Posts by stevejtgn

One stupid keystroke exposed sysadmin to inappropriate information he could not unsee

Talking about CP/M

Going back a very long time, when CP/M was dominant and 10MB hard disks were an expensive rarity, I was testing a format program I'd written in assembly language for a very non-standard carttridge hard disk drive. I'd just fixed a minor problem, put in a blank cartridge, ran my program for a short while until I was happy, then stopped it half way. I thought. So I took out the test disk, put back my work disk with all my source code, and then noticed my program carrying on formatting from where it had left off, clearing everything from the middle of my precious disk onwards. Didn't do that again...

OS/2 expert channeled a higher power to dispel digital doom vortex

Those were the days

I used to work with OS/2, from V1,0. No Internet of course, just a huge and heavy set of printed books which were so awkward you just had to keep it all in your head. So now I could still just about remember how to write an OS/2 and (PM) program in C off the top of my head, but struggle to remember people's names. But I totally agree that sometimes you just have to stop for a few moments to think and it comes back. I once worked with someone who would go for a shower when he had a problem as this was the best place for him to think. Sometimes several times a day.

Users complain over UK state-owned bank's services as Atos eyes the exit

At least we don't have to work there

A couple of years ago I had lots of problems with NS&I but eventually managed to speak to a real person. She was very apologetic, telling me that their computer system was awful and she was really sorry for the problems it was causing. I told her not to worry about me, I only had to deal with it once, she had to work with it every day. That seemed to make her very happy!

Thanks to her my problem was resolved, using bits of paper through the post.