10 ms·

That was extremely inappropriate behaviour from you if this story is true. I feel bad for everyone else involved.

anonymousiam 5y ago
I was in my 20's and still had a juvenile/hacker streak. No harm was done. Back at that time, I had dreams of actually owning a 8566, but at the time they cost $60k and it seemed impossible. I picked one up about five years ago for $2k. It STILL has the best performing AFE of anything ever made. All the modern equipment uses signal processing, but that's cheating.
- yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
  > I was in my 20's and still had a juvenile/hacker streak. No harm was done. Lots of us did dumb/jerk things when we were younger; that makes it understandable, not okay. And would the salesperson with the now (for all practical purposes) broken demo unit agree that there was no harm?
  - clintonc 5y ago
    Sounds like a power cycle would fix it, so not so bad. Mild annoyance :)
    - yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
      Ah yeah, that would make a difference; my reading was that it would stay that way until someone hit the magic key sequence. If the salesperson could fix it inside 5 minutes I agree (effectively) no harm.
  - kingcharles 5y ago
    I was at a boat show once and there was a salesman selling fountain pens that would not leak. At my all-boys school we had to write everything with fountain pens and boys being boys we would regularly spray each other with ink using a very hard flick of the pen. Standing in front of the salesman's table I picked up a demo pen to see, and gave it my hardest flick. Ink sprayed out all over the table, and all down the front of the man's white shirt. I ran.
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      Opportunity missed. Deadpan: "Sir, this one does leak, do you have a better one?"
    - cafard 5y ago
      I'm not sure whether I would consider spraying the same thing as leaking. (Yes, I went to an all boys high school, and yes I'm familiar with the trick.) I hope that in the salesman's place I'd have had the calm to say, "What that really necessary?" and let it go at that. On the one hand, the splatter pattern does not suggest a leak, and he could explain what happened and get points for being cool about it. On the other hand, if there is one high school boy (by calendar or by mental age) who doesn't know the trick, then somebody else could get splattered.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    It is a sales persons' duty to know more about the device they are trying to sell than random passers by. If using the front part of a console you really could brick the device in a couple of seconds using nothing but allowed operations that would qualify as a defect. As far as I'm concerned this was (1) a harmless prank and (2) a significant impulse to the sales person to up their knowledge of the device.
    - eezurr 5y ago
      I have to disagree. Society works in layers and mutual trust, and its not the sales person job to know the ins and outs of the device. Their job is to communicate what the machine does and how to do it. Also, you could brick the device in a couple seconds with a hammer too. Should the sales guy have take down training too? If thats an unrealistic argument, you failed to realize you were the only one in the room who couldnt see the hammer in your hands.
      - jacquesm 5y ago
        > its not the sales person job to know the ins and outs of the device We have a different idea of what sales people should be able to do. > Their job is to communicate what the machine does and how to do it. How is this possible without knowing the ins and outs of a device? > Also, you could brick the device in a couple seconds with a hammer too. You could, but that's not what this discussion is about so I have no idea why you would bring it up. The device wasn't bricked. > Should the sales guy have take down training too? That's a straman of your own making, I will leave the demolition to you. > If thats an unrealistic argument, you fail to realize youre the only one in the room who couldnt see the hammer in your hands. You've lost me.
        3pt14159 5y ago
        Jacques there's always been the stiff never-have-fun type floating around. They used to tell me I had to wear a suit and tie to be taken seriously in the nineties. I just roll my eyes and don't worry about it.
- mlatu 5y ago
  > No harm was done. ever considered the stress you induced in the sales guy?
- unwind 5y ago
  Embedded dev pitching in with: AFE = analog front end, the part of a mixed-signal circuit that deals with analog signals (filtering, amplifying, etc).
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    Which, for that era were works of art.
- bitwize 5y ago
  A lot of the things hackers did in the 70s and 80s are now recognized as very oof, as they say, today. As to whether "no harm was done", you disrupted a salesperson's pitch and caused him to think the device was broken. You introduced delays and tarnished the reputation of the product in front of customers, potentially resulting in lost sales and hence, lost revenue.
kortilla 5y ago
> extremely Does that word have any meaning anymore? The extent of this was having to restart it and being annoyed. It’s about as inappropriate as your concern trolling.
- MauroIksem 5y ago
  The fact that you made this comment all is worse than his use of the word. Find better thing to be outraged about.
  - strofcon 5y ago
    Words should have meaningful usages though, yes? I mean, we let "literally" become a contranym, and broke an awful lot of conversations and literatary comprehension, yea?
  - AitchEmArsey 5y ago
    Your outrage about his outrage about the original outrage is basically a glorious example of Poe's Law; I both love and hate it.
svnpenn 5y ago
It was 40 years ago...
- yitchelle 5y ago
  I don't think time would change the severity of the situation. Imagine if someone did a prank at CES2022 and ruined a multimillion display.
  - azeirah 5y ago
    Ruined? It was completely reversible, and the prankster did reverse it. I wouldn't call it completely harmless but like... meh, it would be funny if someone did that tbh
  - emptyparadise 5y ago
    You know what, that would still be very funny if it could be done with a couple of key presses.
- futharkshill 5y ago
  and retold with pride
lovich 5y ago
Depends on the situation. 40 years ago, software engineers were an extremely rare breed, and concerns about hacking and security were negligible compared to today. If I was a manager with purchasing power I would have viewed it as proof that the machine was programmable and wasn’t just a “toaster” that had been built to do one thing and only one thing. It’s not like he made the machine generate garbage noise, displaying set text on the fly wasn’t a commodity back then as far as I know
- stavros 5y ago
  Yeah, if you were there, but if you walked last the rest of the day and wanted to see the instrument working, only to be met with a "some guy broke it", you wouldn't be as happy.
  - lovich 5y ago
    I think my, admittedly unstated, point is that most managers were incapable of doing an honest evaluation of computer equipment at the time. Someone coming up to a machine and fucking with it in a way that could produce useful work results, like making a random graphing machine display programmable names, would be a strong indicator that the machine could actually do something instead of being a complete gamble
    - stavros 5y ago
