Was FORTRAN buggy 4350

or the TV, or the Digital Cable Box (which does have a blue boot screen), or the Cable Modem (well it has a web page with status)... or the car's three computer boards.

It's what happens when something becomes a commodity with no user-servicable parts inside. (Anti-Lawsuit warning)

The damned garage door wouldn't go down today and I had to play with the new roller thing that looks like a shade and the metal cables and such. I understood those big reels and springs but this new thing broke and I had to figure it out.

I really see how there's a bios towards designing for "professional service folk only."

In the old DEC days they buttumed that someone technical would be on staff who could read the prints to fix the box -- or you could hire one yourself if you didn't want a DEC service contract.

Now it's just cheaper to buy a whole new preloaded PC.

I've got a half dozen PIII's out of the trash now loaded with Linux. Perhaps I should put up SimH and make an emulated Vax cluster one day.

Bill -- -- "When I think back on all the crap I learned in Vax school It's a wonder I fixed anything at all." (to the tune of Kodachrome) pechter-at-ureachtechnologies.com