LETTERS

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust and no regrets, but the eternal.

Blue Screen of Death rears its ugly head again

A smoking gun

The ATM vendors must be kicking themselves for letting the cat out of the bag with regard to British American Tobacco choosing a #1m ATM backbone, reported in your news pages (7 October). You may have tried to cover your ironical arses by captioning the packets of Lucky Strike and 555 with a "Warning: Networks Don't Damage Your Health" caption, but you are still guilty of promoting these potentially Killer Products. I hope people will be put right off ATM now, knowing that this corporate death merchant has opted for it, and I hope Chernikeeff and Cisco cough all the way to the bank.

Andrew Starkey

address supplied

The Editor replies:

Our job is to report on all the major new contracts in the corporate and public sector, and not to censor news in the way that you seem to be suggesting. However, we also wish to present a balanced perspective on every aspect of networking that arouses passions in our readers, so we'd like to draw your attention to the excellent new website that has just been launched by ASH (Action on Smoking and Health). You'll find it at: http://www.ash.org.uk.

Je ne regrette rien

After reading your letter concerning the Blue Screen of Death and an article in another network magazine about NatWest defending its decision to go NT and not NetWare, I was thoroughly amused one Sunday morning while wandering around trying to find a cash till so I could get a taxi home, when I came upon a NatWest cash till with the Windows message box in the middle screen displaying "At least one service or driver failed during startup ...".

The cash till did, however, still liberate #30 from its funds, and unfortunately ended up debiting my account as well.

Stuart Woodcock

Technical consultant

Datastream/ICV

The Editor replies:

Keep those Blue Screen of Death stories rolling in. Send us a picture of the system in its death throes and be rewarded with some fine booze tokens.

Another perspective on the Blue Screen of Death

Well, I have got to say you've got some nerve to talk about Blue Screen of Death!

Let me tell you about Blue Screen of Death Syndrome. This is a signal that I am not well, but who's perfect?

I have suffered the ignominy of micturition, reverse peristalsis, urination, poking, prodding, hitting - not to mention the language I have to hear, which is unprintable!

I and my various manifestations are forced to endure a constant stream of abuse, criticism and general 'bad vibes' simply because one idiot presses the wrong key, or worse two wrong keys simultaneously.

Then there are the fools who know better. They put in the wrong card, or the correct card in the wrong way, or the wrong Personal Identification Number, or think they know best and do not read the screen. Should I now talk to them as well?

HERE is the deal! No more 'Crash Point', 'Hell in the Wall', 'Card Eater' or any other bad image jokes ... or we'll start the sound chip and output at full volume, for example, "Out of funds again, dopey!", "Wrong PIN, idiot", "The other way up, you fool, it says so plainly on the instructions", "Read the bloody screen, dumbo". (Victor Meldrew has been contracted in to the programming team.)

Every time I or one of my kin make a mistake, or shut down with dire warning messages, you log it and keep score, and compare it with my chart.

The next article in the series might even be a vote of thanks for the service!

If you're wise you'll keep your card out of my slot, because I swallow them!

Blue of Staines

aka Thomas Dickson

Powergen

The Editor replies:

We take your point that the BSoD may in some circumstances reflect the technical breakdown of the users. But is it a good thing to blame them?

Our systems should serve them.