Press any key to continue!?ha ha

It was around 1993, I had enrolled for a computer course in one of the reputed institutions at that time viz., Brilliant Computer Centre. PCs with hardisk had not yet become popular and PCs with two large diskettes had to be used. One was the boot/program disk and other was the one in which we had to save our work. The first couple of classes were theory and there was an interesting specimen in the class. I will not name only not to offend regional sentiments. In 2 days of theory he came up with very funny questions about computer like “can we get shock through the keyboard?” etc, etc. Ours was the first batch which used to start around 6am. Hence, his presence in the class was cherished.

The day of the labs had come and I was expecting him to come up with some genuine doubt. So the instructor told us how to power on the PC, insert the boot disk and later the program disk, working disk, etc. We were all eager to work on the PC and started right away but our friend was stuck blinking at the monitor. The instructor walked upto him and asked “What is the problem, why are you stuck?” He in his typical English and mannerisms explained all the bla, bla and told when he inserted the program disk, the monitor is giving him a message “Press any key to continue” and our man wanted to know where on the keyboard is “any key”. The entire class went into peals of laughter. The instructor had the presence of mind, she took out her marker pen and wrote “Any Key” on the space bar and asked him to press it. Problem solved and he continued with his work to land up with some other “intelligent” queries later.

From that day till date, the phrase “Press any key to continue” brings a smile on my face and I have never stopped relating it to countless number of friends.