If Operating Systems Were Beers...

[res07tg2]

If Operating Systems Were Beers...


DOS Beer:
Requires you to use your own can opener, and requires you to read
the directions carefully before opening the can. Originally only came in
an 8-oz can, but now comes in a 16-oz can. However, the can is divided
into 8 compartments of 2-oz each, which have to be accessed separately.
Soon to be discontinued, although a lot of people are going to keep
drinking it after it`s no longer available.

MAC Beer:
At first, came only in a 16-oz can, but now comes in a 32-oz can.
Considered by many to be a "light" beer. All the cans look identical.
When you take one from the fridge, it opens itself. The ingredients list
is not on the can. If you call to ask about the ingredients, you are
told that "you don`t need to know." A notice on the side reminds you to
drag your empties to the trashcan.

Windows 3.1 Beer:
The world`s most popular beer. Comes in a 16-oz can that looks a lot
like MacBeer`s. Requires that you already own a DOS Beer. Claims that it
allows you to drink several DOS Beers simultaneously, but in reality you
can only drink a few of them, very slowly, especially slowly if you are
drinking the WindowsBeer at the same time. Sometimes, for no apparent
reason, a can of WindowsBeer will explode when you open it.

OS/2 Beer:
Comes in a 32-oz can. Does allow you to drink several DOS Beers
simultaneously. Allows you to drink Windows 3.1 Beer simultaneously too,
but somewhat slower. Advertises that it`s cans won`t explode when you
open them, even if you shake them up. You never really see anyone
drinking OS/2 Beer,but the manufacturer (International Beer
Manufacturing) claims that over 9 Million six-packs have been sold.

Windows 95 Beer:
The newest beer on the market. A lot of people have tast tested it
and claim it`s wonderful. The can looks like Mac Beer`s can, but tastes
like Windows3.1 Beer. It comes in 32-oz cans, but when you look inside,
the cans only have 16-oz of beer in them. Most people will probably keep
drinking Windows 3.1 Beer until their friends try Windows 95 Beer and
say they like it. The ingredients list, when you look at the small
print, has some of the same ingredients that come in DOS and Mac Beer,
even though the manufacturer claims that this is an entirely new brew.

Windows NT Beer:
Comes in 32-oz cans, but you can only buy it by the truckload.
This causes most people to go out and buy bigger refrigerators.
The can looks just like Windows 3.1 Beers, but the company promises
to change the can to look like Windows 95 Beers, after Windows 95 Beer
starts shipping well. Touted as an"industrial strength" beer, and
suggested only for use in bars.

Unix Beer:
Comes in several different brands, in cans ranging from 8-oz to 64-oz.
Drinkers on Unix Beer display fierce brand loyalty, even though they
claim that all the different brands taste almost identical. Sometimes
the pop-tops break off when you try to open them, so you have to have
your own can opener around for these occasions, in which case you either
need a complete set of instructions, or a friend who has been drinking
Unix Beer for several years.

AmigaDOS Beer:
The company has gone out of business, but their recipe has been picked
up by some wierd German company, so now this beer will be an import.
This beer never really sold very well, because the original manufacturer
didn`t understand marketing. Like Unix Beer, AmigaDOS Beer fans are an
extremely loyal and loud group. It originally came in a 16-oz can, but
now comes in 32-oz cans too. When this can was originally introduced,
it appeared flashy and colourful, but the design hasn`t changed much
over the years, so it appears dated now. Critics of this beer claim that
it is only meant for watching TV anyway.

VMS Beer:
Requires minimal user interaction, except for popping the top and
sipping. However cans have been known on occasion to explode, or contain
extremely un-beer-like contents. Best drunk in high pressure development
environments. When you call the manufacturer for the list of
ingredients, you`re told that it is propietary and referred to an
unknown listing in the manuals published by the FDA. Rumors are that
this was once listed in the Physicians` Desk Reference as a
tranquilizer, but no one can claim to have actually seen

[HAL9000]

I've always liked this one a bit better, If Operating Systems Drove Your Car to the Store;

MS-DOS
You get in the car and try to remember where you put your keys.

Windows
You get in the car and drive to the store very slowly, because attached to the back of the car is a freight train.

Windows NT
You get in the car and write a letter that says, "go to the store." Then you get out of the car and mail the letter to your dashboard.

