[PLUG] Reality check

[Russell, Allen]

Hi Mike,

I fondly remember taking two Linux admin courses from you at PCC.  Hope all is well.

Many years ago, just before the days of what we now call PCs, I wrote almost the same instruction to first year college students, trying to entice them to use Commodore PET computers (with an amazing 8K of available RAM), and to explore without fear.  Something to effect that there is nothing at all you can type which will hurt the computer.

A few days later, amendments started to appear along the lines of: Well, if you hit the keyboard like Kurt does you can destroy the keyboard but not otherwise damage the computer.

Eventually, of course, we came across something which one could type which actually would damage the computer.  For a few brief (very brief) moments, I contemplated putting out a warning along the lines of PLEASE DON'T TYPE THIS COMMAND BECAUSE YOU COULD DESTROY PART OF THE SCREEN.

I recall that we eventually decided on something very close to the original, something intended to convey information without issuing a challenge.  Something like:

In general, there is nothing you can type which will hurt the computer.

Anyway, students continued to get peanut butter (or something) on the keys, insert floppy disks backwards, spill prohibited drinks in the general vicinity, and all the rest.  But no one ever typed anything which hurt any of the precious little PETs.

Happy Holidays.

Allen



  

-----Original Message-----
From: plug-bounces at lists.pdxlinux.org
[mailto:plug-bounces at lists.pdxlinux.org]On Behalf Of Mike Neal
Sent: Tuesday, December 27, 2005 11:08 AM
To: plug at lists.pdxlinux.org
Subject: [PLUG] Reality check


Hi,

In our Linux Installation and Configuration class at PCC, there is a 
section encouraging students to learn by playing with their test computer 
(not the production computer!). I'd appreciate any comments to help improve 
on the following:

Remember, there is nothing you can type which will make smoke come out of 
the computer (until you learn about overdriving a monitor or using a 
debugger to push the read/write head into the side of the hard drive 
case).  If you trash your Linux installation you're bound to learn 
something. Think of it as an opportunity to practice system repair (or the 
installation process) and what not to do on a production computer.

Thanks,
Mike
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