Self-modifying hardware??

[Talon]

First call of the day was one of "those".

Guy calls in, has had a new HD satellite receiver for the last year. He's got the new HDMI cable type now, and he's wondering if he can still use it after a whole year. Apparently he thinks the physical ports have changed in that time?

I politely inform him his receiver has always had an HDMI output... but in my evil head I have a picture of his satellite box pulling a T-1000, morphing into liquid metal and reshaping with new ports...

[Lobo]

I'm willing to bet that this is the kind of guy who was upset when computers stopped using primarily reel-to-reel tapes and started using floppys.

[Banrion]

I'm willing to bet that this is the kind of guy who was upset when computers stopped using primarily reel-to-reel tapes and started using floppys.

heck, my dad was upset when computers stopped using punchcards, but he got over it just fine, now he's pouting because I got DVD burning ability before he did!

[Phone Jockey]

Sounds like one of my customers got out of the Loony Bin & phoned you. Sorry about that. I'll get on DGoddess to get her cattle prod & shove them back into their cell.

[Bliss]

Altough self-modifying hardware is in theory possible, not phisically changing but FPGAs make many things possible nowadays.

[Talon]

Sounds like one of my customers got out of the Loony Bin & phoned you. Sorry about that. I'll get on DGoddess to get her cattle prod & shove them back into their cell.

Oh no PJ, I've read your posts. This guy asked an inane question, I answered, end of call. To reach the same suckitude level of your rejects, he would have wasted a bunch of time trying to dispute the incredibly obvious, butchering millions of innocent brain cells in the process. Everyone's born ignorant, but staying ignorant takes real talent.

[stormtreader]

Dont talk about self-modifying hardward too loud, or all the big companies will jump on it.
Why spend cash marketing when you can just make the old model not fit any more?

[HawaiianShirts]

I was moving some computer boxes around the other day and encountered something that made me think of this thread. It was a notice on an eMachines box (one of their glorified typewriter models I hate selling because I know that, most of the time, the customers will be disappointed in it and blame me and the company I work for) that, under the listing of specifications for the computer in the box, said: "Computer specifications subject to change without notice."

I know that means they can change what's in that particular model any time they like. eMachines is just covering themselves against those people who research every tiny detail about every single model before selecting one, who will undoubtedly be very angry if one little thing is not what they expected it to be. But it painted a funny image in my mind of bits of circuitry getting up from the motherboard to position itself elsewhere, the computer spitting out a stick of RAM it didn't want any more, the optical drive convincing all DVD-Rs that they should be CD-RWs instead, the Celeron processor proudly announcing that it has been working out lately and now functions like a Pentium4... The thought was probably more entertaining in my head, but I thought I'd share it.