My only equivalent to this
I worked the helpdesk at a computer company in Dallas called "Softwarehouse", which became the business you most know as CompUSA when it went public. I remember the frustrated user who called installing Lotus 1-2-3 v1.0 in 1982. This behemoth was either 14 or 16 x 5.25" floppy disks for the installation. We must remember that beginning PC users are quite literal. This particular user installed the first floppy disk in floppy drive A:\. When the installer asked for the second disk, he put it into floppy drive B:\ which of course failed, prompting the installer to present on the screen "Please install the next floppy disk". Not having any other place to put his next disk, because he was never told to "Remove disk #1 and insert disk #n", he began pushing the floppy disks into the small opening between his 2 drives. On disk 7, there was no remaining space and he could fit no more floppy drives into said space, at which point he called our technical support line.
Understand, he talked us through this installation process and was quite proud of himself for successfully getting to disk #7 and was quite concerned that there was no more space for any additional disks in his brand new computer.
When we finally asked him to reboot and boot failed (because it was trying to boot of disk #1) we began to understand. The customer was quite surprised when we asked him what was in floppy drive A: and asked him to remove the floppy and read its label to us. "Lotus 1-2-3 disk #1" he proclaimed proudly. I then asked him to remove the disk from floppy drive B: and read it to me. "Lotus 1-2-3 disk #2" he exclaimed with pride which then begged the question "and where is disk #3?" to which he replied "How do I remove the other disks from the drive slot?"
Ahhhhh! "Sir, Im sorry but we are going to need you to bring your computer and the Software box with all the remaining disks into our repair center." When he protested, he was given the choice of either bringing it in to us or he could break out the phillips head screwdriver and clean what we expected to be bent and damaged floppies from the empty space between his two floppy drives.
He grudgingly brought the requested items in and we assisted in the return of the damaged software installation kit and performed the installation for him, with him watching over our shoulder as we explained that you needed to only use drive A: and remove each disk before proceeding with the following disks.
THe joy of technical support.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
