"This week, meet a reader we'll Regomize as "Fred" who told us that in the 1990s he worked in tech support for a government agency. "The work was pretty routine, but being in that particular environment was never dull... at least not for me," he told The Register. To prove his point, Fred told us that one day a user he said we should refer to as "Emily" complained that her word processor had lost the ability to print on the resident HP LaserJet."
"The monitor used a cathode ray tube, a technology that sometimes produced weirdly distorted and/or discolored images when excess magnetic energy built up inside a monitor. Displays of the era therefore included a degauss button that dispelled the energy and brought clarity to the screen. Emily told Fred she was a little frustrated at the need to press that button, and asked if she could take any preemptive action to prevent the problem."
""I was thinking, 'I should just tell her to press the button,' Fred told Who, Me? Instead he offered some advice. 'If you make a paperclip chain and drape it over the monitor, that will prevent the electromagnetic interference from causing the screen to look like that.' That advice was complete nonsense, but Emily took it seriously and immediately started work on a paperclip chain. Fred walked away chuckling to himself about his little joke."
Fred worked in tech support for a government agency in the 1990s. He fixed a user's word processor printing problem on an HP LaserJet within minutes. The user, Emily, later complained of a fuzzy cathode ray tube monitor image. CRT displays sometimes produced distorted or discolored images from magnetic energy buildup, and era displays included a degauss button to dispel the energy and restore clarity. Emily asked about preemptive prevention. Fred jokingly advised making a paperclip chain to drape over the monitor, which was nonsense. Emily followed the advice and built a paperclip chain; Fred left chuckling. A few days later Fred returned to the same office to assist another user.
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