      I don't disagree, but if you weren't there when he programmed it, it would just be "the machine is broken" to you.
    - futharkshill 5y ago
      Imagine someone messing with your car. Might be an easy fix if you are a mechanic. Most people are not.
      - Tabular-Iceberg 5y ago
        I don’t know the machine, but it sounds to me like what he did was just part of the normal operation. So the car analogy would be more like changing someone’s radio presets to some embarrassing station as a prank. Annoying, but you don’t need a mechanic to fix that.
mcorning 5y ago
Extremely inappropriate behavior is a pretty strong accusation. Seems like a harmless nerdy prank that occurred 40 years ago. It's not like he changed the monitor to say "Poop Fare."
- watwut 5y ago
  It was serious dick move. Nothing to do with being nerd a lot to do with being jerk.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    A dick move would be to break it. Showing off the device's capabilities in novel an interesting ways should lead to a conversation, not a judgment. Seriously, I've been on tons of trade shows, both in the booth and as a visitor, I'd have definitely struck up a conversation with the guy to see where and how he learned so much about the device. That also would have all but guaranteed getting my device back in pristine working order and a pointer to some information about it that I apparently had missed.
    - watwut 5y ago
      The story ends with "As I walked to the next exhibit, I saw him cycle the AC power to the instrument in frustration." So no, this was not about showing device capabilities. Nor about striking conversation. This was about feeling good and superior for making someone frustrated. (And no, which is not even same as not caring about other peoples feelings, this is about being happy about their feelings being negative.)
      - jacquesm 5y ago
        Well, if the sales guy had been more knowledgeable or more interested in someone who clearly knew his stuff better than he did then this could have ended differently. Could the prankster have done better? Sure, no doubt, but it's not as bad as people make it out to be. Could the salesperson have done better? Yes, also no doubt, having been there this was simply a missed opportunity.
amelius 5y ago
Yes. It's the equivalent of turning someone's phone into Chinese mode (assuming they don't speak it), then walking away.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  I've done that to myself. That took a bit of figuring out :)
- futharkshill 5y ago
  Before/while they have an important exam where they need their phone
- ajford 5y ago
  Only if the phone automatically returns to English on a reboot. Equipment like this from that era had very little non-volatile storage, so it basically boots clean and fresh every time.
jacquesm 5y ago
The chilling effect of your comment should not be underestimated. If this was 'extremely inappropriate behavior' I think I'll forego retelling any of my tradeshow pranks.
- bawolff 5y ago
  I think "extreme" might be a bit much, but i'm much more concerned about the 2nd order chilling effect of calling out people for criticizing rude behaviour, then the original chilling effect on rude behaviour.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    You're on a website whose co-founder managed to disable an enormous network of computers with a piece of software, for which he served jail time and was fined. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Tappan_Morris https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Tappan_Morris Here we venerate such people. And as computer related pranks go, this one was pretty mild and required some pretty intimate knowledge of the device. If I had been in that booth I would have engaged the person to see what else they know about it and why.
    - bawolff 5y ago
      And what, is it your position that all the actions of hn founders are instrinsically above reproach? At the very least i would hope we have better morality arguments than simple appeals to authority. To be clear, i object to the notion that its wrong to criticize/debate the behaviour and ethics of others. I'm not really objecting to the original post about the trade show prank.
      - jacquesm 5y ago
        > And what, is it your position that all the actions of hn founders are instrinsically above reproach? That's got to be the mother of all strawmen. No, obviously, I do not. But in this particular case it is about something that is very much the sort of thing that your average hacker would do given the opportunity. Hacker used in the 'old school' sense of: technically inclined person who likes to tinker with stuff and use it in ways unforeseen by the original creators. It's what we live for. > To be clear, i object to the notion that its wrong to criticize/debate the behaviour and ethics of others. I'm fine with debate. I'm not ok with off the cuff judgments. Essentially the OP simply knew more about the device than the trade show staff (which, unfortunately isn't all that rare), they used the exposed user interface to do the sort of thing that it was supposed to be able to do because that capability was purposefully built in to it. That they put it to a novel use is what makes it interesting.
SomeBoolshit 5y ago
What an incredibly strange thing to say about an harmless prank that took place 30 to 40 years ago.
kryogen1c 5y ago
oh grow up. no - seriously. is this the kind of culture you want? no one can ever share bad things theyve done, ever? lets all lie and say we're sinless? you "feel bad" for how "extremely inappropriate" that was? how tiny is your worldview that this is the cause you think needs correcting? maybe add something to the conversation instead of calling someone shitty for a decades old action. how are people suppossed to recover from real problems if this is how you treat some meaningless, damageless 5 minute prank? shovelling embarassment and guilt is the most unhealthy and unproductive forum environment possible.
- zamadatix 5y ago
  In a sibling comment the GP was able to say it was indeed juvenile and they've moved on. I think that makes a fantastically healthy and productive string of comments: someone talks about an interesting past event, someone else points out it wasn't a responsible/polite thing to do since the original story doesn't touch on this, original person agrees and share more history continuing the conversation with some follow up to the story too.
  - user_7832 5y ago
    > In a sibling comment the GP was able to say it was indeed juvenile and they've moved on. That's good to know, but there are lots of folks here who defend the poster's actions to varying degrees, which I find odd. It feels like the poster is more mature (now) than some other commenters.
dang 5y ago
Please don't cross into personal attack. We particularly don't want the online callout/shaming culture here. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&type=comment&dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=online%20shaming%20by%3Adang https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&type=comment&dateRange=a... https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I was in my 20's and still had a juvenile/hacker streak. No harm was done. Back at that time, I had dreams of actually owning a 8566, but at the time they cost $60k and it seemed impossible. I picked one up about five years ago for $2k. It STILL has the best performing AFE of anything ever made. All the modern equipment uses signal processing, but that's cheating.

yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
> I was in my 20's and still had a juvenile/hacker streak. No harm was done. Lots of us did dumb/jerk things when we were younger; that makes it understandable, not okay. And would the salesperson with the now (for all practical purposes) broken demo unit agree that there was no harm?
- clintonc 5y ago
  Sounds like a power cycle would fix it, so not so bad. Mild annoyance :)
  - yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
    Ah yeah, that would make a difference; my reading was that it would stay that way until someone hit the magic key sequence. If the salesperson could fix it inside 5 minutes I agree (effectively) no harm.
- kingcharles 5y ago
  I was at a boat show once and there was a salesman selling fountain pens that would not leak. At my all-boys school we had to write everything with fountain pens and boys being boys we would regularly spray each other with ink using a very hard flick of the pen. Standing in front of the salesman's table I picked up a demo pen to see, and gave it my hardest flick. Ink sprayed out all over the table, and all down the front of the man's white shirt. I ran.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    Opportunity missed. Deadpan: "Sir, this one does leak, do you have a better one?"
  - cafard 5y ago
    I'm not sure whether I would consider spraying the same thing as leaking. (Yes, I went to an all boys high school, and yes I'm familiar with the trick.) I hope that in the salesman's place I'd have had the calm to say, "What that really necessary?" and let it go at that. On the one hand, the splatter pattern does not suggest a leak, and he could explain what happened and get points for being cool about it. On the other hand, if there is one high school boy (by calendar or by mental age) who doesn't know the trick, then somebody else could get splattered.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  It is a sales persons' duty to know more about the device they are trying to sell than random passers by. If using the front part of a console you really could brick the device in a couple of seconds using nothing but allowed operations that would qualify as a defect. As far as I'm concerned this was (1) a harmless prank and (2) a significant impulse to the sales person to up their knowledge of the device.
  - eezurr 5y ago
    I have to disagree. Society works in layers and mutual trust, and its not the sales person job to know the ins and outs of the device. Their job is to communicate what the machine does and how to do it. Also, you could brick the device in a couple seconds with a hammer too. Should the sales guy have take down training too? If thats an unrealistic argument, you failed to realize you were the only one in the room who couldnt see the hammer in your hands.
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      > its not the sales person job to know the ins and outs of the device We have a different idea of what sales people should be able to do. > Their job is to communicate what the machine does and how to do it. How is this possible without knowing the ins and outs of a device? > Also, you could brick the device in a couple seconds with a hammer too. You could, but that's not what this discussion is about so I have no idea why you would bring it up. The device wasn't bricked. > Should the sales guy have take down training too? That's a straman of your own making, I will leave the demolition to you. > If thats an unrealistic argument, you fail to realize youre the only one in the room who couldnt see the hammer in your hands. You've lost me.
      - 3pt14159 5y ago
        Jacques there's always been the stiff never-have-fun type floating around. They used to tell me I had to wear a suit and tie to be taken seriously in the nineties. I just roll my eyes and don't worry about it.
mlatu 5y ago
> No harm was done. ever considered the stress you induced in the sales guy?
unwind 5y ago
Embedded dev pitching in with: AFE = analog front end, the part of a mixed-signal circuit that deals with analog signals (filtering, amplifying, etc).
- jacquesm 5y ago
  Which, for that era were works of art.
bitwize 5y ago
A lot of the things hackers did in the 70s and 80s are now recognized as very oof, as they say, today. As to whether "no harm was done", you disrupted a salesperson's pitch and caused him to think the device was broken. You introduced delays and tarnished the reputation of the product in front of customers, potentially resulting in lost sales and hence, lost revenue.

