Program page 42 doesn't work.

[Chromatix]

During my *third* year course at university, I was paired up in a lab with some guy who, after I had written a few lines of code to implement the algorithm for the first day's work, had absolutely no idea how to read it.

On a course where Java is taught from the beginning of the *first* year. Okay, I'd written the code in C, but the two languages are similar enough to read one if you know the other.

My reaction was "how the heck have you got to third year in a computing course without knowing how to write or read a computer program?"

[PepperElf]

He always used his first name as the password. Apparently he'd forgotten his first name.

Originally I thought maybe someone else changed it on him. I mean if his first name is the password that's sooo easy to hack. But you did say this was a mainframe system. Back then most geeks were busy programming, not torturing other students.

Heh I have fond memories of the Burroughs mainframe at my old college... chat rooms, MUDs (ancient anguish!) etc.

run program page 42

maybe he did forget his first name after all... o my

[MadMike]

10 print "I am broken, call a repairman"
20 goto 10

Ah yes, the gold old days of BASIC programming. I played a prank along those lones myself once, back in the day.

Our computer teacher kept a few floppy disks (back when the were 5 1/4") for use by anyone in the class. I put together a program that would start with the standard "Press any key to continue" message. Once a key was pressed, the message would change to "SELF-DESTRUCT FUNCTION ENGAGE", and underneath it, "Countdown to self-destruct", with a counter quickly counting down from 100. When it hit zero, it would fill the screen up with "HA HA HA HA." Oh, and I had also put in a line to disable the break key. For anyone who doesn't know, pressing the break key would interrupt a BASIC program.

I figured it was only a matter of time before someone would be putting in one of these disks and trying out the programs that were on them, and I was hoping that I'd get to see it happen, but no such luck. Then a few years later, I was having a conversation about our old computer classes with one of my classmates, when he told me a funny story about how the computer was going to blow up. It seems he had found this program on one of the disks and ran it. When it did, he got a message that the computer was going to self-destruct, and it started counting down.

In a panic, he turned to the teacher, and frantically asked what he should do. The teacher, obviously not falling for it, told him to "just hit the break key." My friend tried it, and proceeded to panic even further, and yelled, "It's not working!" Then of course, the thing "laughed at him" when it hit zero.