Simon Travaglia - The Bastard Operator Omnibus. Book 2 2004-2010

Welcome reader! These are the archives of the Bastard Operator from Hell, 2004-2010, otherwise known as the salad bar years. These archives have been lovingly edited by the author using Notepad++ and a vast amount of patience. Further patience was added after importing the HTML into Word to add a table of contents, then having to fix what Word did to it and giving up on a TOC.

Original spelling mistakes have (mostly) been fixed, inappropriate commas - for the most part - removed, and lots of coffee being drunk.

You will note that the author has made this work available at a ridiculously cheap price in an effort to make you feel generous towards him so that some day, if you should meet him in person, you will buy him a lager, a some shiny computer hardware.

It's upgrade time again, (like it always is when there's money laying about the place not being used) so I scan down the long list of complaint frequencies and pick the HR database server performance problem from near the top of the pile. I love upgrades!
In a word, crap! A ZX81 with tape drive could almost give better performance than the server concerned, and it's easy to see why - all the money was spent on the chassis, not the internals - to give 'room for expansion' which never occurred. With a single processor, 128Meg memory and a single hard drive it's all rather depressing. Something should be done.
"But it doesn't NEED an upgrade!" the Boss burbles, trying to hide the executive edition of the cell phone and accessory brochure he's been looking through. "Anyway, we don't have the money!"
"Well as luck would have it, the beancounters mis-addressed the finance reporting output, and it appears that our cost centre is over twenty thousand quid underspent in this quarter - due to under spending in the last quarter."
"Really?" the Boss asks "How did that occur?"
"We put it down to the fact as that your predecessor was on life support for so long that he didn't have time to fritter money away on 'tat' like cellphones, handsfree kits, etc." I respond.
"Ah. And how much do you expect this upgrade to cost?"
"The HR Database server - uuuh I dunno, not a lot. Maybe 5k in processors, a couple in memory and another couple for disk and RAID card. Under 10?"
"Which would leave the remaining ten thousand for...."
"Projects which you consider strategically important." I respond, playing his game for him...
"Well... I suppose it might be in our best interests to address this." he grudgingly admits "so long as your budget figures are accurate and you obtain written quotes."
"No sooner said than done." I say.
A statement which turns out to be bollocks.
"And the serial number of the machine is?" the Vendor's sales droid asks
"373847201B"
"B's not a number." he comments
"It's on the panel at the back, beside the S, /, N." I comment
"Well it must be an eight!" he replies, oozing condescension
"Not unless your eights have flat sides."
"Ah, so it's flat both sides?!" he asks, thinking digitally.
"No, just the left. ONE flat side, you know, like the letter B."
"The configurator isn't going to like it - it only expects numbers." he warns
"Tell you what, why don't you punch it in anyway to save me popping down there and punching something myself?" I ask, testily
"I..uh.. >clickety< Well look at that! It did work. So, it's a quad box, 4 processors, a gig of RAM."
"It's a quad capable box, one processor, 128Meg of memory."
"That's not what it says here."
"But it is what I'm looking at here - I have the box with the lid off in front of me."
"I think you'll find it's got 4 processors. The configurator is never wrong! Big things with heatsinks on them, and fans."
"Yes, there's one of those. And in the other three slots are some proprietary looking cards with some active components on them instead."
"With heatsinks on them?" he asks, not wanting to give up too soon "Told you the configurator is never wrong!"
"No. Just small cards."
"Screw in cards?" he asks
"No, not PCI cards, just cards." I sigh, putting the cattleprod battery pack into the charger.
"Well let's just skip that. What would you like?"
"A quote for three more processors the same as the original, 2 gig of memory in 512s, a high performance ultraScsi3 Raid card, and four 15k RPM 36 gig ultrascsi3 disks."
">clickety< "Ok, you can't get processors for it, because it's full."
"It's got one processor."
"Yes, but the configurator says it's full."
"Tell it it's not."
"We can't. But we could do a field uninstall, but then it would automatically charge you three hours engineers time for the uninstall."
"Tell it that the client will do it."
"But you'll void your warranty."
"It's not ON warranty. Besides, I've got the cover off and I'm not certified, so I think we've already crossed that bridge."
"Oh. Well >clickety< it'll only remove ALL 4 processors, unless we trade the processors in."
"Do that then."
"But you haven't got processors!" he blurts
"Yes we have, the configurator says so."
"But you told me you didn't."
"Yes, when you mentioned the trade-in option, I just realised that they were."
"They can't be, they don't have heatsinks on them!"
"They will by the time your engineer gets here."
"He'll never accept them - he'll know they're processor bypass cards!"
"Would this be the same engineer we normally get whose specialist technical field is lifting?"
"I..."
"So, we'll trade the 4 PROCESSORS in on 4 faster ones. And we'll trade the Gig of RAM in on 2 gig."
"You said you had 128."
"No, no, it was a Gig, I'm sure of it now!" I cry
"He'll count it."
"I'm sure he will, and will not find me lacking. In fact, he can take as many SIMMs as he likes from the big bag under my desk."
"I think you mean DIMMs." he responds
"Like your engineer is going to know."
>sob<
"Is that all then?"
"No, I'd like to buy a Raid card and 4 disks."
">clickety< We can only give you three - that's all that will fit into the machine."
"With 10 slots in the front? Oh, how many disks have we currently got?"
"One."
"I think you're lying. And whilst you can lie to me, I don't think you want to lie to the configurator..."
"I....7 disks" he sniffs
"Lets trade them in on 4 new ones. And a RAID card. Now, what's all that going to cost me."
"Well, with....trade-in allowance... one thousand three hundred and forty quid."
"Really. It seems a little steep. Can I trade in anything else from my box?"
"That's all you have!"
"So of the 8 PCI slots, there's nothing I can cash in on?"
".... No":
"I think you're lying. Tell you what, configure me up the cheapest 10 Meg PCI NIC card."
">click< Ok."
"What's the total?"
">clickety< 1380."
"Givvus another"
">tap tap<1420."
"And another..."
">clickety< 1460."
"And another."
">click< >click-click< You can't, the configurator won't let you."
"Why?"
"Because the Bus is full." he sighs, knowing he's trapped
"What's in the box?" I ask
"5 high spec graphic cards with 256Meg."
"AGP Cards?" I ask
"AGP 8's, yes."
"And how many AGP slots does the machine come with?"
"One"
"And so the configurator tells you that I have another 4 in there somewhere, taking up PCI slots?"
"Yes" he gabbles "It's because the AGP Connector's right near the first PCI slot, so if you have a AGP card, you lose a PCI slot."
"Ah, and because I have 5 cards, I lose 5 slots."