Alphabetical Site Index

Computer Problems

Because the computer can be very useful both to non-activists and to activists distributing information that exposes Evil, computers and their users are frequent targets of Harassment. I've had problems with all of the Computers That I Use. I document these problems here.

Each of these problems could have been an innocent malfunction. Superficially that is what many of them appear to be. But this appearence is probably only Cover. Most of these problems were probably maliciously created, because:

If you find the preceding statements difficult to believe, then please consider the following:

So I know a lot about how computer systems work, and how they can fail.

Next I will give more information about Computer Problems, including types, causes, and individual problems that I have experienced, starting with the problems to which an ordinary computer can most easilly relate.

Hardware Computer Problems

Now I describe the problems that have the appearance of malfunctioning hardware.

All of these problems can be caused by Electrical Effects With Psychotronics or Mechanical Effects With Psychotronics acting directly on the computer hardware. But some of them can also be caused by externally controlled Psychotronic Server software, so they might actually be Software Computer Problems.

For more examples, see Video Production Problems.

Software Computer Problems

Most of the Computer Problems that I describe can be caused by malfunctioning software. Software in this case means the computer programs running on a computer.

A software malfunction might be the result of:

With the variety and quantaty of the Computer Problems that I describe, it is difficult to conclude that many of them were unintentional software malfunctions.

The Computer Problem that is alone the most convincing evidence of the existence Psychotronic Servers, and most illustrative of their ability to get into computers fast, is the Changed File Time Stamps problem. This event happened under very controlled conditions.

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Computers That I Use

I have used many computers. Some belonged to me, and some to others. I have had weird Computer Problems with almost all of them.

Now I describe each of these computers briefly.

Roscoed7

This is one of the Computers That I Use at home. It is a 166 MHz Pentium desktop running Windows 95. It has a DSL connection to the Internet. I was doing most of my work on Project Media Matrix on it, and most of my Internet access from it, until I got the Roscoe07 computer.

Roscoed9

This is one of the Computers That I Use. It is a 100 MHz 486 laptop running Windows 3.11 for Workgroups. I use it mainly for keeping notes when I am away from home. It has no network connection.

Roscoe00

This is one of the Computers That I Use at home. It is a spare desktop 66 MHz computer. I use it to do simple tests, recently Windows 95 Setup tests starting with a blank formatted hard disk. It is not connected to the Internet, or anything else except electric power.

Roscoe07

This is one of the Computers That I Use at home. It has an AMD Athlon XP 2500 1.84 GHz processor and 512 MB of RAM. It runs "Microsoft Windows XP, Home Edition, Version 2002, Service Pack 1".

I got it because my old workhorse computer, Roscoed7, was not powerful enough for me to use to produce my video, Crimes, Lies, And Mind Control.

The computer has a DSL connection to the Internet. I now do most of my Internet access from it. I also do most of my work on Project Media Matrix on it.

I purchased it on 2004/03/12. After working okay for a day, weird problems began to appear on it.

Roscoe08

This is one of the Computers That I Used at home, at work, and on the road, until it died 6 months after I got it.

It is a Dell Latitude laptop computer. It has a 650 MHz Pentium III. But I couldn't get to run faster than 500. It has 512 MB RAM, 10 GB disk, a PCMCIA slot usually with a network card installed, and ran Windows XP Professional.

I got it to have to use when I was at meetings, visiting my parents, and during quiet times when I work as a security guard.

I purchased it on 2005/04/02 at a computer show for $329. Except for a damaged USB female connector, it seemed to work okay. But soon many important shift keys began to fail on the keyboard, and I was getting numerous false mouse clicks. Also the PCMCIA network card failed.

On 2005/10/02 its 6 month warrantee expired. 3 days later, on 2005/10/05, the computer died.

My Parents' Computer

This is one of the Computers That I Use when visiting my parents. It is a 1.4 GHz desktop running Windows XP Home edition. It has a modem for dial-up access to the Internet, but it is rarely used for that. Most of its time is spent by my mother using it to play FreeCell.

CTM Black Computer

This is the first of the Computers That I Used at Chelmsford TeleMedia.

I used it for learning and using Adobe Premiere for digital video editing of a video that I was producing. But it was having various Computer Problems. The staff eventually moved my work to the CTM White Computer.

CTM White Computer

This is the second of the Computers That I Used at Chelmsford TeleMedia.

