Seebeak
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No, not the Seebeck Effect.
This is a piece of tech support lore from my homeland.
Once upon a time, there was this guy who worked doing tech support for a company that sold computers. Most versions of the tale depict him as having many years of experience under his belt.
One day, he was called to solve some trouble from a customer who kept getting "seebeaks" on his computer. At this point, I should tell you guys that 'seebeak' is something I came up with so I could translate this legend, and it's how the thing would sound if it were pronnounced in English.
The poor tech support guy had never heard of a "seebeak". A quick search on Yahoo! (Google didn't exist back then) revealed nothing. And a regular search didn't help as well. Neither did the many books and manuals at the guy's disposal.
The guy then decided to phone the customer and ask for the symptoms perceived. Which proved to be some unwise thing to do, for the customer was, as one would say, a layperson.
-So, what error message are you getting?
-All I have is a "seebeak".
-Well, can you describe it to me?
-What else do I have to tell you? It's a "seebeak"! Get this damm thing off my machine!
-Sir, could you please tell me how this "seebeak" thing looks like?
-Look, it's a goddamm "seebeak"! I don't have to know this kind of stuff, it's you computer weirdos that are paid to know how to deal with it!
The tech support guy was now one step closer to add the "seebeak" as a novel creature to his bestiary, right next to the Wumpus and a little after the Typosians.
Tech guy (that's almost becoming a name to him) had no resource left but visiting the customer's home. And upon arrival, he finally could lay his gaze upon the mystical "seebeak":
C:\>
Which would by now better be refered to as C-Beak, short for "a C followed by something that almost resembles a cute beak smile".
Problem was solved by having autoexec.bat execute win.exe, leading the machine to execute Windows 3.11 after being started. The customer lived happily everafter. As for the tech support guy, I have my doubts if he did so as well, seeing as IT is a neverending source of WTF'ery.
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When i used to have a Compaq 486 loaded with Windows 3.1, it sometime suffered from the seebeak error
