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Dad jokes of alt.folklore.computers

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Two fathers sit down in the lounge of alt.folklore.computers and start
talking.

"Yikes," one dad said, "you may think your kids have
weird hobbies, but I believe my daughter just takes the
cake.  Do you know what she did?" he asked with
emphasis!  "She brought home a VAX 11/780, the whole
thing."

"Wait, isn't that some sort of old computer?" the other
dad asked.

"Sure, it is, but its /big/.  I mean, there are several
cabinets, and they're now all piled up in our living
room."

"Ah, so that's the problem."

"Yes, that is the problem.  Where am I going to watch
the football now?"

The other dad nodded sagely.

"I mean, the cabinets completely block the TV.  And then
she's insisting I connect it to power.  To power!  I
have no idea how to connect a beheamoth like this to
power.  She said I had to call the electricity company,
and get a three phase connector."

"What's that?" the other dad asked.

"I have no idea.  I've never seen a three phase
connector, powered up or otherwise before."

"And that's why you're upset?"

"No, I'm not really upset, it was time to replace the
living room floor anyway, so I'm not that upset it's
been ruined by a VAX 11/780."

"Wait, your living room got ruined?"

"Yes, she /dragged in/ this stray VAX 11/780, so to
speak, and the people she got to help out had no respect
for my living room.  It's not a livable area anymore."

"And where did she find it?  Isn't this something people
don't just hand over to teenagers?"

"I have no idea.  She's been hanging out in weird
computer history circles ever since /that incident/ a
few years ago."

"That incident?"

"Yes, that incident.  You don't remember the story?"

"No, I believe you didn't tell me.  How did she get
interested in this weird hobby of collecting VAX
11/780s."

"Well, it's not exactly limited to VAX 11/780s, but let
me gather my thoughts, and try to tell the story."


"It was a dark and stormy night.  Actually no, it was
not dark, she was quite young, and it was broad
daylight, well, more broad than after dark.  There was a
heavy rain, that much is certain.  She got caught in it
with a few of her friends, how many I'm not sure because
she changes the number of friends every time she tells
the story, and I'm no longer counting."

The first dad took a sip of his drink.

"As I was saying, she got caught in a rain, with some
friends, and they ran into some weird computer history
museum.  I think this museum isn't there anymore.  It
probably closed down the very next day, like a strange
bookstore in magical stories."

The second dad shook his head, before the first dad
continued.

"So, right.  They were in this weird computer history
museum, wet, and waiting out the rain.  And do you know
what the staff at the weird computer history museum did?
They taught them to code in VAX MACRO.  I don't even
know what this MACRO is, but I've since learned that VAX
is the name of the central processing unit, whatever
that is."

"You don't know what a central processing unit is?"
asked the other dad.

"No, I'm a fashion designer, not a programmer.  What do
I know about computers?  I just use them to design
clothes.  And erm, well, look at pretty pictures for
research purposes, but that's a different story."

The other dad nodded sagely again, and blew imaginary
smoke ring like a wizard, "an entirely different story.
You were talking about your daughter."

"Yes, yes I was.  The weird computer history museum had
this sign on the wall that read as follows.  Unattended
children will be taught to code VAX MACRO.'"

"Huh, why are you talking like you're in a story?"

"I don't know, why would I know if I'm in a story or
not.  Anyway, /my daughter/ thought it would be
hilarious to make good on that promise and learn this
VAX MACRO thing.  I don't even know what it is, and I
hope I'll never see a VAX MACRO in my life."

"You've never seen one?" the other dad asked.

"No, I've never seen a VAX MACRO, and I have no idea how
big it is.  It must be huge because it's named after the
greek word for big, right?"

"Right."

"So they spent the whole afternoon doing something
completely weird to old computers at this weird museum,
and they had the temerity to give my daughter -- note
only her, none of her friends got anything -- a book.
They gave her a book."

"What's wrong with a book?"

"Well, there's nothing inherently wrong with /a book/,
but this book?  This is /VAX Assembly Language/ by Sara
Baase."

"I can hear the joke there."

"Yes, well, I don't know what joke you heard, but she
thought it was /completely based/, and I have no idea
what it's based on.  She even studied it extensively."

"Because it's based."

"That's what she said."

"And is that the end of it, the story I mean?"

"No, of course not.  One semester in junior high, they
tried to teach her computer programming in Python."

"Like Monty Python?"

"I hope so, I wouldn't know what other kind of python joke teachers
see fit to teach in junior high school."

"And did it work?"

"Did what work?"

"Did they teach your daughter this Python thing?"

"No, of course not.  My daughter, bless her heart, thought it was some
naughty joke and refused to learn the Python.  She did all her
homework in VAX MACRO."

"Huh, that's neat."

"No, it was not so neat, the teacher didn't understand a lick of it.
Not a lick of it.  He threatened to give her zero unless she did her
assignments in Python.  And she adamantly refused.  Adamantly, I say.
She threw a tantrum."

"That must have been some tantrum."

"Indeed it was.  I was at the end of my wits, and didn't know what to
do, so I hired a consultant, /a consultant/, to not only grade her
assignments, but to teach this VAX MACRO to her teacher so he could
understand the grade."

"And what did she get?"

"Flying colors, that's all I can say on the subject, I never saw any
VAX MACRO myself."

"So an A plus?"

"No, the teacher thought it would be funny to grade her as A plus,
plus.  That's two pluses mind you.  And I have no idea why that's
funny."

"Ah, I guess there's Stroustrup joke in there somewhere."

"A what?"

"Never mind, please continue."

"Right, well, that's the end of it.  This story I mean."

"No more about your daughter and her VAX 11/780?"

"No, well, not for now.  I have to leave this with a cliffhanger don't
I?"

"Well, are you hanging on a cliff?"

"No, the story's finished, and if there's a cliffhanger, it's that I
have no idea what my daughter will think of next."

-- 
Johann | email: invalid -> com | http://www.myrkraverk.com/blog/
I'm not from the Internet, I just work there. | via Easynews.com
https://bsky.app/profile/myrkraverk.bsky.social | for ( ;; ) _:;

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Dad jokes of alt.folklore.computers Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson <johann@myrkraverk.invalid> - 2026-08-23 16:56 +0800
  Re: Dad jokes of alt.folklore.computers Kragen Javier Sitaker <kragen@canonical.org> - 2026-08-27 21:43 -0300

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