It has an Intel Pentium 4 1.70 GHz processor, 512M of RAM, and runs WindowsXP Professional, version 2002, Service pack 1. It has an Internet connection.

I began using it when my work was moved to it from the problematic CTM Black Computer. But the CTM White Computer began having different problems and my work was eventually moved to the CTM Dell Computer.

CTM Dell Computer

This is the third of the Computers That I Used at Chelmsford TeleMedia.

It is a Dell WORKSTATION PWS560, with a 2.79 GHz dual processor, 1 GB RAM, 2 111 GB hard disks, large dual video monitors, and a DVD+RW drive. It runs WindowsXP Professional, version 2002, Service pack 1. It has an Internet connection.

I began using it when my work was moved to it from the problematic CTM White Computer But the CTM Dell Computer began having new different problems.

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Document Highlighting Problems

This Computer Problem makes editing documents difficult. Windows programs that you might use for document editing include:

Most Windows document editors have a feature called "highlighting". If you drag your mouse or press the keyboard arrow keys while the (Shift) key is held down, the text is highlighted as the cursor passes it. Usually highlighting appears as a change in the color of the text or its background. In Microsoft Windows XP it is normally white characters on a blue background.

After text is highlighted, you can do something with it, such as copying it to the Windows clipboard, deleting it, or changing its typeface. But whatever you do, it happens only to the text in the area that is highlighted, not to the text outside that area.

Here are some highlighting problems that I have experienced:

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Dial-up Connection Problems

Many people use dial-up telephone connections to access the Internet, including me when I am not home where I use a DSL connection.

Here I describe the Computer Problems that I have had with dial-up connections. I've had these problems with Microsoft Windows Dial-up networking on the following computers:

Here are the dial-up connection problems that I have had. Most of them happened repeatly. In some cases the problems disappeared as mysteriously as they appeared. But most were never solved permanently.

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Search Engine Problems [2006/02/12 added]

Because search engines are so useful for finding information, sabotaging search engines can be a very useful Computer Problem to create by those who want to hide information.

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Windows Message Interference

Many of the Software Computer Problems that I have witnessed are consistent with interference with the processing of Windows messages.

Windows Messages are communication packets that programs and modules of the Windows operating system pass among themselves to get things done.

The Window operating system actually provides a function, called "SetWindowsHookEx" (Live Web Page: here) that can be used to monitor and modify Windows Messages. Used properly, it allows Windows programs to work together with other programs to help a user do complex tasks. Used improperly, it can allow one program, for example a hidden Psychotronic Server, to distrupt other programs, and make using a computer difficult and unpleasant.

Note, I write of "Windows Messages" here because I am a user of mainly Windows software. But computers running other operating systems can be sabotaged in other ways, for example, by intercepting calls to subroutines and interrupt service routines.

Windows Messages

Windows messages are communication packets that programs and modules of the Windows operating system pass among themselves to get things done.

Windows messages are used:

Many of the Software Computer Problems that I have documented are consistent with a Psychotronic Server doing Windows Message Interference with the following Windows Messages. 

Message               Value    Meaning
-------------------   -----    -------------------------------------------
Keyboard messages:
  WM_KEYDOWN        = 0100h  ; User pressed a keyboard key.
  WM_KEYUP          = 0101h  ; User released a keyboard key.

Mouse messages:
  WM_MOUSEMOVE      = 0200h  ; User moved the mouse.
  WM_LBUTTONDOWN    = 0201h  ; User pressed left mouse button.
  WM_LBUTTONUP      = 0202h  ; User released left mouse button.

Display messages:
  WM_PAINT          = 000Fh  ; Draw [client area of] an object on screen.
  WM_SETCURSOR      = 0020h  ; Set shape of mouse cursor.
Note, Windows Messages such as those above are passed with:

Windows Message Discarding

Sometimes my computers do not do what I ask them. I need to ask them again. For example I might click my mouse on something, and nothing happens. I need to click again.

Sometimes sections of my program windows are blank or missing. For example, sometimes when I start my Web browser, panels or buttons are blank white.

These behaviors are consistent with the WM_LBUTTONDOWN mouse message, or the WM_PAINT display message, being discarded or changed to a different message that does nothing.

Windows Message Delaying

Sometimes my computers do what I ask them, but not when I ask them.

For example, I have Mouse Problems such as jerky mouse cursor movement, scrolling delays, Program Pausing, and other slow response.

