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Latch · 07-18-2003, 05:27 AM

What are some things that, now that you look back at them (hopefully smarter), make you want to kick your own ass?

Only computer stories please (hence it being in this forum). Hopefully we'll learn from each other's mistakes while laughing at some of the shit we've done.

Two from my (seemingly infinite) list:

#1. Back in the days of DOS and Win 3x/OS/2 2.x (whatever: pre-win95), we had a nice little 386 with MS-DOS and Windows 3.1 on it. Now me, being an inquisitive little shit (and going for privacy at an early age hehe) found a program that would require a password to go on the computer. HOW COOL? (Can we see where it's going?) Nevermind that it was a family computer, and that this program just ran at the end of your autoexec.bat file... I didn't know that stuff. All I knew was that it allowed me to control access to the computer. Very cool. So I install the program (remember pkunzip's command line options anyone? hehe) and promptly type in a password, reboot and see it in action.

Blank screen, with just "Password:"

Cool.. but wait.. my password doesn't work. Let me try again... nope.. hmm, maybe this key was capitalised.. nope.. oh shit.. it locked my machine.

At this point I get that sinking feeling that you get when you realise you've just majorly fucked something up (you know the one). I realise I have to go tell my dad I destroyed the computer and we can't get in anymore. I go explain it to him, and he (surprisingly) remains calm and thinks he can fix it. He goes to the computer, asks me what I set the password as, and ends up locking the computer again (a reboot fixes that, btw.).. This is where he gets mad. I didn't know the F5/F8 trick at the starting of MS-DOS, and I knew more than he did about that kind of stuff. We end up calling some guy who is able to tell us how to get around it (F5.. so simple).. and explains how to delete the line out of our autoexec.bat file. Damn I felt stupid.

#2. A few years later I get my hands on OS/2 Warp v3 (sweet!).. we now have a 486/80 or something like that. I have the old 386 sitting there too, trying to network these two machines via some old network cards to get data from one computer to the other. Now you have to imagine the scene, I'm semi-lazy/impatient, so I have both computers open and laying on their sides next to each other. For some reason I have a power cord from the power supply in one computer running to a hard drive in the other computer. It's a pretty dodgy setup. The network cards are ISA. I have the bright idea of pulling a network card out while the computer is on and swapping it to the other computer (don't ask me why.. can't remember the reason). So I pull on the isa card... it's screwed in.. son of a bitch. Unscrew the bloody thing, and the network card comes out.. with a giant POP.. computer screen goes blank.. and I start smelling this arcidic (correct word?) smoke smell. I freak out and pull the power cord out of the back of the computer and panic, thinking I just ruined the computer. I go.. wake up my dad (it's probably 11:30-midnight when I'm doing this in my room) and in a panic explain what happened. He says "we'll discuss it tomorrow" and goes back to sleep. I go back in the room and look at the computer for a minute.. but can't resist. Right back to it I go, and find out I only fried the ISA slot on the motherboard. I was very lucky for being so stupid. My dad wasn't pissed off the next day, by the way.

So those are a couple of my stories (a bit longwinded.. but yeah). What stupid things have YOU done?

07-18-2003, 05:27 AM	#1 (permalink)
Latch In Your Dreams Location: City of Lights	What stupid things have YOU done? What are some things that, now that you look back at them (hopefully smarter), make you want to kick your own ass? Only computer stories please (hence it being in this forum). Hopefully we'll learn from each other's mistakes while laughing at some of the shit we've done. Two from my (seemingly infinite) list: #1. Back in the days of DOS and Win 3x/OS/2 2.x (whatever: pre-win95), we had a nice little 386 with MS-DOS and Windows 3.1 on it. Now me, being an inquisitive little shit (and going for privacy at an early age hehe) found a program that would require a password to go on the computer. HOW COOL? (Can we see where it's going?) Nevermind that it was a family computer, and that this program just ran at the end of your autoexec.bat file... I didn't know that stuff. All I knew was that it allowed me to control access to the computer. Very cool. So I install the program (remember pkunzip's command line options anyone? hehe) and promptly type in a password, reboot and see it in action. Blank screen, with just "Password:" Cool.. but wait.. my password doesn't work. Let me try again... nope.. hmm, maybe this key was capitalised.. nope.. oh shit.. it locked my machine. At this point I get that sinking feeling that you get when you realise you've just majorly fucked something up (you know the one). I realise I have to go tell my dad I destroyed the computer and we can't get in anymore. I go explain it to him, and he (surprisingly) remains calm and thinks he can fix it. He goes to the computer, asks me what I set the password as, and ends up locking the computer again (a reboot fixes that, btw.).. This is where he gets mad. I didn't know the F5/F8 trick at the starting of MS-DOS, and I knew more than he did about that kind of stuff. We end up calling some guy who is able to tell us how to get around it (F5.. so simple).. and explains how to delete the line out of our autoexec.bat file. Damn I felt stupid. #2. A few years later I get my hands on OS/2 Warp v3 (sweet!).. we now have a 486/80 or something like that. I have the old 386 sitting there too, trying to network these two machines via some old network cards to get data from one computer to the other. Now you have to imagine the scene, I'm semi-lazy/impatient, so I have both computers open and laying on their sides next to each other. For some reason I have a power cord from the power supply in one computer running to a hard drive in the other computer. It's a pretty dodgy setup. The network cards are ISA. I have the bright idea of pulling a network card out while the computer is on and swapping it to the other computer (don't ask me why.. can't remember the reason). So I pull on the isa card... it's screwed in.. son of a bitch. Unscrew the bloody thing, and the network card comes out.. with a giant POP.. computer screen goes blank.. and I start smelling this arcidic (correct word?) smoke smell. I freak out and pull the power cord out of the back of the computer and panic, thinking I just ruined the computer. I go.. wake up my dad (it's probably 11:30-midnight when I'm doing this in my room) and in a panic explain what happened. He says "we'll discuss it tomorrow" and goes back to sleep. I go back in the room and look at the computer for a minute.. but can't resist. Right back to it I go, and find out I only fried the ISA slot on the motherboard. I was very lucky for being so stupid. My dad wasn't pissed off the next day, by the way. So those are a couple of my stories (a bit longwinded.. but yeah). What stupid things have YOU done?