Macintosh System 7
You get in the car to go to the store, and the car drives you to church.

UNIX
You get in the car and type grep store. You are given a list of 400 7-11's in your area and 50 grocery stores. After picking one and reaching speeds of 200 miles per hour en route, you arrive at the barber shop.

OS/2
After fueling up with 6000 gallons of gas, you get in the car and drive to the store with a motorcycle escort and a marching band in procession. Halfway there, the car blows up, killing everybody in town.

AIX
During the whole trip to the store, your gas meter reads full and the car runs fine. On the way home, under the strain of the extra cargo, the car inexplicably runs out of gas, even though the meter still reads full. (SIGDANGER)

Taligent/Pink
You walk to the store with Ricardo Montalban, who tells you how wonderful it will be when he can fly you to the store in his Lear jet.

S/36 SSP (mainframe)
You get in the car and drive to the store. Halfway there you run out of gas. While walking the rest of the way, you are run over by kids on mopeds.

OS/400
An attendant locks you into the car and then drives you to the store, where you get to watch everybody else buy filet mignons.

VAX/VMS
You use up tremendous amounts of gas to go very slowly and only get to see an image of the store.

[res07tg2]

I like that one hal heres one more


Take a Leak Tech Support


*ring* *ring*

"Hello! Technical Support, how can I help you?"

"Well, I was sorta hoping someone could walk me through taking a leak"

"Okay... well, do you have to go now?"

"Yes, I do"

"Okay... well, are you on male or female equipment?"

"MALE-CLONE..."

"Okay, the first thing we want to do is find your fly.."

"My what?"

"Your fly... it opens your pants. It should be in the front of you. Look
down"

"I see shoes"

"No, sir... look sorta in the front of you... like just below your
stomach. You should see some metal on your pants. That`s your fly.."

"The round thing?"

"Well, that`s your button... let`s open that, too, while we`re down
there. The fly looks like a lot of little metal things sideways"

"Oh, okay.. got it. [pause] Okay, it`s open.."

"Okay, sir... can you grab your willy?"

"No."

"Do you see your willy?"

"No."

"Okay... what do you see?"

"I see white... just white and some lines.."

"Do you have underwear installed?"

"No."

"Sir, if you can`t see your willy, and you see only white... I think
that you may have underwear installed. We are going to have to uninstall
your underwear to take a leak...."

"Well, my friend was the last one to use my fly... he might have
installed underwear..."

"Okay, sir... well grab the white part and pull down... keep pulling
until you see your willy.."

"It`s stuck... it won`t go down..."

"The white part? Or your willy?"

"My willy..."

"DON`T pull down on your willy, sir... just the underwear... we only
want to get to the point where we can see it...."

"Oh... okay, we`re there...."

"Okay... now look around the room... do you see anything made of
porcelain?"

"I see a little penguin on a shelf ..."

"Okay, sir...you`re in the living room....go to the bathroom. We can`t
take a leak until we are in the bathroom. The bathroom will have a lot
of tile, maybe some carpeting... yours might have mirrors or some soap
in it. Some people have showers in their bathrooms..."

"Well, I`m downstairs... I think the bathroom is upstairs..."

"Okay, well... let`s go upstairs..."

"I can`t walk..."

"Okay, sir... temporarily reinstall your underwear... then go
upstairs..then uninstall your underwear again..."

"That was the white part, right?"

"Yes, sir... that`s correct..."

[pause]

"Okay, I`m upstairs..."

"Okay... now do you see any porcelain bowl-type things?"

"Well, there`s two..."

"How tall are you sir?"

"5`4" .."

"Okay... go to the one where it`s lower than your willy...."

"Okay....I`m there"

"Okay... now make sure that you are pointing toward the porcelain
bowl..now just go.... "

"What do you mean?"

"Well, when it pops up... just hit "okay"....."

[HAL9000]

LOL... reminds me of some of my customers

[bob]

LOL res07tg2, The first brought back memories, the second lets non tecs see why we laugh at some users.

[res07tg2]

Heres one more for all the tech support guys


At 3:37 a.m. on a Sunday, I had just looked at the clock to determine my
annoyance level, when I received a frantic phone call from a new user of a
Macintosh Plus. She had gotten her entire family out of the house and was
calling from her neighbors. She had just received her first system error
and interpreted the picture of the bomb on the screen as a warning that the
computer was going to blow up.

