Get off my LAWN! "Grumpy Old Farts"

[SoulReflection]

I got into an amazing amount of #@%! once because of MS-DOS.

I was a shift manager on the plant floor of a big telecom facility down by the CN tower, and we were given one of the first personal computers in the operations department. It had a colour (CGA!!!) screen, and two 5 1/4" floppy drives. I used to get bored out of my mind on the off-shifts, and tried to stay out of trouble by teaching myself Basic on the side.

One night, I happened to notice that the opening screens of Lotus 123 used simple 4-colour CGA text. Just for the heck of it, I copied the screen layouts, and programmed them to pop up in the same order.

Then it occurred to me that it would be amusing to prank the guy on the next shift by having a warning message flash on the screen. I decided to make it look as though he'd inadvertently violated Lotus' oppressive copy protection:

• After a couple of normal-looking boot screens, I posted one with lots of flashing text, and a sternly-worded warning that Piracy would not be tolerated.
  
• For the next page, I popped up a line on screen that said something like DIE, PIRATE!!!!!, followed by "Now deleting all files on A:\" and the name of one of the DOS directories.
  
• My piece de resistance was a query that listed the files on the floppy drive.
  
• I looped that a few times, changing the name of the directory each time.

This looked pretty convincing, because the light on the drive would flash after each "deleting all files" line.

I buried my program in another directory. In order to finish it off, I had one of the first lines in the program delete the auto-run script for it, then restore the auto-run script for Lotus 123.

All that was necessary after that, was to substitute my autorun script for the regular one.

I set it all up just before the end of shift, turned off the computer, and waited for my buddy to arrive for the day shift. When he came in, I made myself busy while he got settled and fired up the PC.

Sure enough, after the second or third "deleting all files" message, he freaked out and promptly shut the PC down. Of course, when he turned it back on, it fired up as though nothing had happened, which just added to the confusion.

We had a good laugh after I took pity on him and explained what had happened. Of course, he begged me to show him how to prank the next shift. There were 5 of us on a rotating schedule, and everything was fine until the last victim.

Unfortunately when Phil saw the deletion messages come up, he decided to err on the side of caution, and delete everything on the A: drive. To make matters worse, he couldn't find the note with the copy protection password for Lotus, so he couldn't re-install it. At the time, we were using Lotus for just about everything- correspondence, staff scheduling, forms for the wiring records binders, etc.

Rather than letting him get burned at the stake, we all fessed up. As the instigator, I was required to come in on my own time to reload MS-DOS and Lotus, as well as having to painstakingly re-create a bunch of forms that were lost because they'd been stored on the A: drive, instead of B:

IIRC, there were something like 9 or 10 floppies involved just for Lotus.

Of course, I got a fair amount of street cred for the prank, but it was a year or two before upper management stopped giving me the stinkeye when I showed up for meetings at HQ...

Ha, the original "hacker".

 

[notJaco]

Moderate is better than high risk.



That looks like a prop home in one of those zillion made for TV Lifetime Channel mystery movies. For just myself and Carey that's about 75% more than we'd ever use. God help the person paying the fuel bills and cleaning staff. The one good thing about those kinds of homes is they provide many hiding places so when the villain in a Lifetime movie crashes through the front door the victim has plenty of places to hide! They never seem to remember to grab their cell phone or wireless to call 911 though!

If they have a million to drop on a house then they are probably not worried about the cost to live there.
It just seems like the term 'million' doesn't mean that much anymore.
Some of the houses on that show 'Flip or Flop' in California approach a million dollars in a devastated condition and are on a postage stamp lot in a suburb. I guess that is what it cost to live in California climate.

 

[GwenOnBass]

The disk pig to my memory was Corel Draw — about 12 MB for the full install. That's a pig on a machine with a 20 MB hard drive.

 

[SoulReflection]

If they have a million to drop on a house then they are probably not worried about the cost to live there.
It just seems like the term 'million' doesn't mean that much anymore.
Some of the houses on that show 'Flip or Flop' in California approach a million dollars in a devastated condition and are on a postage stamp lot in a suburb. I guess that is what it cost to live in California climate.

Yes and...HELP!!!. The climate is not all that it is made out to be .

 

[GonePlaid]

Yes and...HELP!!!. The climate is not all that it is made out to be .

Not to worry, it'll all be oceanfront(or ocean bottom)soon enuff.
EDIT: In all seriosity, I lived(read: was stationed)in San Diego for ~6 months.

