt collagen in the morning

Good way to start a weekend with a scorchingly good BOFH episode

[Prst. V.Jeltz]

650k is enough

for everyone , was a quote famously attributed to Bill Gates , still not sure if its tru or not.

so what the current thinking on what is enough memory?

Personally I think its what we've got now , and if you need more unbloat that software .

[Michael H.F. Wilkinson]

Re: 650k is enough

The BOFH would make that "640kV is enough"

[Chloe Cresswell]

Re: 650k is enough

"2kV is enough. 640kV is 'sufficient'" maybe? ;)

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: 650k is enough

640kV is certainty. Overkill is always advisable when seeking a more permanent solution :).

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: 650k is enough

All it leaves behind is a carbon footprint.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: 650k is enough

Like this?

(Latest Electroboom video)

[b0llchit]

Re: 650k is enough

For Giga sparks^(*) you need a couple of Mega Volts at a couple of Mega Hertz modulated with the death tune announcing the march to the Pub.

^{(*) _{AKA a tesla coil; may not play well with --> icon, unless intentional}}

[Bebu sa Ware]

Re: 650k is enough

"2kV is enough. 640kV is 'sufficient'" maybe?

Sales droids have an incredibly thick hide that would not disgrace a pachyderm.

Wouldn't surprise me a direct hit from a lightning bolt left them bare singed.

A 650kV 1000A for half an hour through one might do the job although at the price of electricity 325MWh is probably not very cost effective certainly when compared with the open window alternative.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: 650k is enough

Yes, gravity will most certainly be cheaper.

Just not sure which one is more satisfying, though :)

[FirstTangoInParis]

Re: 650k is enough

Well given you used to be able to run a perfectly good word processor in 16k program memory and around 24k RAM with an 8-bit CPU at 1 MHz, I should bloody well hope the current build standards are good enough. MS Word is now 1 GB. Windows seems to need > 8 GB RAM and fibre broadband just to run Windows Updates without killing your whole UI. Bloated? Absolutely. Do today’s systems have way more processing power than the Apollo missions? Of course, but I wouldn’t let Windows anywhere near a moon mission.

[SnailFerrous]

Re: 650k is enough

"Do today’s systems have way more processing power than the Apollo missions? Of course, but I wouldn’t let Windows anywhere near a moon mission."

Rather than 1201 Program Alarm on the way down it would be "Windows is installing important updates. Please wait....."

They still got to the moon. We can quible over whether "smeared" is close enough to "landed" to call it a successful mission.

[swm]

Re: 650k is enough

1201 - out of real time. But the software did not crash but continued to perform satisfactorily. Unlike windows where normal operation can cause weird crashes.

[Charlie Clark]

Re: 650k is enough

640 kB, and it was from Billy. But you never got that much to play with on MS-DOS anyway…and even then you were still dealing with 8086 memory management, actually I think it's even older…

Still, when more memory became available, OS/2 would happily give you DOS sessions that had more than 640 kB. Which was nice, but it also removed one of the main reasons to port applications to OS/2.

[RT Harrison]

Re: 650k is enough

Other interesting quotes that fell flat:

“Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons.”

— Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949

“We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.”

— Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.

[Richard 12]

Re: 650k is enough

Popular Mechanics were correct!

The computers I have at home do weigh less than 1.5 tons.

Though of course, nVidia are reverting this progress.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: 650k is enough

And I'd certainly go along with the 1st part of the Decca verdict.

[Charlie Clark]

Re: 650k is enough

IBM also once expected that there would never be more than 100 computers on the planet… I think some of us have got more than that at home!

[herman]

Re: 650k is enough

A typical data center weighs a wee bit more than 1.5 tons

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: 650k is enough

I recall, back around 1976, being told our R&D computer (a Varian V70 - or something like that) had been upgraded to 32kB of RAM. My task/project was then to develop a program that would run a camera to automatically recognise and measure the trailing edge radius of an axial compressor blade. Develop in BASIC and then, once debugged, rewrite in assembler.

