Lippard.Multics 1986-04-14 14:22:53 mst Mon
Subject:  Computer Naivete
From: "Lindsay F. Marshall" <ncx%cheviot.newcastle.ac.uk@cs.ucl.ac.uk>
Date: Fri, 11 Apr 86 11:32:53 gmt
To: risks@sri-csl   "   /

A LITTLE OFF KEY          [from the Guardian Computer Page April 10]

        A member of our Moles in Schools project reports that an adviser was
called to a school where they were having trouble with their new disc drive.
He arrived to find a C15 cassette tape wedged firmly in the slot.
        Then a headmaster reported that his school had "broken their BASIC".
They had got a syntax error message.
        Best of all was the school where staff took exception to the QWERTY
arrangement and rearranged the keys to read ABCD etc.  To their consternation
the character on the key which had been hit did not then correspond to what
appeared on the screen.  The adviser was greeted, on arrival, by an
eight-year-old boy saying: "Thank goodness you've come.  They don't know what
they are doing.  I told them they had to change the switches underneath as
well but they wouldn't take any notice of me."