===========================================================================

Tech Support: "I need you to right-click on the Open Desktop."

Customer: "Ok."

Tech Support: "Did you get a pop-up menu?"

Customer: "No."

Tech Support: "Ok. Right click again. Do you see a pop-up menu?"

Customer: "No."

Tech Support: "Ok, sir. Can you tell me what you have done up until this
point?"

Customer: "Sure, you told me to write 'click' and I wrote 'click'."

(At this point I had to put the caller on hold to tell the rest of the tech
support staff what had happened. I couldn't, however, stop from giggling
when I got back to the call.)

Tech Support: "Ok, did you type 'click' with the keyboard?"

Customer: "I have done something dumb, right?"

===========================================================================


Customer: "I received the software update you sent, but I am still getting
the same error message."

Tech Support: "Did you install the update?"

Customer: "No. Oh, am I supposed to install it to get it to work?"

===========================================================================


Customer: "I'm having trouble installing Microsoft Word."

Tech Support: "Tell me what you've done."

Customer: "I typed 'A:SETUP'."

Tech Support: "Ma'am, remove the disk and tell me what it says."

Customer: "It says '[PC manufacturer] Restore and Recovery disk'."

Tech Support: "Insert the MS Word setup disk."

Customer: "What?"

Tech Support: "Did you buy MS word?"

Customer "No."


===========================================================================


Tech Support: "Ok, in the bottom left hand side of the screen, can you see
the 'OK' button displayed?"

Customer: "Wow. How can you see my screen from there?"

===========================================================================


Customer: "Uhh -- I need help unpacking my new PC."

Tech Support: "What exactly is the problem?"

Customer: "I can't open the box."

Tech Support: "Well, I'd remove the tape holding the box closed and go from
there."

Customer: "Uhhhh -- ok, thanks."


===========================================================================

Customer: "I'm having a problem installing your software. I've got a fairly
old computer, and when I type 'INSTALL', all it says is 'Bad command or
file name'."

Tech Support: "Ok, check the directory of the A: drive - go to A:\ and type
'dir'."

Customer reads off a list of file names, including 'INSTALL.EXE'.

Tech Support: "All right, the correct file is there. Type 'INSTALL' again."

Customer: "Ok." (pause) "Still says 'Bad command or file name'."

Tech Support: "Hmmm. The file's there in the correct place-it can't help
but do something. Are you sure you're typing I-N-S-T-A-L-L and hitting the
Enter key?"

Customer: "Yes, let me try it again." (pause) "Nope, still 'Bad command or
file name'."

Tech Support: (now really confused) "Are you sure you're typing
I-N-S-T-A-L-L and hitting the key that says 'Enter'?"


Customer: "Well, yeah. Although my 'N' key is stuck, so I'm using the 'M'
key -- does that matter?

===========================================================================


At our company we have asset numbers on the front of everything. They give
the location, name, and everything else just by scanning the computer's
asset barcode or using the number beneath the bars.

Customer: "Hello. I can't get on the network."

Tech Support: "Ok. Just read me your asset number so we can open an
outage."

Customer: "What is that?"

Tech Support: "That little barcode on the front of your computer."

Customer: "Ok. Big bar, little bar, big bar, big bar -- "

===========================================================================

And the best for last:

Customer: "I got this problem. You people sent me this install disk, and
now my A: drive won't work."

Tech Support: "Your A drive won't work?"

Customer: "That's what I said. You sent me a bad disk, it got stuck in my
drive, now it won't work at all."

Tech Support: "Did it not install properly? What kind of error messages did
you get?"

Customer: "I didn't get any error message. The disk got stuck in the drive
and wouldn't come out. So I got these pliers and tried to get it out. That
didn't work either."

Tech Support: "You did what sir?"

Customer: "I got these pliers, and tried to get the disk out, but it
wouldn't budge. I just ended up cracking the plastic stuff a bit."

Tech Support: "I don't understand sir, did you push the eject button?"

Customer: "No, so then I got a stick of butter and melted it and used a
turkey baster and put the butter in the drive, around the disk, and that
got it loose. Then I used the pliers and it came out fine. I can't believe
you would send me a disk that was broken and defective."