I got as far as having the system recognise basic shapes before I was promoted and transferred to a new department.

[An_Old_Dog]

Re: 650k is enough

Sounds like a job for the "Forth" programming language. It has modern flow-control structures, is incredibly-compact, and can use pure assembly language for speed where needed.

Forth was in use by 1970.

[Nick Ryan]

Re: 650k is enough

8086 processors can handle up to 1MB of RAM through the 20bit address bus, although memory access was always slower than non-8086 systems due to all the paging required. The architecture of the PC, specifically hardware memory mapping, was what limited things to 640 KB.

[Bebu sa Ware]

Talk about flash·backs…

"they made their own power supplies back then – huge metal boxes with a massive transformer that had about a hundred secondary taps and took up half the case." … A lot of things needed —12V back then and shunt regulators waste perfectly good electrons. Laminated steel core transformers; none of this effete woke switch mode nonsense. ;)

"the cases all had fat, chassis-mounted diodes and smoothing capacitors that filled up most of the rest of the case. And they'd always output oddball voltages, like 27.3 volts – at 87 amps."

In retrospect seem hardly credible in the age of cloudy oversell and misrepresentation that then "we did get to see the hardware, and it did what it said on the tin" even if it required a new utility substation, removing an exterior wall and hiring a forklift.

"the uninsulated mains bus that ran lengthwise down the inside of the case. Life was both simpler and cheaper back then..."—and occasionally shorter.

[FirstTangoInParis]

Re: Talk about flash·backs…

Oh my. Yes the stories about whole buildings being built around a monster computer in the basement which could never be removed without demolishing said building.

[stiine]

Re: Talk about flash·backs…

And a report from the structural engineer.

[PRR]

Re: Talk about flash·backs…

> a monster computer in the basement which could never be removed without demolishing said building.

Slightly like our newspaper. The Ellsworth American. Founded in 1846. Got big in the 1970s. Bought a large press and built a building around it. Then newer press and new building built while the press ran. After a few good decades and several spin-off papers, online advertising ate their lunch. Reduced press runs and especially reduced page-counts led to outsourcing printing to down-state.

The printing press fills this whole building except a small office (the news office is another building) and is not coming out that garage door.

[tiggity]

Re: Talk about flash·backs…

Try buildings with (proper* floor based) electron microscopes in them.

Need a big room with a very solid (and thus heavy) floor as stray vibrations are anathema to effective electron microscopy work, and usually need a stable temperature so a lot of work goes into making a suitable room (and they are big & heavy, so even if you were lucky enough to have a room with no vibrations and a stable temperature, would need to eb able to support the machine).

Can be very awkward & expensive to retrofit to existing buildings, if plenty of high res EM work is needed then best option is design the building around the EM requirements.

* that go down to really high resolution & thus vibration & temperature fluctuations are far more of an issue than with e.g. a low res table top device

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Talk about flash·backs…

Oddly enough it was decided to locate our SEM on the 1st floor and this was a new (re)build although it was given its own concrete slab separate from the rest of the floor with its own set of 6 supporting columns but it was intended mostly for XRF rather than magnification. Some of their images were truly dreadful but maybe those were the ones with gold coating rather than gold.

[Antron Argaiv]

Re: Talk about flash·backs…

Twist lock connectors at the base of the rack/cabinet.

Bus bars hanging from threaded rods through the ceiling tiles

Drum printers staring up in the morning sonding like jet engines warming up

Motor/generators in the basement (for the 400 Hz power)

"These are a few of my favourite things..."

[herman]

Re: Talk about flash·backs…

Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes

Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyеlashes

Silver white wintеrs that melt into springs

These are a few of my favorite things...

[pethan]

Re: Talk about flash·backs…

Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes

Pouty mouthed girls who can beat their eyelashes

Girls who can walk with a wiggle and swing

Are high on the list of my favourite things

[An_Old_Dog]

Re: Talk about flash·backs…

.... the *Clunk* *whirrrrrrr* *thrummmMMMMMMMM...* of the environmental control unit in the basement starting up and running the secondary heat exchanger for our mainframes, with a column of steam roaring up out of the metal grates in front of the building.

