IBM 610 workstation computer 3370

My other favourite is when we get a call from a customer insisting that we get their system back up right now because it's so important - but when I check the logs I find that it's been down for six months. It's strange how today something can be a life-and-rest issue, while for months it wasn't important enough for anyone to even glance at it to see whether it was working.

And meanwhile they've eaten up their supposed savings many times over. (Unless they've suckered you into a fixed-price contract.)

This is something that few people seem to grasp. It's basically a matter of adding up long columns of numbers, with an occasional percentage calculation.

I think I did a square root once.

Unless you're one of those boneheads who says, "Gee, this thing works in dollars and cents. That's fractions of a dollar. I guess I'd better use floating point." Grrrr. (I'll direct my anger elsewhere in the case of systems written in dialects of BASIC in which the only integer type is a 16-bit one.)

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