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It’s hard to remember back now but when I was probably about 8 or 9 years old my first family computer, a Commodore 64, had this program where it would “simulat

It’s hard to remember back now but when I was probably about 8 or 9 years old my first family computer, a Commodore 64, had this program where it would “simulate” all sorts of catastrophic errors. Formatting disks, exploding, etc. As a child I was totally convinced and man that was scary. Funny to think back how silly that was now.

LocalH 4y ago
That almost sounds like the "Sillycrisis" portion of a thing called "Silly 64", by "Silly Software". I can find almost no information about this program other than the actual program itself. Pretty sure the whole thing was written in BASIC.
dylan604 4y ago
The realization that it is very hard to do something on a computer that could not be repaired via software was what allowed me to just try anything. I wasn't afraid to click on things, visit "scary" folders, or view hidden files. Even after doing something that forced a reboot into some sort of recovery mode to replace things showed that things were recoverable and not permanent. There are so many people with the notion that they will break their computer that are absolutely unwilling to experiment and try things. Fear is the mind killer!
- danamit 4y ago
  We just didn't know better, the moment I learned to format my PC it was like the singularity. Still today, there is parents and siblings who don't know better and will not allow their kids to experiment.
- Szpadel 4y ago
  With new products of today it might actually be such thing, there is many products, that do not have any official software recovery, eg many Android phones or consoles, so nowadays causing bug that would bootloop or crash your software means basically that you need to service it or throw it away if it's not supported or out of warranty
- ipython 4y ago
  I think that ultimately it was that program that taught me this lesson. I was scared to death the first time but later it kind of became a rush, then just comedy - I came to realize that it really couldn’t have those effects. Of course afterward I learned the hard way how you really could make mistakes - repartitioning my dads disk incorrectly to install Linux for example. Whoops.

LocalH 4y ago

That almost sounds like the "Sillycrisis" portion of a thing called "Silly 64", by "Silly Software". I can find almost no information about this program other than the actual program itself. Pretty sure the whole thing was written in BASIC.

dylan604 4y ago

The realization that it is very hard to do something on a computer that could not be repaired via software was what allowed me to just try anything. I wasn't afraid to click on things, visit "scary" folders, or view hidden files. Even after doing something that forced a reboot into some sort of recovery mode to replace things showed that things were recoverable and not permanent. There are so many people with the notion that they will break their computer that are absolutely unwilling to experiment and try things. Fear is the mind killer!

danamit 4y ago
We just didn't know better, the moment I learned to format my PC it was like the singularity. Still today, there is parents and siblings who don't know better and will not allow their kids to experiment.
Szpadel 4y ago
With new products of today it might actually be such thing, there is many products, that do not have any official software recovery, eg many Android phones or consoles, so nowadays causing bug that would bootloop or crash your software means basically that you need to service it or throw it away if it's not supported or out of warranty
ipython 4y ago
I think that ultimately it was that program that taught me this lesson. I was scared to death the first time but later it kind of became a rush, then just comedy - I came to realize that it really couldn’t have those effects. Of course afterward I learned the hard way how you really could make mistakes - repartitioning my dads disk incorrectly to install Linux for example. Whoops.