[eldel]

Re: Talk about flash·backs…

Back in the late Mesozoic era, when I was doing my industrial training on Strowger telephone exchanges, the battery 'packs' - which typically took up at least one ground floor and often a basement or two as well, were rumoured to be either sourced from, or be identical to, the batteries in submarines. They did indeed require a fork lift to move them and being anywhere in their presence was kinda scary. Let's just say that falling across those terminals would, indeed, be terminal.

[Xalran]

Re: Talk about flash·backs…

And according to former colleagues, it's fun & messy when the exchange building gets hit by thunder, beside bringing down the echange (which is a PITA in itself to bring back up), it generates fun stuff with the batteries... some will explode, others with just become... not batteries, and a few will survive unscathed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Talk about flash·backs…

How about batteries the size of bath tub and about 4ft tall... and that was just 2V... along with gas turbine back-up gennies that used blank cartridges as part of the starting sequence (never got to see those as they were off limits)

[el_oscuro]

Re: Talk about flash·backs…

Back in the day, when we moved our racks to new data center, they gave us a tour and touted their power redundancy. They proudly showed us 2 room sized Caterpillar diesel generators, plus a battery room that looked like it belonged on a sub.

They were pretty upset when we installed all of our racks with separate battery backups. We were all belts and suspenders sorts, and we wanted our own redundancy redundancy.

A few years later, the data center lost utility power, and the backup generators failed to start, probably due to a lack of cycling. This instantly transferred the entire load to the battery room which overloaded and caught fire. It was not a good day for them. Fortunately, I wasn't there at the time, so it was Somebody Else's Problem.

After all of this, a lot of the servers and equipment was damaged. Except our servers on our racks with the redundant redundant power.

[Xalran]

Re: Talk about flash·backs…

In the telecom 10*2cm copper bars were a common way to distribute power in exchanges until not long ago ( it's common enough that all PSTN exchanges still use them. at some level)

Obviously those copper bars are not insulated and are near enough each other that dropping a spanner in that space will result in a blue flash, a massive KZZZZZEEEERRRRTTTT and with luck a oh merde that tells you the colleague that dropped the spanner survived the event unscathed. (obviously been, there lived that, the spanner didn't survive and the copper bars required a week end maintenance window to be replaced... at least the batteries didn't get any copper projection, the colleague had chosen to work around the bar protections instead of removing them [which is also why he was unharmed] )

[Excused Boots]

Re: Talk about flash·backs…

And for the adventurous try a smaller scale version off this by dropping a spanner such that it shorts out a conventional 12V car battery; can be remarkably spectacular.

[Andy A]

Re: Talk about flash·backs…

My company-supplied mark 2 Ford Escort went for service at the Big Ford Dealer in Birmingham one Friday. Having travelled north in torrential rain I pulled up at a T-junction only to see a large amount of smoke appear from the engine bay.

Thinking that the rain would put out the fire, I pulled the release. It wouldn't shift, so I pulled harder. Clatter clatter, but the lid stayed shut.

In the torrential rain I managed to use a screwdriver and pair of pliers to open the catch.

The Big Ford Dealer had not clipped the bonnet stay back in, and the steel rod had bounced so that it shorted between the battery terminal and the (uninsulated) bonnet release cable, which was now solidly welded to the bodywork.

Naturally the Big Ford Dealer denied all responsibility for their cock-up, but it was the worst designed car I've ever driven.

[The Organ Grinder's Monkey]

Re: Talk about flash·backs…

(partial repost)

From a previous life as a Saab tech, I have in my toolbox a 10mm combination spanner with a right-angle bend in it as a reminder never to rush a battery installation. In a moment of inattention I allowed it to touch both battery terminals of a brand new battery (on a 900 so at least 550A CCA) momentarily, & it immediately tack-welded itself in place. In the couple of seconds it took to grab an adjacent screwdriver & lever one end of the spanner off the lead post (thank chosen deity that lead is soft) the spanner was already glowing cherry red & it just bent round as if it were made of hot toffee.