kortilla 5y ago

> extremely Does that word have any meaning anymore? The extent of this was having to restart it and being annoyed. It’s about as inappropriate as your concern trolling.

MauroIksem 5y ago
The fact that you made this comment all is worse than his use of the word. Find better thing to be outraged about.
- strofcon 5y ago
  Words should have meaningful usages though, yes? I mean, we let "literally" become a contranym, and broke an awful lot of conversations and literatary comprehension, yea?
- AitchEmArsey 5y ago
  Your outrage about his outrage about the original outrage is basically a glorious example of Poe's Law; I both love and hate it.

svnpenn 5y ago

It was 40 years ago...

yitchelle 5y ago
I don't think time would change the severity of the situation. Imagine if someone did a prank at CES2022 and ruined a multimillion display.
- azeirah 5y ago
  Ruined? It was completely reversible, and the prankster did reverse it. I wouldn't call it completely harmless but like... meh, it would be funny if someone did that tbh
- emptyparadise 5y ago
  You know what, that would still be very funny if it could be done with a couple of key presses.
futharkshill 5y ago
and retold with pride

lovich 5y ago

Depends on the situation. 40 years ago, software engineers were an extremely rare breed, and concerns about hacking and security were negligible compared to today. If I was a manager with purchasing power I would have viewed it as proof that the machine was programmable and wasn’t just a “toaster” that had been built to do one thing and only one thing. It’s not like he made the machine generate garbage noise, displaying set text on the fly wasn’t a commodity back then as far as I know

stavros 5y ago
Yeah, if you were there, but if you walked last the rest of the day and wanted to see the instrument working, only to be met with a "some guy broke it", you wouldn't be as happy.
- lovich 5y ago
  I think my, admittedly unstated, point is that most managers were incapable of doing an honest evaluation of computer equipment at the time. Someone coming up to a machine and fucking with it in a way that could produce useful work results, like making a random graphing machine display programmable names, would be a strong indicator that the machine could actually do something instead of being a complete gamble
  - stavros 5y ago
    I don't disagree, but if you weren't there when he programmed it, it would just be "the machine is broken" to you.
  - futharkshill 5y ago
    Imagine someone messing with your car. Might be an easy fix if you are a mechanic. Most people are not.
    - Tabular-Iceberg 5y ago
      I don’t know the machine, but it sounds to me like what he did was just part of the normal operation. So the car analogy would be more like changing someone’s radio presets to some embarrassing station as a prank. Annoying, but you don’t need a mechanic to fix that.

mcorning 5y ago

Extremely inappropriate behavior is a pretty strong accusation. Seems like a harmless nerdy prank that occurred 40 years ago. It's not like he changed the monitor to say "Poop Fare."