 

[steve_rolfeca]

This is nuts:
https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/M9318234565

This is the model home in a small subdivision that was started about 2 yrs ago. Most of the homes are about 500-700. This one is about 300 above the price of all of the other homes. Yes, it's fully loaded with options but 300 higher than the others? These homes are also in an area where existing homes are 300-ish. Someone will probably buy it and wouldn't be surprised if it sells close to asking or above. It's right on a busy road and across from the high school, ball fields, and our $60M football stadium. Whatever works for you I suppose.

I sound like a grumpy old fart...and proud of it! lol.

Pfft. The dummy who builds something like that usually loses his shirt, but prices always catch up eventually.

Toronto has been in a housing boom for many decades. One of my wife's nephews and his wife bought their first home while he was working at the University of Toronto. It's a tiny detached 2 bedroom, on a postage-stamp lot. No basement (unusual for Canada) and street parking, no driveway.

They're living in New Jersey now, but they'll probably never sell the house. They paid $750K for it about 10 years ago, which seemed ridiculous at the time, but renting it out has already paid off the mortgage. It's worth over $3 mil now.

 

[alaskaleftybass]

They're living in New Jersey now, but they'll probably never sell the house. They paid $750K for it about 10 years ago, which seemed ridiculous at the time, but renting it out has already paid off the mortgage. It's worth over $3 mil now.

I'm thinking about renting out my shed as an AirBnB. But first I gotta fix the soft floor and drafty windows. Oh, and the leaky roof...

 

[SoulReflection]

I'm thinking about renting out my shed as an AirBnB. But first I gotta fix the soft floor and drafty windows. Oh, and the leaky roof...

I wouldn't bother. Apparently, some people will rent anything, especially for a "party" .

 

[ahc]

I'm thinking about renting out my shed as an AirBnB. But first I gotta fix the soft floor and drafty windows. Oh, and the leaky roof...

Nah, leave it be. It's got "rustic charm". That should be good for a plussed up AirbnB rental.

 

[SoulReflection]

Nah, leave it be. It's got "rustic charm". That should be good for a plussed up AirbnB rental.

Not only that, but, with you and Carey as host/hostess your lives will never be the same again.

 

[steve_rolfeca]

Ha, the original "hacker".

I did wonder about that, but it turns out that the first real malware was written on mainframes a few years earlier.

That was around 1986, so I probably wasn't even the first to cause mischief on an IBM PC.

 

[SoulReflection]

Not only that, but, with you and Carey as host/hostess your lives will never be the same again.

I've thought about renting ours out. Some people sleeping in our bed(s). What could go wrong?

 

[GwenOnBass]

Early hacks were not generally malicious in intent. The Robin Hood and Friar Tuck hack is old.

 

[GwenOnBass]

I've thought about renting ours out. Some people sleeping in our bed(s). What could go wrong?

If you rent your house out as an AirBnB it helps a great deal to have somewhere to sleep in the meanwhile, yes?

 

[beans-on-toast]

He has a camper.

 

[SoulReflection]

If you rent your house out as an AirBnB it helps a great deal to have somewhere to sleep in the meanwhile, yes?

Well, yes, unless you like sleeping with strangers, that's where an RV comes in. But, I still get back to the thought of strangers in my bed(s). In the home or in the RV, what could go wrong?

 

[SoulReflection]

Well, yes, unless you like sleeping with strangers, that's where an RV comes in. But, I still get back to the thought of strangers in my bed(s). In the home or in the RV, what could go wrong?

Well. In answer to my own question, I would never rent out my home or my RV.

I believe that those who do rent theirs out, have their house or whatever for sale, and do not intend to move back in. They will leave these issues to the new buyer to sort out. Prospective buyers should have this in mind before buying, IMHO.

 

[notJaco]

I've thought about renting ours out. Some people sleeping in our bed(s). What could go wrong?

EW!

 

[Jeff Scott]

Losing verticality here.

Great small grill. We have the cart but don't use it anymore. It's plenty big enough for anything we would cook. It will hold a good sized roast or a rack of ribs. I showed a pic of it to a friend who said "What are you going to cook on that little thing?" You would have to know the person but let's just say everything they bought was bigger or better than whatever you had.

They're in Texas, right?

Good eye. McMansion?

View attachment 4244162​

I do like the broad gable, but the style is definitely not for me. I'll take this one, instead, thanks.

 

[SoulReflection]

EW!

Exactly!