Tech Support: "Let me get this clear. You put melted butter in your A:
drive and used pliers to pull the disk out?"

At this point, I put the call on the speaker phone and motioned at the
other techs to listen in.

Tech Support: "Just so I am absolutely clear on this, can you repeat what
you just said?"

Customer: "I said I put butter in my A: drive to get your crappy disk out,
then I had to use pliers to pull it out."

Tech Support: "Did you push that little button that was sticking out when
the disk was in the drive, you know, the thing called the disk eject
button?"

Silence.

Tech Support: "Sir?"

Customer: "Yes."

Tech Support: "Sir, did you push the eject button?"

Customer: "No, but you people are going to fix my computer, or I am going
to sue you for breaking my computer?"

Tech Support: "Let me get this straight. You are going to sue our company
because you put the disk in the A: drive, didn't follow the instructions we
sent you, didn't actually seek professional advice, didn't consult your
user's manual on how to use your computer properly, instead proceeding to
pour butter into the drive and physically rip the disk out?"

Customer: "Ummmm."

Tech Support: "Do you really think you stand a chance, since we do record
every call and have it on tape?"

Customer: (now rather humbled) "But you're supposed to help!"

Tech Support: "I am sorry sir, but there is nothing we can do for you. Have
a nice day."

[HAL9000]

Here are a couple more amusing ones.

If Apple made toasters...
It would do everything the Microsoft toaster does, but 5 years earlier.

If Cray made toasters...
They would cost $16 million but would be faster than any other single-slice toaster in the world.

Does DEC still make toasters?...
They made good toasters in the '80s, didn't they?

If Hewlett-Packard made toasters...
They would market the Reverse Polish Toaster, which takes in toast and gives you regular bread.
NOTE: This is a play on the Reverse Polish Calculator in programming, not a racial slur.

If IBM made toasters...
They would want one big toaster where people bring bread to be submitted for overnight toasting. IBM would claim a worldwide market for five, maybe six toasters.

If Microsoft made toasters...
Every time you bought a loaf of bread, you would have to buy a toaster. You wouldn't have to take the toaster, but you'd still have to pay for it anyway. Toaster '95 would weigh 15,000 pounds (hence requiring a reinforced steel countertop), draw enough electricity to power a small city, take up 95% of the space in your kitchen, would claim to be the first toaster that lets you control how light or dark you want your toast to be, and would secretly interrogate your other appliances to find out who made them. Everyone would hate Microsoft toasters, but nonetheless would buy them since most of the good bread only works with their toasters.

If NSA made toasters...
Your toaster would have a secret trap door that only the NSA could access in case they needed to get at your toast for reasons of national security.

If Oracle made toasters...
They'd claim their toaster was compatible with all brands and styles of bread, but when you got it home you'd discover the Bagel Engine was still in development, the Croissant Extension was three years away, and that indeed the whole appliance was just blowing smoke.

If The Rand Corporation made toasters...
It would be a large, perfectly smooth and seamless black cube. Every morning there would be a piece of toast on top of it. Their service department would have an unlisted phone number, and the blueprints for the box would be highly classified government documents. The X-Files would have an episode about it.

If Sun made toasters...
The toast would burn often, but you could get a really good cuppa Java.

If Tandem made toasters...
You could make toast 24 hours a day, and if a piece got burned the toaster would automatically toast you a new one.

If Thinking Machines made toasters...
You would be able to toast 64,000 pieces of bread at the same time.

If Xerox made toasters...
You could toast one-sided or double-sided. Successive slices would get lighter and lighter. The toaster would jam your bread for you.


Now we need to shoot ourselves in the foot. This is how you program it in different languages.

C:
You shoot yourself in the foot.

C++:
You accidently create a dozen instances of yourself and shoot them all in the foot. Providing emergency medical care is impossible since you can't tell which are bitwise copies and which are just pointing at others and saying, "that's me, over there."

Objective-C (NeXT):
You write a protocol for shooting yourself in the foot so that all people can get shot in their feet.

Ada:
If you are dumb enough to actually use this language, the United States Department of Defense will kidnap you, stand you up in front of a firing squad, and tell the soldiers, "Shoot at his feet."
or
After correctly packaging your foot, you attempt to concurrently load the gun, pull the trigger, scream and shoot yourself in the foot. When you try, however, you discover that your foot is of the wrong type.