watwut 5y ago
It was serious dick move. Nothing to do with being nerd a lot to do with being jerk.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  A dick move would be to break it. Showing off the device's capabilities in novel an interesting ways should lead to a conversation, not a judgment. Seriously, I've been on tons of trade shows, both in the booth and as a visitor, I'd have definitely struck up a conversation with the guy to see where and how he learned so much about the device. That also would have all but guaranteed getting my device back in pristine working order and a pointer to some information about it that I apparently had missed.
  - watwut 5y ago
    The story ends with "As I walked to the next exhibit, I saw him cycle the AC power to the instrument in frustration." So no, this was not about showing device capabilities. Nor about striking conversation. This was about feeling good and superior for making someone frustrated. (And no, which is not even same as not caring about other peoples feelings, this is about being happy about their feelings being negative.)
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      Well, if the sales guy had been more knowledgeable or more interested in someone who clearly knew his stuff better than he did then this could have ended differently. Could the prankster have done better? Sure, no doubt, but it's not as bad as people make it out to be. Could the salesperson have done better? Yes, also no doubt, having been there this was simply a missed opportunity.

amelius 5y ago

Yes. It's the equivalent of turning someone's phone into Chinese mode (assuming they don't speak it), then walking away.

jacquesm 5y ago
I've done that to myself. That took a bit of figuring out :)
futharkshill 5y ago
Before/while they have an important exam where they need their phone
ajford 5y ago
Only if the phone automatically returns to English on a reboot. Equipment like this from that era had very little non-volatile storage, so it basically boots clean and fresh every time.

jacquesm 5y ago

The chilling effect of your comment should not be underestimated. If this was 'extremely inappropriate behavior' I think I'll forego retelling any of my tradeshow pranks.

bawolff 5y ago
I think "extreme" might be a bit much, but i'm much more concerned about the 2nd order chilling effect of calling out people for criticizing rude behaviour, then the original chilling effect on rude behaviour.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  You're on a website whose co-founder managed to disable an enormous network of computers with a piece of software, for which he served jail time and was fined. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Tappan_Morris https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Tappan_Morris Here we venerate such people. And as computer related pranks go, this one was pretty mild and required some pretty intimate knowledge of the device. If I had been in that booth I would have engaged the person to see what else they know about it and why.
  - bawolff 5y ago
    And what, is it your position that all the actions of hn founders are instrinsically above reproach? At the very least i would hope we have better morality arguments than simple appeals to authority. To be clear, i object to the notion that its wrong to criticize/debate the behaviour and ethics of others. I'm not really objecting to the original post about the trade show prank.
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      > And what, is it your position that all the actions of hn founders are instrinsically above reproach? That's got to be the mother of all strawmen. No, obviously, I do not. But in this particular case it is about something that is very much the sort of thing that your average hacker would do given the opportunity. Hacker used in the 'old school' sense of: technically inclined person who likes to tinker with stuff and use it in ways unforeseen by the original creators. It's what we live for. > To be clear, i object to the notion that its wrong to criticize/debate the behaviour and ethics of others. I'm fine with debate. I'm not ok with off the cuff judgments. Essentially the OP simply knew more about the device than the trade show staff (which, unfortunately isn't all that rare), they used the exposed user interface to do the sort of thing that it was supposed to be able to do because that capability was purposefully built in to it. That they put it to a novel use is what makes it interesting.

SomeBoolshit 5y ago

What an incredibly strange thing to say about an harmless prank that took place 30 to 40 years ago.

kryogen1c 5y ago

oh grow up. no - seriously. is this the kind of culture you want? no one can ever share bad things theyve done, ever? lets all lie and say we're sinless? you "feel bad" for how "extremely inappropriate" that was? how tiny is your worldview that this is the cause you think needs correcting? maybe add something to the conversation instead of calling someone shitty for a decades old action. how are people suppossed to recover from real problems if this is how you treat some meaningless, damageless 5 minute prank? shovelling embarassment and guilt is the most unhealthy and unproductive forum environment possible.

zamadatix 5y ago
In a sibling comment the GP was able to say it was indeed juvenile and they've moved on. I think that makes a fantastically healthy and productive string of comments: someone talks about an interesting past event, someone else points out it wasn't a responsible/polite thing to do since the original story doesn't touch on this, original person agrees and share more history continuing the conversation with some follow up to the story too.
- user_7832 5y ago
  > In a sibling comment the GP was able to say it was indeed juvenile and they've moved on. That's good to know, but there are lots of folks here who defend the poster's actions to varying degrees, which I find odd. It feels like the poster is more mature (now) than some other commenters.

dang 5y ago

Please don't cross into personal attack. We particularly don't want the online callout/shaming culture here. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&type=comment&dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=online%20shaming%20by%3Adang https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&type=comment&dateRange=a... https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html