On a lighter note..

[E-Liam]

Hi all,

not exactly a case of ROFLMAO but.. one of the girls at work asked me to clean up a machine for her. It's just for her granddaughter to muck about on, so I just have to clear up a little space on the HD. "No problem" said I, "just let me have the tower, I've got spare mouse, monitor etc."

I brought it home this evening, it's an Evesham Micros unit.. no other identifying features (except a service sticker C1997). I start plugging in the leads, and it all goes well (yes, I know it takes all of 30 seconds) :) until I got to the mouse and keyboard. I've got just one PS2 socket on the machine. I assume the keyboard plugs into the serial port next to it (not supplied.. I said I didn't need it, didn't I) :), I seem to remember an old (stone age) one of mine had the same config. I figure I can do what I need to with just a mouse, so I start 'er up.

This is the funny bit, if you're all still awake.. It starts up, runs through the RAM check, then informs me that I have a..

Keyboard error, no keyboard found

And the suggested onscreen cure for this fault was...???

Please press F1 to continue, or press DEL to go into setup

I give up. I'll probably get the correct keyboard for it tomorrow, and find out I've got a W95a machine with a 10Mb HD, that I can release a whole 2Mb for her little darling to play with. Apart from a free gift of Pong on a floppy, that might narrow down her choice of games a little.

I can't really see this thread going much further unless I now ask for your silly/irritating stories, within the world of personal computing, and I'm sure you must have many, so let's have'em.. :)

Cheers

Liam

[goates]

While using Microsoft Access at work to build custom reports, I've had a few error screens pop up. Most are usually to do with the data in the database not matching or something. No problem, just correct a couple of things and I'm on my way.

That was until recently when an error message popped up saying "That is not allowed". That was it. No hint of what I tried to do that was not allowed. I hadn't done anything differently than I had before. But whatever I did is not allowed. Still haven't figured out what happened either as it worked later.

goates

[Maxflyer]

A friend who is a complete technophobe, telephoned me to ask for help with a pc problem. He described the problem (can't remember exactly what now) and I asked him what he could see on his desktop.

A coffee cup, some papers, a pen...

[joe2812]

Common AOL error:

'Unable to connect'

No sh*t Sherlock

[amanoffewwords]

For the last few years I have been installing computers in people's houses - mainly Gateway and Dell. I've done something like 1200 since 2000, but...I will always remember one my first customers.

He was swapping an old word-processor with a state-of the-art high-end Gateway PC - 20" screen, wireless keyboard/mouse, laser printer, loads of RAM, fast processor, I was impressed.

We're supposed to a 20 minute demo to show them the salient points of the machine - like how to save/load files, how to boot/shutdown it down etc.

His first question kinda stopped me in my tracks: he picked up the mouse and said "what's this?"

Quick as a flash I moved it under the monitor and said "don't worry, it's technical - use the keyboard" - as the expression goes he was happy as Larry with that - showed him some keyboard shortcuts and he was on his way!

[rickity]

Liam

PS2 keyboard connections came just before changeing the mouse from serial to PS2, reckon if you had plugged the keyboard in to the PS2 you would have got away with it.

seem to remember some PS2 - Serial converter plugs to overcome this, now in a very dusty box somewhere.

Rickity