Comment by canucker2016 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by canucker2016 | Hacker News Reader

Near the tail end of WinNT 3.1 development, I read an article (possibly from Usenet) about someone creating a screensaver that showed a bluescreen.

I had never created a screensaver before.

I could reliably cause my WinNT dev box to bluescreen due to a bug in an internal Microsoft network driver.

So I read the docs for writing a Windows screensaver. After writing down the values shown for my bluescreen, I cobbled together my first and only Windows screensaver.

I sent an email to the Windows NT group announcing my creation for laughs and giggles.

A few weeks later, the NT build group decided to play a prank on Dave Cutler.

They installed my bluescreen screensaver on one of their build servers.

They also unplugged the mouse and keyboard from the build server.

Then they waited...

Dave Cutler comes in to check on the status of the latest NT build.

He turns on the monitor and sees a bluescreen.

He tries moving the mouse.

Nothing.

He tries typing on the keyboard.

Nothing.

Then the unanticipated happens.

He reaches over and pushes the power button on the build server to reboot the build server.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

I never heard about the aftermath/any fallout from their prank.

With great power comes great responsibility.

How in the world was that unanticipated?

Because a blue screen is a nice spot to debug. It’s like an assert statement. You want to find out what’s the error code, where it happens, and why. Even a vague location can narrow down the problematic area.

Right, and you can look into all of that… after you restart the machine

I guess if you're in the OS Dev group maybe they can attach a debugger to the live system?

Was the BSOD screensaver from sysinternals by Mark Russinovich?

I had installed the same and couple of my colleagues sitting around me had done the same.

Our CTO (Robotics simulation software) was visiting and had an early morning meeting. He saw this on all screens and had a minor panic attack fearing a virus outbreak or software bug.

A much younger version of myself put that screensaver on my workstation at work.

A week or so later, one the IT folks passes me at lunch -- "Hey, your computer is on the fritz, it keeps rebooting and going to a blue screen ..." :)

I installed that on a housemate's PC and waited for his reaction in the next couple days... But it never came. And so I forgot about it.

I moved out. It must have been a couple months later (we were and still are good friends), we're out somewhere and the first thing he says to me "did you install a BSOD screensaver on my computer?!?" And I suddenly remembered, realized it had been months and started laughing.

What's hilarious is he never tried pressing anything or moving the mouse.. since, being a developer, he knew that was pointless. He'd sit down, see the BSOD, (often swear,) then just press the hard reset button. In true evil fashion, I think I set it to a long interval, like 2 hours, so it only activated if he walked away but left it running.

I do still feel a bit bad about it. But only a bit. :)

Unix koans: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7286973

This is brilliant :)

Ha ha, glad you liked it.

You're welcome -- or I should say thank you:)

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