[IvyKing]

Re: Talk about flash·backs…

The ammeter on the battery in the downtown L.A. exchange was reported to have a 12,000A redline. There was a red stripe on the floor signifying that metal tools were prohibited beyond that point in order to prevent formation of metal plasma.

The batteries on USn WWII fleet subs had cells weighing one ton, and would be about the same size as exchange batteries. It is my understanding that exchange batteries were built with glass cases, which wouldn't work to well in a sub.

[Andy A]

Re: Talk about flash·backs…

In the early 80s, the company I worked for wanted to change some mainframe equipment at one of its sites. Unfortunately the computer room was on the 3rd floor, and the boxes involved were too big to move by any sensible route.

One Sunday morning half the motorway junction was coned off to allow a mobile crane to park as close as possible, a huge sheet of exterior glass was removed and the hardware reshuffle done, with the kit being craned straight for the manufacturer's lorry straight into the machine room.

Apparently the performance increase was worth the cost.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Talk about flash·backs…

A very long time ago a local engineering works had an Elliot machine (yes, that long ago) and they wanted to move it from one floor to another so decided to move it up the lift shaft with w rope. The knot slipped. AFAICR the surname of the employee who'd tied it on was "Crane", his daughter was in my class at school.

[el_oscuro]

Re: Talk about flash·backs…

Way back in ancient times, I was part of the crew that had to set up equipment for the G5 summit in London. But since we were from across the pond, all of our equipment ran on 120V and we also had to set up transformers to step down the UK 240V to 120V. We had to test every piece of equipment, both individually and completely set up. So I plugged a laptop into the transformer and booted it up without any issues. But then I realized I had forgotten to test the surge protector as well. So I plugged it into the transformer.

And it exploded. Rather spectacularly. After the fire subsided, we checked the output of the transformer. Instead of the expected 120V, it was putting out over 400. Apparently the laptop had an international power supply which could handle whatever random voltage you threw at it.

[Evil Auditor]

I'm becoming one of those crusty old farts I knew when I was starting out in computing. The ones who thought that Ethernet would never take off and that 9,600 baud was high speed...

I'm becoming one of those, too. And I know why. Partially, because I'm getting old. And partially because of stuff like this: The Truth About AI.

[DJV]

Oh, thank you SO much for that link!

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy shit, clearly the author of that article works at $dayjob!

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting text, god-awful website and adverts. First time I've ever seen web blocker at work actually block something that needed blocking.

[Manolo]

I think I need to add a few domains to my Pihole blacklist...

[Evil Auditor]

You're darn right! Out of curiosity I've switched off the ad blocker. And still regret it.

[Paul Herber]

Sometimes powers users need to be introduced to real power in the form of V x I.

[Korev]

Ahh yes, the well-known BOFHette: IV Watts

[Bebu sa Ware]

Sometimes powers users need to be introduced to real power in the form of V x I.

110kV three phase would be favourite - one in each hand and siting on the third.

They could be the "star", albeit a momentarily incandescent one (rather than a dull ∆.)

[Elongated Muskrat]

Nice foreshadowing

In this case, the shadow being cast against the server room wall by flickering blue arclight. Can I smell grilled pork?

[BinkyTheMagicPaperclip]

Fantastic as usual :). kzzzt.

The trick is being selective about your crusty old fartism.

Virtualisation[1], emulation, flash storage, graphical remote access that works without hassle, Unicode[2], broadband, FPGAs, VR, and cheap powerful embedded SOCs - all fantastic

Mobiles. Gosh, lots of things going on there. Such a mess too, but an improvement over what we had before. Probably.

'AI'/LLMs - probably useful, come back when the world changing hype has died down and it's truly optional in products, yeah?

Containers and fifteen thousand unaudited random dependency components written in Javascript or Python pulled down randomly from the Internet each time. Ummm, I can see it's useful for rapid prototyping, but *so many* potential integration, backup, and security issues.

