welcome datacomp

[jwgh]

I talked about this a little at last night's snbprov, so here's some more information for anyone who's interested.

Some Mac third party keyboards used to (or maybe still do for all I know) have a little feature where if you didn't type anything for a while they would themselves type 'welcome datacomp'. Here's a nice little rant by someone who got caught by this.

If you google for 'welcome datacomp' you can find more information about this, plus some documents that were apparently composed using one of these keyboards. For instance:

The Editor features a fully-integrated welcome datacomp texture mode so mapmakers can walk through their blank levels, painting textures on surfaces at will, and a straightforward point-and-click lightsource tool.

and

Ask the typical American what he or she knows about Sweden and you'll probably be met with a confused, empty sort of look, a shrug of the shoulders, and a stammering response about Swedish meatballs; ask the typical music fan and you'll probably hear something about ABBA and Ace of Base; ask me and I'll start telling you bout the Swedish chef on The Muppet Show, who never seemed to get around to making the meatballs but sang better than all the members of ABBA and Ace of Base put together.welcome datacomp

and

Turntables were never designed to eliminate outside vibrations of any kind only motor noises.welcome datacomp Where you sit the table is vwery important for the sound. a wall shelf will give you the best preformance.

and there's this, though maybe it's a joke:

                    Tips, news and gossip to tips@spesh.com
             All communication is for publication, unless you beg.
              Press releases from naive PR people to pr@spesh.com
     Remember: Your work email may be monitored if sending sensitive material.
       Sending >500KB attachments is forbidden by the Geneva Convention.
              Your country may be at risk if you fail to comply.welcome datacomp

and I particularly like:

This is a rich and rewarding book, and a must-have for the bookshelf of all who seriously study Pure Land Buddhism. The problems that I had with it were mainly stylistic: there are too many sentences that elide into uncredited quotations, and the final copy could have been better proofread (there are just enough misspellings to be distracting, and the mysterious phrase "welcome datacomp" appears on page 273). Pas draws many comparisons with Christian practice that are not always to the point and divert attention away from the main argument. However, such instances are quite rare, and I wholeheartedly recommend this book for graduate students and scholars.

Comments

[wisn.livejournal.com]

Probably rare these days, since they haven't made ADB Macs for six years now, and since the problem isn't reported on DOS/Windows, is unlikely to have appeared on PC2, serial or USB keyboads. That also means that anybody running old Classic systems out of what they can find at rummage sales are going to be at risk for years.

[mskala.livejournal.com]

I have a Mountain Goats album. It's quite good.

[pjamesharvey.livejournal.com]

I inserted 'weclome datacomp' in to one of my posts early this year, when you encouraged me to try to post more stuff as you were on your 'twelve days of Hmas' run.

Painting by welcome datacomp Numbers

[jwgh]

Man. I should do that again. AND SO SHOULD YOU.

[pjamesharvey.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Didn't you mention that you were thinking about doing it again this year? I will do my best to post some original and long-ish writings to ark over the holiday period, but as I haven't really written anything like that for months I don't know how well I will do.

I just need a little inspiration!

[jwgh]

Man, I hear that.