And then had the wisdom to die before a computer capable of running her programs was invented, thus saving the bother of having to debug them.

That's a good point, but a few decades of talking to clients has led to a number of conversations like this where they want it to "just work", even if they've input the wrong information.

I always assumed they were asking if it was rigged.

That's a valid assumption one can only make without knowing the malevolent stupidity of typical computer users.

Alternatively, people could genuinely believe the primitive computer is a "thinking machine". So if you fat-finger an input, will the machine know you made a mistake and intuitively correct you? Not unlike asking "Hey, I've got ten days of vacation, can I take two weeks off?" And your coworker - knowing a week is seven days, but you're only referring to business days - responds "Yes".

No, they were literally asking if the machine was able to return the right result if the person didn't enter it ccorrectly. You know, like how some people expect search engines and AI to give them the answer they want even if they use the wrong words.

"Can it ChatGPT?"

"No."

"Can ChatGPT?"

"No."

"If I fuck up, will it correct it?"

"No."

"Will ChatGPT correct it?"

"Yes. Too much."

Same, and I feel like this still applies pretty well to arguments about AI bias not being something anyone should be too concerned about.

All unit tests show PEBKAC

I've also heard it referred to as PICNIC: Problem In Chair, Not In Computer.

Layer-8 issue, even when it's DNS, it's a Layer-8 issue.

No idea, but wouldn't be surprised at all.

Ah yes, I remember being in the store when Charles Babbage himself would brag about his high score in Asteroids. Or that time he gave me a copy of the Doom shareware on 3.5" floppy. /s

I've seen a couple papers on theoretical designs for purely mechanical computers that can run doom, but as far as I am aware I've never heard of one that's actually been built.

but in theory yes it could have

it has limited memory but could me expanded, by a lot. but I'm theory yes, no display though.

I've replied with just these letters to people before. Improved UX can only get you so far, before the ticket becomes "can you fix stupid?".

PEBCAK.

A mechanical computer?

Not exactly. An autocorrect is a closest-match or prediction device with correct input given beforehand. When you type "fridsy", what it does is to answer the question "between fridsy and this set of words, what is the shortest distance?"