These problems are consistent with Windows messages being delayed somehow.

Windows Message Duplicating

Sometimes my computers do what I ask them, but more than I ask.

For exammple, sometimes I click on a scroll bar to scroll a document, but the document scrolls twice as far as it should, as if I clicked twice.

This behavior is consistent with a mouse click message being duplicated.

Windows Message Creating

Sometimes programs in my computer do things that I did not ask them to do.

For example, sometimes my Web browser unnecessarilly reloads or redisplays a page. Sometimes it does it many times.

This behavior is consistent the creation of whatever messages are used by the browser to display or reload pages.

Windows Message Changing

Sometimes programs in my computer do things that I asked them to do, but not exactly the way I wanted.

This behavior is consistent with messages being changed before they reach their destination. For example, I suspect that my problems with Mouse Rate Changes are created this way.

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Program Installation Problems

The following is a true story about problems that I had doing program installation and setup. I eventually concluded that the problems were caused by maliciously Changed File Time Stamps on some disk files. These changes caused the software setup problems.

In 2003 April, I decided to run Windows 95 Setup on my Roscoed7 computer to fix a malfunction of the Help system. I had some problems, but eventually succeeded, and the Help system worked again.

But other software had stopped working. This is not supposed to happen. Software for the Windows operating system shares Dynamic Link Library (DLL) files. Usually when a software package is installed, if there is an older version of a file already installed, then it is automaticly replaced with the newer version, supposedly with more capabilities or fewer bugs.

If there is a newer version of a file already installed, then Setup displays this message: 

  Version Conflict

    A file being copied is older than the file currently on your
    computer.  It is recommended that you keep your existing file.

      File name: ...
      Description: ...
      Your version: ...

    Do you want to keep this file?

      Yes    No    No-to-All
The "..." represents information about the particular file with the problem.

I answered "Yes" in all cases, to keep the new better file. So, though some Windows functions that did not work might continue to not work, nothing that was working should have stopped working.

But, as I said, things did stop working, for example, my DSL Internet service. I tried reinstalling the software packages that had stopped working, but could not get many of them to work. And during those reinstalls, I got more Version Conflict messages that made no sense.

So I decided to investigate which DLL files came from which package, and which files were the correct ones. I formatted the hard disk on Roscoe00, a spare computer, and installed Windows 95 on it from the same CD-ROM from which I installed Windows 95 to Roscoed7.

After examining the time stamps on the installed files, I concluded that something was maliciously changing them, and this was causing installation and setup software to install the wrong files.

I document these Changed File Time Stamps in more detail in another section.

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File Deletion

This is about a Computer Problem in which my Roscoe07 computer kept deleting a file that I did not want deleted.

I was trying to save an article (Live Web Page: here, Cached Web Page: here) about Jon Stewart's Interview Of John Kerry. When I first tried to save it, under the name "stewart", the save never completed. I tried to save it again under the name "stewart1", and this worked. At this point, my save folder contained the following 3 items:

The folders contained images and other files that I did not want. So I highlighted them both and tried to delete them together. The computer asked me whether I was sure that I wanted to delete those 2 items, and I answered Yes. But the computer actually deleted the file stewart1.htm also.

I used the menu command Edit/Undo to restore the files, which had actually only been moved to the Windows XP Recycle Bin.

I tried deleting this way several times. The same thing happened each time.

Next I tried deleting one item at a time. I was able to delete one of the folders, stewart_files/, by itself. But when I tried to delete the other folder, stewart1_files/, it deleted stewart1.htm also.

Next I went to the Recycle Bin and tried to restore only the file stewart1.htm. This worked. Finally I had what I wanted, but it had been a lot of work.

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File Substitution

File Substitution is a Computer Problem in which a file or its contents seem to have been replaced, probably for no apparent reason, and probably without your permission. Depending the circumstances, this can cause hours or days of work to be lost.

This happened to me a lot. In some cases, a program behaved as if there was incorrect data in one of it's input files. Sometimes there really was incorrect data in the file when I examined it, but sometimes there wasn't.

There are many ways in which a file can be substituted. Here are several.

Here are some of the particular problems that happened to me.

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Real Text Replacement [2004/08/25 added]

This was the most blatant example of malicious File Substitution. The entire content of a large text was replaced with zeros.

