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> It's dead, Jim. I wonder how many folks would miss this reference. If I'm not mistaken, it's only in the original series. On the other hand, I guess Itaniu

> It's dead, Jim. I wonder how many folks would miss this reference. If I'm not mistaken, it's only in the original series. On the other hand, I guess Itanium is even more obscure than Star Trek at this point. I tend to assume that most people know at least as much as I do, so I was taken aback when, after explaining line endings to a co-worker, she asked, "What's DOS?"

singingboyo 6y ago
I think "he's dead, Jim" is/was common enough that many people would recognize it as a reference. Some would probably even know it as a Star Trek thing, but I suspect there are a bunch of people who know it references something but don't care enough to find out what. The line stands well enough on its own without context, so it can be used even without knowing what its referring to... but it clearly is a reference.
- codetrotter 6y ago
  > I suspect there are a bunch of people who know it references something but don't care enough to find out what. Yeah I’m in this boat. They say this on Reddit all the time so I know it’s a reference to something, but like you said I never bothered to check what it’s actually a reference to.
  - mixmastamyk 6y ago
    Star Trek TOS is all spiffed up on Netflix, give it a try. Some of the episodes are still great.
beervirus 6y ago
>after explaining line endings to a co-worker, she asked, "What's DOS?" How old was she? I bet there are plenty of people born in the late 80s / early 90s who've never used DOS. Windows 95 changed everything.
- p1necone 6y ago
  The averagely computer literate people that I know in my age range (mid-late 20s) refer to the windows command line as "DOS". I can't be bothered correcting them.
  - moonbug 6y ago
    whyever? technically correct is the /best/ sort of correct.
    - bonzini 6y ago
      What is DOS? Is it COMMAND.COM (of which the Windows command prompt is indeed a descendant) or the API underneath (INT 21H mostly)?
      - temac 6y ago
        cmd is rewritten. Most of DOS was in assembly language. Most of NT is not. At one point cmd maybe contained some straightforward translation to C of some pieces of assembly, but I'm not sure (I'm sure it was a mess though; it may have been cleaned up a little now) But cmd is surely quite compatible with command.com. With more capabilities, but still very compatible. And a deceivingly close user interface.
        bonzini 6y ago
        Yeah I didn't mean a descendant source code-wise. But I would say that DOS is more the 16-bit API than COMMAND.COM.
        mixmastamyk 6y ago
        It was a primitive program loader. msdos.sys, io.sys, and command.com Source is interesting, I took a look: https://github.com/microsoft/MS-DOS/tree/master/v2.0/source https://github.com/microsoft/MS-DOS/tree/master/v2.0/source
Taniwha 6y ago
Yeah, but I think you're supposed to follow it with the obligatory "You get his phaser, I'll get his wallet"
EvanAnderson 6y ago
A friend of mine is named Jim. I was working with him one day and received a "He's dead, Jim" error from Google Chrome. He became very confused. "Why is it calling you Jim? How are you signed-in to Chrome?" "I'm not. I don't use that stuff." "Why is it calling you Jim then?" "It calls everybody Jim. That's a quote from Star Trek." He assumed the error message was personalized based on how you were signed-in to Chrome. Turns out that, though he's a big Star Wars and Dr. Who fan, he managed to completely avoid Star Trek TOS. I found the phrase to be used ubiquitously too but, apparently, not so much that he ever noticed it.
bitwize 6y ago
YouTube's accursed algorithm bubbled a video into my recommendations with the provocative title: "What happened to the A and B drives in Windows?" It suddenly hit me that there are adults alive today who have only ever known PCs without floppy drives.
- mixmastamyk 6y ago
  Right, they might as well open those up for flash drives. Not like floppies are making a comeback.
  - colejohnson66 6y ago
    You can assign any drive to them. Windows just won’t do it on its own.

singingboyo 6y ago

I think "he's dead, Jim" is/was common enough that many people would recognize it as a reference. Some would probably even know it as a Star Trek thing, but I suspect there are a bunch of people who know it references something but don't care enough to find out what. The line stands well enough on its own without context, so it can be used even without knowing what its referring to... but it clearly is a reference.

codetrotter 6y ago
> I suspect there are a bunch of people who know it references something but don't care enough to find out what. Yeah I’m in this boat. They say this on Reddit all the time so I know it’s a reference to something, but like you said I never bothered to check what it’s actually a reference to.
- mixmastamyk 6y ago
  Star Trek TOS is all spiffed up on Netflix, give it a try. Some of the episodes are still great.

beervirus 6y ago

>after explaining line endings to a co-worker, she asked, "What's DOS?" How old was she? I bet there are plenty of people born in the late 80s / early 90s who've never used DOS. Windows 95 changed everything.

p1necone 6y ago
The averagely computer literate people that I know in my age range (mid-late 20s) refer to the windows command line as "DOS". I can't be bothered correcting them.
- moonbug 6y ago
  whyever? technically correct is the /best/ sort of correct.
  - bonzini 6y ago
    What is DOS? Is it COMMAND.COM (of which the Windows command prompt is indeed a descendant) or the API underneath (INT 21H mostly)?
    - temac 6y ago
      cmd is rewritten. Most of DOS was in assembly language. Most of NT is not. At one point cmd maybe contained some straightforward translation to C of some pieces of assembly, but I'm not sure (I'm sure it was a mess though; it may have been cleaned up a little now) But cmd is surely quite compatible with command.com. With more capabilities, but still very compatible. And a deceivingly close user interface.
      - bonzini 6y ago
        Yeah I didn't mean a descendant source code-wise. But I would say that DOS is more the 16-bit API than COMMAND.COM.
        mixmastamyk 6y ago
        It was a primitive program loader. msdos.sys, io.sys, and command.com Source is interesting, I took a look: https://github.com/microsoft/MS-DOS/tree/master/v2.0/source https://github.com/microsoft/MS-DOS/tree/master/v2.0/source

Taniwha 6y ago

Yeah, but I think you're supposed to follow it with the obligatory "You get his phaser, I'll get his wallet"

EvanAnderson 6y ago

A friend of mine is named Jim. I was working with him one day and received a "He's dead, Jim" error from Google Chrome. He became very confused. "Why is it calling you Jim? How are you signed-in to Chrome?" "I'm not. I don't use that stuff." "Why is it calling you Jim then?" "It calls everybody Jim. That's a quote from Star Trek." He assumed the error message was personalized based on how you were signed-in to Chrome. Turns out that, though he's a big Star Wars and Dr. Who fan, he managed to completely avoid Star Trek TOS. I found the phrase to be used ubiquitously too but, apparently, not so much that he ever noticed it.

bitwize 6y ago

YouTube's accursed algorithm bubbled a video into my recommendations with the provocative title: "What happened to the A and B drives in Windows?" It suddenly hit me that there are adults alive today who have only ever known PCs without floppy drives.

mixmastamyk 6y ago
Right, they might as well open those up for flash drives. Not like floppies are making a comeback.
- colejohnson66 6y ago
  You can assign any drive to them. Windows just won’t do it on its own.