Mandatory cloud based subscription services on over complicated architecture when self hosting is eminently possible : go away

[1] yeah, yeah, I know for Proper Old Farts who were running IBM VM back in the 70s or Big Iron after that it's not new, and I used V86 mode under OS/2 in the 90s for DOS boxes etc, but really it was the 00s before VT-x made it all usable.

[2] If only more products supported it. It's embarrassing when modern products don't support a well designed *thirty year old* standard

[GlenP]

Re: Fantastic as usual :). kzzzt.

I sometimes feel my career has just been going in circles...

I started on VAX, Unix and AS/400 systems with centralised computing

Everything moved to PCs

Thin clients, Citrix and Parallels came along with the heavy lifting done by servers

Better comms speeds pushed processing back to the PC

The cloud and SAAS arrived so back to centralisation

Now AI is slowly moving to more running locally.

Strangely I still think ERP and the like were easier and faster to use on character terminals if you knew what you were doing, the flow on many web UIs is dreadful - does that make me a crusty old fart? If so I'll accept the accolade!

I'm glad I've only got a few more years to go before it all becomes SEP (Somebody Else's Problem, with thanks to Douglas Adams).

[BinkyTheMagicPaperclip]

Re: Fantastic as usual :). kzzzt.

There's definitely cycles.

As to character terminals vs a GUI or web. I don't think character terminals are inherently easier and faster, assuming the GUI is a decent one it's perfectly fast enough to handle everything the character terminal did and more. The problem as you indicate is that non character based systems are often poorly designed to be driven entirely by a keyboard, and any use of a mouse whatsoever fundamentally requires moving your hand (although I note there's a Kickstarter going at the moment which uses a Bluetooth ring on your finger called Prolo to perform mouse actions or similar).

Even a web browser can be very fast to use as long as the site isn't overburdened with complexity, but far too often it is.

I note that Windows' CUA heritage is falling apart too. Windows still supports shift insert, ctrl insert, and shift delete from CUA in addition to the horrid Wordstar oriented X, C, or V, but the Windows designers have forgotten when introducing paste without formatting as Ctrl Shift V, that they should *also* have logically included Ctrl Shift Insert, but it does nothing in Word for instance.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Fantastic as usual :). kzzzt.

I think the main difference is that when character based terminals were in use, people were (mostly) properly trained on how to use both the terminal and the programmes used on them. With GUI based stuff, well it's all just "intuitive"[*], here, get on with it.

* MS has been telling us this for decades during the promos shown during install of Windows.

[BinkyTheMagicPaperclip]

Re: Fantastic as usual :). kzzzt.

There's partly that, but also when it's only character based it *has* to work otherwise it doesn't sell. When it's GUI based there's the choice between mouse and keyboard interaction, and it tends to favour using both as that's the default with a GUI, rather than making solely keyboard based a first class citizen.

[swm]

Re: Fantastic as usual :). kzzzt.

I created a website for square dancing with no scripts - just straight HTML. It has hundreds of pages and pages load almost instantaneously even over a slow link. Another square dancing website uses wordpress and loads slowly even over a direct fiber link.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Fantastic as usual :). kzzzt.

" ERP and the like were easier and faster to use on character terminals if you knew what you were doing"

Definitely.

[Ken Hagan]

Re: Fantastic as usual :). kzzzt.

You'll get cycles in any environment where there is a limited number of places to be and the innovators have to stay ahead of the control freaks.

[IGotOut]

Ugghhhh pointless meetings....

My worse was a 5 day (yes DAY) "Technical" meeting, of which about 30 minutes was actually technical, which pretty much consisted of , yeah easy. The rest was just dozens of managers talking utter bollocks. Got so bad, that some of us techies (vendor's ones were just as bored) decided Eve Online was a great way to pass the time. Bullshit bingo ran out on day 1, so we had to find something didn't we?

[Anonymous Coward]

All very nice but I do prefer the calming influence that can be achieved through the careful application of a deep understanding of Feng Shui.