On 2004/08/23 I went in to Chelmsford TeleMedia to do some work using their CTM Dell Computer. As usual I brought my external USB disk drive containing my notes and backup files. Before going home I copied all of my Chelmsford TeleMedia files to that external disk.

But when I arrived home, my notes file contained none of my notes. The file was the correct length (281KB), but it contained nothing but binary 0s (zeros) and was useless. I had been using the Windows XP Notepad program to edit the file. I had saved the file many times without difficulty.

Fortunely I had a backup copy of the data, so I lost only the notes that I had recorded that day.

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Virtual Text Insertion

Here I describe when data seemed to be inserted into text files, but it wasn't really. It happened several times in Web pages that I was editing, in both HTML pages and Wiki pages.

All of these problems except the one with the wiki page mysteriously disappeared later.

Here are details of one of the above incidents.

I was bold facing some text in an HTML Web page file in a <pre></pre> section. It was a listing of files in the section about Changed File Time Stamps.

At one point part of the source file appeared as 

  <b>COMMCTRL DLL       154,880  01-26-03 11:36a COMMCTRL.DLL
  LZEXPAND DLL        23,696  01-26-03 11:36a LZEXPAND.DLL
  MSPRINT  DLL        55,872  01-26-03 11:36a MSPRINT.DLL</b>
The output should have appeared as 
  COMMCTRL DLL       154,880  01-26-03 11:36a COMMCTRL.DLL
  LZEXPAND DLL        23,696  01-26-03 11:36a LZEXPAND.DLL
  MSPRINT  DLL        55,872  01-26-03 11:36a MSPRINT.DLL
But with my Netscape Navigator browser, my prefered browser, it appeared as 
  COMMCTRL DLL       154,880  01-26-03 11:36a COMMCTRL.DLL
  LZEXPAND DLL        23,696  01-26-03 11:36a LZEXPAND.DLL

  MSPRINT  DLL        55,872  01-26-03 11:36a MSPRINT.DLL
with an extra blank line between the second and third lines.

I looked for strange characters in the source file between the second and third lines, but found none.

I double checked by examining it in hexadecimal using the file browser LIST, Version 7.6a, by Vernon D. Buerg. I saw the following: 

  OFFSET  ------------------HEXADECIMAL------------------  -----ASCII------

  005F80  41 49 4E 54 2E 44 4C 4C 0D 0A 3C 62 3E 43 4F 4D  AINT.DLL~~<b>COM
  005F90  4D 43 54 52 4C 20 44 4C 4C 20 20 20 20 20 20 20  MCTRL DLL
  005FA0  31 35 34 2C 38 38 30 20 20 30 31 2D 32 36 2D 30  154,880  01-26-0
  005FB0  33 20 31 31 3A 33 36 61 20 43 4F 4D 4D 43 54 52  3 11:36a COMMCTR
  005FC0  4C 2E 44 4C 4C 0D 0A 4C 5A 45 58 50 41 4E 44 20  L.DLL~~LZEXPAND
  005FD0  44 4C 4C 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 32 33 2C 36 39  DLL        23,69
  005FE0  36 20 20 30 31 2D 32 36 2D 30 33 20 31 31 3A 33  6  01-26-03 11:3
  005FF0  36 61 20 4C 5A 45 58 50 41 4E 44 2E 44 4C 4C 0D  6a LZEXPAND.DLL~
  006000  0A 4D 53 50 52 49 4E 54 20 20 44 4C 4C 20 20 20  ~MSPRINT  DLL
  006010  20 20 20 20 20 35 35 2C 38 37 32 20 20 30 31 2D       55,872  01-
  006020  32 36 2D 30 33 20 31 31 3A 33 36 61 20 4D 53 50  26-03 11:36a MSP
  006030  52 49 4E 54 2E 44 4C 4C 3C 2F 62 3E 0D 0A 4D 53  RINT.DLL</b>~~MS

There were no characters that could have caused the extra blank line.

The rendered output from Internet Explorer 5.0 appeared correct also, as 

  COMMCTRL DLL       154,880  01-26-03 11:36a COMMCTRL.DLL
  LZEXPAND DLL        23,696  01-26-03 11:36a LZEXPAND.DLL
  MSPRINT  DLL        55,872  01-26-03 11:36a MSPRINT.DLL
Judging from this evidence alone, one might conclude that this Netscape Navigator Problem was caused by a bug in Netscape Navigator itself. But this seemed very improbable to me as a software engineer. Rendering preformatted text in a <pre></pre> section is not something prone to intermitant insertion of newlines.