Algol:
You shoot yourself in the foot with a musket. The musket is esthetically fascinating, and the wound baffles the adolescent medic in the emergency room.

Pascal:
The compiler won't let you shoot yourself in the foot.

APL:
You hear a gunshot, and there's a hole in your foot, but you don't remember enough linear algebra to understand what happened.
or
You shoot yourself in the foot, then spend all day figuring out how to do it fewer characters.

Assembly:
You crash the OS and overwrite the root disk. The system administrator arrives and shoots you in the foot. After a moment of contemplation, the administrator shoots himself in the foot and then hops around the room rabidly shooting at everyone in sight.
or
You try to shoot yourself in the foot only to discover you must first reinvent the gun, the bullet, and your foot.

BASIC:
Shoot self in foot with water pistol. On big systems, continue until entire lower body is waterlogged.

Visual Basic:
You'll shoot yourself in the foot, but you'll have so much fun doing it that you won't care.

COBOL:
USEing a COLT45 HANDGUN, AIM gun at LEG.FOOT, THEN place ARM.HAND.FINGER on HANDGUN.TRIGGER, and SQUEEZE. THEN return HANDGUN to HOLSTER. Check whether shoelace needs to be retied.

DBase:
You squeeze the trigger, but the bullet moves so slowly that by the time your foot feels the pain you've forgotten why you shot yourself anyway.

DBase IV version 1.0:
You pull the trigger, but it turns out that the gun was a poorly-designed grenade and the whole building blows up.

Forth:
yourself foot shoot .

FORTRAN:
You shoot yourself in each toe, iteratively, until you run out of toes, then you read in the next foot and repeat. If you run out of bullets, you continue anyway because you have no exception-processing ability.

MODULA 2:
After realizing that you can't actually accomplish anything in the language, you shoot yourself in the head.

sh, csh, etc.:
You can't remember the syntax for anything, so you spend five hours reading man pages before giving up. You then shoot the computer and switch to C.

Smalltalk:
You spend so much time playing with the graphics and windowing system that your boss shoots you in the foot, takes away your workstation, and makes you develop in COBOL on a character terminal.

PL/I:
You consume all available system resources, including all the offline bullets. The DataProcessing & Payroll Department doubles it's size, triples its budget, acquires four new mainframes, and drops the original one on your foot.

Prolog:
You attempt to shoot yourself in the foot, but the bullet, failing to find its mark, backtracks to the gun which then explodes in your face.
or
You tell your program you want to be shot in the foot. The program figures out how to do it, but the syntax doesn't allow it to explain.

SNOBOL:
If you succeed, shoot yourself in the left foot. If you fail, shoot yourself in the right foot.

lisp:
You shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with
which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with
which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with
which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds...

scheme:
You shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with
which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with
which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with
which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds...
...but none of the other appendages are aware of this happening.

Paradox:
Not only can you shoot yourself in the foot, your users can too.

Revelation:
You'll be able to shoot yourself in the foot just as soon as you figure out what all these bullets are for.

English:
You put your foot in your mouth, then bite it off.

CLIPPER:
You grab a bullet, get ready to insert it in the gun so that you can shoot yourself in the foot, and discover that the gun that the bullet fits has not yet been built, but should be arriving in the mail REAL SOON NOW.

SQL:
You cut your foot off, send it out to a service bureau and when it returns, it has a hole in it, but will no longer fit the attachment at the end of your leg.

370 JCL:
You send your foot down to MIS with a 4000-page document explaining how you want it to be shot. Three years later, your foot comes back deep-fried.

Unix:
% ls
foot.c foot.h foot.o toe.c toe.o
% rm * .o
rm:.o:
No such file or directory
% ls
%

Concurrent Euclid:
You shoot yourself in somebody else's foot.

HyperTalk:
Put the first bullet of the gun into foot left of leg of you. Answer the result.

Motif:
You spend days writing a UIL description of your foot, the trajectory, the bullet, and the intricate scrollwork on the ivory handles of the gun. When you finally get around to pulling the trigger, the gun jams.

Finally, in HTML
{a href="http://www.body.org/lower-half/leg/foot.html"}Shoot here {/a}

Brackets were changed so that the code would show instead of a hyperlink.