NEW YORK -- Computers are generally thought of as machines that operate with cold logic and unerring precision.
But like Mr. Spock of Star Trek fame, the computer has its human side and all of that human interfacing, a popular computer term, gives rise to three terms to describe problems in dealing with computers: bugs, glitches and syntax errors.
The term 'bug' goes back to the early days when computers were giant monsters that filled auditoriums and ate vacuum tubes in great quantities.
The story goes that Commodore Grace Hopper, one of the few women computer pioneers, was trying to find out why a Univac wasn't working and discovered a dead moth deep in the innards of the system.
Hopper is alleged to have said: 'Here's the problem, the system's got a bug in it.'
The term stuck and every design or programming problem since then has been dubbed a bug. There is a joke making the rounds that quotes a computer maker: 'It's not a bug, it's a feature.'
Glitches, on the other hand, are weird outside forces akin to gremlins and poltergeists that cause computers owners to cry.
It could be something like a surge of electricity that wipes out all your beautifully crafted prose just as your finger is descending toward the 'save' key.
When you ask some technical type what happened, he'll usually say, 'It's just a glitch.' No one seems to know where the term 'glitch' came from.
It's not clear whether this is officially a glitch but Safeware Insurance, one ot the country's leading insurers of personal computers, paid off on a claim for damaged program disks when a cat mistook a disk storage file for a litter box.
You get a 'syntax error' when you give the computer an instruction it doesn't understand. The bug in syntax errors is that the computer rarely tells you what the error is. At least a strict grammarian, when chiding you for an error in syntax, will promptly correct you. There is one word processing program on the market that tried to humanize its error messages by saying 'One of us made a mistake? Why don't you try it again?' It doesn't come off human at all, but smug. It is obvious whom the computer thinks made the mistake.
One longs for the day a computer says 'Look, I'm a dumb machine that will only do what I'm told. You just told me to do something I don't know how to do. Could you explain it another way so that maybe I'll get it right this time and do what you want me to? OK?'
Syntax Error!
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The computer industry also has a love affair with initials. Anything that has anything to do with computers gets shortened and ends up as an initial. DOS, CP/M, BIOS, RAM, ROM, I/O, K, BIT, PC, IC, LSI, VLS, and CMOS, just to name a few. One is advised not to worry about understanding all these terms, but just accept them as part of the initial price paid to join the computer revolution. Ironically, with some Apple computers, you prepare a disk to receive information by inititalizing it. Strangely enough, 'initialize' is never inititialized.
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Marketing computers is fast becoming a bonanza for ad agencies with about $100 million expected to be spent this year. With that kind of repetition of ads, trying to get a product to stand out is a major problem. But some trends are already starting to develop.
Humor seems to be the method most favored by current campaigns.
Apple Computer, stressing the ease of use of its Macintosh, features frustrated computer users, who keep getting the infamous 'Syntax Error,' smash machines with sledgehammers and slice them in half with electric chainsaws. The machines they smash look suspiciously like IBMs.
NCR is using comedian Dom Deloise as a bumbling but lovable salesman trying to convince already agreeable customers to buy the company's computers.
The conservative behemoth, IBM, surprised everyone with the gentle humor of the Charlie Chaplin commercials, but even more so with it delightfully dry-witted 'Fred' spot. That's the one with four elderly men trying to figure out how their friend Fred ('Are we talking about the same Fred?') could possibly learn to use a computer.