This problem disappeared after I stopped trying to fix it and began documenting it on my Web site. I suspect that it was caused by a Psychotronic Server inserting a blank line in the source file between lines 2 and 3, but only when Netscape Navigator was reading and rendering the page.

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Netscape Navigator Problems

Netscape Navigator, v4.06 mostly, was my Web Browser. of choice on my old Roscoed7 computer. But I had a lot of strange problems with it. At various times, it appeared to:

Strange problems such as these are usually associated with Microsoft software, not Netscape. But Microsoft Internet Explorer, including much older versions, seemed to work much better in these situations.

I do not believe that any of these problems were errors in Netscape Navigator. I believe that such errors are only a Cover for harassment, probably created with a Psychotronic Server.

Netscape Navigator had other Web Browser Problems that also happened in other browsers.

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Real Text Insertion

On 2004 Jan 26, while trying to put a copy of Eleanor White's Psychotronic Harassment Survey page on my Web site, I encountered a problem.

When I used the File/SaveAs command in my Web Browser to save the page to my hard disk, the survey form at the end of the resulting file was double spaced. This incorrect file can be viewed by clicking here.

The problem happened when I saved the page to disk. Every line in the resulting file had an extra carriage-return character [cr] at the end. Windows text files are supposed to end in "[cr][lf]". The [lf] represents a line-feed character. But every line saved by my browser ended in "[cr][cr][lf]".

Eleanor told me in e-mail that she had had this problem also, but that the file on her Web site had been fixed, and did not have the extra [cr]s. In fact, the page viewed directly from her Internet site looked fine to me.

I found another copy of the page in the browser's cache folder. It did not have the extra [cr]s, so I used it on my Web site. This file can be viewed by clicking here.

There are 2 theories to explain these events.

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Text Deletion

On 2003 Jun 16 I was editing this Web site on My Parents' Computer. I was changing the name of a section. I used the Windows XP Search command to search for all files containing the HTML anchor label name "d480d" that was associated with the section. 2 files were found.

But I knew of at least a third file that contained it. I used Notepad.exe to verify that it contained the label. I made certain that the file had been saved. But the Windows Search did not find it.

As an experiment I did a Windows Search for a different string, the word "Viewing", that was in the same file. This time the file was found.

This indicates to me that a Psychotronic Server removed that particular string, "d480d", from the file as was read by the Windows Search function.

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Output Interception

A Psychotronic Servers can intercept output from programs, and change it, or throw it away.

This appears to have happened with a simple utility program that I wrote, called HTMLM, to find errors in my Web site.

On 2002 Apr 15 I was debugging the program. It seemed to be working well on part of my Web site. When I entered this command: 

  htmlm pmm.htm >\tmp\htmlm.err
HTMLM read the files that could be reached starting with the file pmm.htm. The ">\tmp\htmlm.err" redirects the program's output to a disk file instead of the display, so I could examine it with a text editor,

But when I entered this command: 

  htmlm 02readme.htm >\tmp\htmlm.err
to check a different and larger part of my site, the program produced no output. The file htmlm.err was empty. It was written, but was 0 bytes in length.

Every time I tried to check my Web site starting with the file 02readme.htm, the output file was empty.

If I put a link from one of the files being read to the file 02readme.htm, then it was processed correctly and the output was as expected. But if 02readme.htm was the first file read, then there was no output.

I spent much time trying to find a bug in the program causing this problem, but I found none. The problem disappeared several weeks later, all by itself, as mysteriously as it had appeared.

I concluded that a Psychotronic Server had been used to intercept and discard the program output, but only when I tried to process this particular input file, 02readme.htm, first.

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Editor Buffer Replacement

This is a type of File Substitution apparently done by changing file data while it is inside a running program,

It happened to me several times, usually when I was using a text editor program. The damage happened to text files where I keep many of my work notes. It appeared that the contents of my text editor program buffer was replaced with the contents of an older version of the associated text file.

Sometimes I noticed the changed data before I saved it to disk. In that case I lost only a few minutes of work. But sometimes I did not notice the problem until after saving my work to disk, wiping out newer data with older data. Each time I lost between several minutes and several days of work.

I lost data in this way many times. Here are some of the earlier ones.

