Computer Reliability Quotes

Never trust a computer you can't throw out a window.

The difference between e-mail and regular mail is that computers handle e-mail, and computers never decide to come to work one day and shoot all the other computers.

Yes, I am a quantum mechanic! Those darn quantum computers break all the time.

When plugged in, the least elaborate computer can be relied on to work to the fullest extent of its capacity. The greatest mind cannot be relied on for the simplest thing; its variability is its superiority.

Nor would anybody suspect. If was one thing all people took for granted, was conviction that if you feed honest figures into a computer, honest figures come out. Never doubted it myself till I met a computer with a sense of humor.

I detest computers. If you had a device like that 30 years ago that froze up constantly, misbehaved constantly, lost your information and screwed up when you needed it the most, it would have been laughable.

Part of the inhumanity of the computer is that, once it is competently programmed and working smoothly, it is completely honest.

A computer shall not harm your work or, through inaction, allow your work to come to harm.

Computers are really patient. They can sit there all day. It's a totally different situation dealing with humans. They can be tired or overly excited.

Our lives sometimes depend on computers performing as predicted.

People think computers will keep them from making mistakes. They're wrong. With computers you make mistakes faster.

No one has any faith in the tape anymore - everyone just relies on computers and considers the hardrive to be the safest option, and I don't. I think an analog tape is something you can hold.

There's no other major item most of us own that is as confusing, unpredictable and unreliable as our personal computers.

It's great that the Internet can enhance and speed up our communications and that computers can do all the things they do. It's fabulous. At the same time, it changes our priorities. For example, before I would always remember people's telephone numbers and now I don't know anyone's number. So what happens if computer systems go down but you still have landlines? Well, I couldn't call anyone because I don't know anyone's number.

Everything that I've learned about computers at MIT I have boiled down into three principles: Unix: You think it won't work, but if you find the right wizard, they can make it work. Macintosh: You think it will work, but it won't. PC/Windows: You think it won't work, and it won't.