For instance, consider a calm, carefully sculpted sand beach, sloping gently down to tranquil waters of a beautiful lake, dropped into the landscape like a gently shimmering mirror.

All that is, of course, there simply to frame and act as backdrop to the vendor agents legs , carefully positioned according to the rules of Feng Shui, just protruding from the water, with the rest of him head down in the ooze at the bottom.

So restful, so calming.

[John Brown (no body)]

Will this do?

[tiggity]

@John Brown (no body)

I remember that when it came out in the 70's - makes me feel really old!

[Anonymous Coward]

Nearly. Just not wearing a cheap suit and shoes

[Doctor Syntax]

I can't help but wonder how long this New Boss is going to last before he goes to that big meeting from which there is no return.

[Korev]

Maybe he'll Zoom from a window

[Anonymous Anti-ANC South African Coward]

Or he'll have a nasty accident with an unstable rack full of heavy power supplies...

[stiine]

I don't know about you, but I feel young again.

[Ken Hagan]

Feeling old gets a bad rap but it's better than feeling dead.

[Spherical Cow]

I feel lucky to be old, given the alternative.

[Blackjack]

Good thing the cameras in the server room never work.

[Bebu sa Ware]

"Good thing the cameras in the server room never work."

I don't know. Having the cameras ostensibly "working" can provide incontravertible evidence of what did happen in the machine room… didn't happen.

And with the miracle (sic) of AI, vice-versa.

[MnK72]

I thought he was going to chop his fingers off so he couldn't sign the agreement. Alas, I am wrong again.

[PB90210]

I was expecting that heavy PSU at the top of the rack to slide forward on its runners and...

I'm sure that rack was firmly bolted down!

[DS999]

Back to back meetings

What an amateur!

In one of my consulting gigs I was reporting to a junior VP, someone I worked alongside about 15 years previously when he was a full time employee of a company I consulted for. Great guy, we once had a five day trip across the ocean to Reading, UK to set up storage (me) and backup (him) at one of his company's sites. Had a lot of fun going out in the evenings in Oxford (because who wants to stay in Reading) on that project.

Anyway, if I needed to schedule him in a meeting I had to email him, because if you looked at his calendar it was solid meetings all day every day. Mostly two or three at once, in fact. Obviously he didn't attend them all (though I do remember him jumping in and out of meetings I was on because he was trying to "attend" several at once) but obviously didn't leave much time for other work. Which is probably why I'd get emails from him all hours up to midnight, and starting as early as 6am in the morning.

Great way of reminding me why I was happy I took the independent consulting path with more pay up front but little room for advancement versus the management track rat race he did. I'm sure he was pulling in at least twice what I was by that point, so financially he was doing great. Of course he had also got divorced and worked pretty much all hours including weekends as far as I could tell. No thanks!

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Back to back meetings

If you've got back to back overlapping meetings you can use that to attend none of them.

[dlc.usa]

Triggered from my Punched Card Days

Google '"It is a crock of shit" "and it stinks" status report joke', read top link.

[FeRDNYC]

I've heard of Mickey Mouse operations...

But never a vendor that sends an actual mouse to act as a project consultant!

[Bebu sa Ware]

Re: I've heard of Mickey Mouse operations...

But never a vendor that sends an actual mouse to act as a project consultant!

Could only be an improvement - at least the rodent can actually find the cheese; the consultant his arse… rarely.

[Pickle Rick]

Re: I've heard of Mickey Mouse operations...

As a business practice it seems pretty Goofy. (Perhaps an indicator their stock could be shorted too!?)

[xyz123]

Lets hope BOFH doesn't get charged with anything. I don't know Watt he'd do to get out of it, but Ohm sure he'd come up with something

[ricardian]

In a previous existence (early 1980s) I used a Commodore Pet to process data acquired via a PDMA16 (https://download.tek.com/manual/65030B(PDMA16).pdf). I used 6502 assembler at first (thank you Raeto West! https://tinyurl.com/commodorepet) then upgraded to an Aztec C compiler (https://www.aztecmuseum.ca/intro.htm).