General Computing Humor

"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."
- Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977.

"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons."
- Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949.

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.

"But what ... is it good for?"
- Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip.

"640K ought to be enough for anybody."
-Bill Gates, 1981

"I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people,
and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year."
- The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957.

"I've never met a human being who would want to read 17,000 pages of
documentation, and if there was, I'd kill him to get him out of the gene pool."
- Joseph Costello, President of Cadence

"To err is human. To really mess things up requires a computer"
- Unknown

"You'll never really learn to swear until you get a computer."
- Unknown

"Imagine if every Thursday your shoes exploded if you tied them the usual way.
This happens to us all the time with computers, and nobody thinks of complaining."
- Jeff Raskin, interviewed in Doctor Dobb's Journal

Hardware: A product that if you play with it long enough, breaks.
Software: A product that if you play with it long enough, works.

Users: Collective term for those who stare vacently at a monitor. Users
         are divided into three Types: Novice, Intermediate and Expert.

Novice Users: People who are afraid that simply pressing a key might break their computer.  
Intermediate Users: People who don't know how to fix their computer after pressing a key that broke it.
Expert Users: People who break other people's computers.                                                

Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will use it.

If a program is useful, it must be changed.        
If a program is useless, it must be documented.
If a program runs right, it must be obsolete.      

Hardware: The parts of a computer system that can be kicked.

Never trust a computer you can't lift.

This program posts news to billions of machines throughout the galaxy.
Your message will cost the net enough to bankrupt your entire planet. As
a result your species will be sold into slavery. Be sure you know what you
are doing. Are you absolutely sure you want to do this? [yn] y

You know it is going to be a bad day when you forget your new password.

Email: ron@heuse.com