3 ms·

"How the film changed the way we work" -- Printers don't use the error message "PC LOAD LETTER" anymore? ;)

LeoPanthera 8y ago
It's actually a great example of a user-unfriendly UI. Most people still don't know what it means. PC does not stand for Personal Computer. The error message comprises three parts. "PC" is an abbreviation for "paper cassette", the tray which holds blank paper for the printer to use. These two-character codes are a legacy feature carried over from the first LaserJet printers, which could only use a two-character display for all printer status and error messages. "Load", in this context, is an instruction to refill the paper tray. "Letter" is the standard paper size (8.5 × 11 in.) used in the United States and Canada. Thus, the error is instructing the user to refill the paper tray with letter-sized paper. Variants are "PC LOAD LEGAL", meaning that the printer needs more legal size (8.5 × 14 in.) paper, and "MP LOAD [paper size]" meaning the printer needs paper in the "MP" (multi-purpose) tray, and "[paper size]" is the name of the size of paper specified for the print job.
- ceejayoz 8y ago
  We discovered these displays could be updated via a curl command at one of my previous jobs and they quickly started saying things like "FEED ME KITTENS".
  - walrus01 8y ago
    Turns out that in the year 2018/2019, if you leave printers connected directly to the Internet, which will print any jobs sent to them, you get this as a result: https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/30/18119576/pewdiepie-printer-hack-t-series-youtube https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/30/18119576/pewdiepie-print... https://github.com/RUB-NDS/PRET https://github.com/RUB-NDS/PRET
  - LyndsySimon 8y ago
    I had a boss that absolutely freaked out when he saw that the printer was set to scroll “SELF DESTRUCT IN”, “3...”, “2...”, “1...”, “MAYBE NEXT TIME!” every few minutes. I had a cron job set up to run a Python script every minute with a 1:10 chance of displaying it. He stood there watching it for probably an hour, before running to his office and making a panicked call to PC Services about how our network had been hacked. I messaged a friend in that department and owned up to it. He later told me he logged an hour “solving” that problem and requested a copy of my script.
  - MisterOctober 8y ago
    I knew it! Patrick Bateman wasn't hallucinating; he was a victim of a curl attack on his ATM!
grecy 8y ago
When I was 23 I was about to begin my final year of a Software Engineering degree and my classmates and I loved this movie. I worked for Defense Science and Tech for a year, and completely lost it when I actually heard someone standing at the printer say "What the hell does PC LOAD LETTER mean?"

It's actually a great example of a user-unfriendly UI. Most people still don't know what it means. PC does not stand for Personal Computer. The error message comprises three parts. "PC" is an abbreviation for "paper cassette", the tray which holds blank paper for the printer to use. These two-character codes are a legacy feature carried over from the first LaserJet printers, which could only use a two-character display for all printer status and error messages. "Load", in this context, is an instruction to refill the paper tray. "Letter" is the standard paper size (8.5 × 11 in.) used in the United States and Canada. Thus, the error is instructing the user to refill the paper tray with letter-sized paper. Variants are "PC LOAD LEGAL", meaning that the printer needs more legal size (8.5 × 14 in.) paper, and "MP LOAD [paper size]" meaning the printer needs paper in the "MP" (multi-purpose) tray, and "[paper size]" is the name of the size of paper specified for the print job.

ceejayoz 8y ago
We discovered these displays could be updated via a curl command at one of my previous jobs and they quickly started saying things like "FEED ME KITTENS".
- walrus01 8y ago
  Turns out that in the year 2018/2019, if you leave printers connected directly to the Internet, which will print any jobs sent to them, you get this as a result: https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/30/18119576/pewdiepie-printer-hack-t-series-youtube https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/30/18119576/pewdiepie-print... https://github.com/RUB-NDS/PRET https://github.com/RUB-NDS/PRET
- LyndsySimon 8y ago
  I had a boss that absolutely freaked out when he saw that the printer was set to scroll “SELF DESTRUCT IN”, “3...”, “2...”, “1...”, “MAYBE NEXT TIME!” every few minutes. I had a cron job set up to run a Python script every minute with a 1:10 chance of displaying it. He stood there watching it for probably an hour, before running to his office and making a panicked call to PC Services about how our network had been hacked. I messaged a friend in that department and owned up to it. He later told me he logged an hour “solving” that problem and requested a copy of my script.
- MisterOctober 8y ago
  I knew it! Patrick Bateman wasn't hallucinating; he was a victim of a curl attack on his ATM!

grecy 8y ago

When I was 23 I was about to begin my final year of a Software Engineering degree and my classmates and I loved this movie. I worked for Defense Science and Tech for a year, and completely lost it when I actually heard someone standing at the printer say "What the hell does PC LOAD LETTER mean?"