WEEKLY WHINE

Errors I have known

There's one thing that will always have a special place in my heart. As you are probably aware [or at least could guess to a reasonable degree of certainty], I am fond of computers.

Except Macs.

Sorry, I couldn't help myself. I really don't mind Macs all that much, but they still can be strange. Perhaps I'm just not adjusted to them, but I just feel wary of a computer that allegedly multitasks but can't allocate memory dynamically.

But I really am fond of computers, which is one reason for the existence of this site. As you are probably aware, GoobNet has existed at some location or another for well over two years now, sometimes successfully. I also operate the official site of Caltech SEDS on this same server. I've even helped with the website of the Caltech/JPL Mars Society. All this, fundamentally, because I am fond of computers.

In the approximately thirteen years I've been working with computers, I have found that there is one thing more than any other that I like the most about computers. I refer, of course, to error messages.

Many of my favourite error messages can be traced in one way or another to Microsoft. For example, if I'm not mistaken, Microsoft wrote the BASIC 2.0 interpreter used in Commodore 64s, which always gave remarkable error messages beginning with question marks. This would then be followed by READY., and you could actually hack the computer's memory to have it display a different six character prompt like HI AL!.

Error messages, of course, are simply manifestations of computers' shortcomings. For example, take the world famous file not found error. This error has evolved greatly since the early days of files. When the C64 was first built, Commodore thought that tape drives would be all the rage. You could save your files on an ordinary audio cassette, or "Datasette" as it was cleverly called, and the computer could read them as easily as you could listen to a song. To load a file from the tape, you'd type:

LOAD"filename"

The C64 would then respond with:

PRESS PLAY ON TAPE

So you'd press play, and the computer would go through the cassette until it found filename. But as it turned out, people went with floppys and their faster speeds. The 5¼ inch disk took hold, but the C64's default device was still the tape drive. Thus, you'd have to type:

LOAD"filename",8

And the C64 would say:

SEARCHING FOR filename
LOADING
READY.

But what if filename was not there? It would give you:

SEARCHING FOR filename
?FILE NOT FOUND ERROR
READY.

This was the first use of the file not found error that I knew. With the advent of the PC and DOS, you could run programs merely by typing the filename. In fact, you didn't even need to type the .EXE, .COM, or .BAT extension - DOS would add them on by itself. Thus, you could type:

EDIT

and start the text editor. If you typed EDUT or some other file that didn't exist, DOS would give you this:

Bad command or file name

This was the next step in the evolution of file not found errors. Then came Windows, which, for all practical purposes, has not evolved its file not found error very much. For example, if you go to any old program and select Open, you'll get the Open common dialogue. Type in the name of a nonexistent file, and you get a message box reading something like this:

C:\WINDOWS\zyzyx.txt
This file cannot be found.
Make sure that the correct path and filename are given.

Now, Unix and its derivatives are even more popular. Unix systems will give you a message like:

Command not found

or something dull like that. It's worth that Unix in its purest form predates C64s entirely. In fact, C64s could have been made capable of running Unix. Well, maybe. I wouldn't really like to try, though.

So within a week or two, GoobNet's next Feature will come into being. It will be all about our favourite errors. Thus, I invite you to tell us all about the errors that you have come to know and love. I have seen some absurd errors in my day that I will share with you, and if you have some of your own, please pass them on to us. As usual, you may use our address to pass your errors to us.

Remember, exact text is the key. If you can't remember the exact text, you may as well put your computer in a box, because I think that the most humourous parts of computers are their inabilities to grasp slightly changing conditions. Telescopes now have adaptive optics, but it seems to take a while for us to provide computers with adaptive programming. This is one great thing about artificial intelligence: It provides the possibility of new and exciting error messages.