These events were noteworthy because for the first time I had evidence that the internals of an application program could be manipulated while it is running. Until that time all the Computer Problems that I had witnessed could be caused by hooking into the Windows operating system interfaces, to do things such as

But the new events seemed to indicate that a malicious agent could hook into application program subroutines and data structures and change anything that the application program could change.

I believe that these instances of File Substitution were sabotage. The following are details of some of these events.

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HTMLM

This is a simple utility program that I wrote to find errors in my Web site. I use many local links to other parts of my Web site, and I wrote the program to search for and report any undefined local links. It does not find broken links to other Web sites.

It displays the following if you do not supply an input file. 

  HTMLM v0.02, a program to crawl a Web site on the local computer
  and report broken local hyperlinks, of the form:
    <a href= "#label" or "file.htm#label" or "path/.../file.htm#label">.

  Usage: HTMLM root_HTML_file

  Limitations:
    MS-DOS 8.3 format file names only (no long names).
    Local links use relative paths only (no root directories).

If you supply the root_HTML_file, then HTMLM reads it and follows links in that file to other files in the Web site. If any links lead to different files then it does the same for those files. It repeats this until all referenced files have been read. Finally it outputs a list of all the files and anchor labels that it could not find.

HTMLM, both the executable binary and source files, are available free for downloading here.

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Damage To The Windows 95 Startup Disk

A Psychotronic Server apparently caused damage to my Windows 95 startup disk.

A startup floppy disk is what you use to start your computer if you can not start from your hard disk.

You can add files to a startup disk, depending on your particular needs. But the startup floppy disk that Windows 95 creates is supposed to always contain the same 15 files.

But when Windows 95 created a startup disk for me, it has 2 extra files on it. One of them caused the disk to malfunction.

3 of the normal 15 files are hidden, but I listed them with the MS-DOS Prompt command: 

  dir /a:h
Here is the resulting list of the hidden files on the startup disk that Windows 95 created for me. They appear to be correct, except maybe for some Changed File Time Stamps. 
   Volume in drive A has no label
   Volume Serial Number is 2E9D-B8A1
   Directory of A:\

  IO       SYS       223,148  07-11-95  9:50a IO.SYS
  MSDOS    SYS             9  04-29-03 11:05p MSDOS.SYS
  EBD      SYS             0  04-29-03 11:05p EBD.SYS
           3 file(s)        223,157 bytes
           0 dir(s)         472,064 bytes free
The remaining 12 of the normal files are not hidden, and can be viewed with the simpler MS-DOS Prompt command: 
  dir
Here is the resulting list of the non hidden files on the startup disk that Windows 95 created for me. Notice that it includes 2 extra files, that I have shown in bold. 
   Volume in drive A has no label
   Volume Serial Number is 2E9D-B8A1
   Directory of A:\

  DRVSPACE BIN        71,287  07-11-95  9:50a DRVSPACE.BIN
  COMMAND  COM        92,870  07-11-95  9:50a COMMAND.COM
  FORMAT   COM        40,135  12-31-95  9:50a FORMAT.COM
  SYS      COM        13,239  07-11-95  9:50a SYS.COM
  FDISK    EXE        59,128  07-11-95  9:50a FDISK.EXE
  ATTRIB   EXE        15,252  07-11-95  9:50a ATTRIB.EXE
  EDIT     COM        69,886  07-11-95  9:50a EDIT.COM
  REGEDIT  EXE       120,320  07-11-95  9:50a REGEDIT.EXE
  SCANDISK EXE       134,738  12-31-95  9:50a SCANDISK.EXE
  SCANDISK INI         7,270  07-11-95  9:50a SCANDISK.INI
  DEBUG    EXE        20,522  07-11-95  9:50a DEBUG.EXE
  CHKDSK   EXE        27,248  07-11-95  9:50a CHKDSK.EXE
  UNINSTAL EXE        76,496  07-11-95  9:50a UNINSTAL.EXE
  CONFIG   SYS            20  04-29-03 11:05p CONFIG.SYS
          14 file(s)        748,411 bytes
           0 dir(s)         472,064 bytes free
The 2 files that should not be there are:

After I deleted the CONFIG.SYS, the startup disk seemed to work okay.

I suspect that a Psychotronic Server added these files.

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Keyboard Problems

I have experienced various problems with my computer keyboards. Most of them were on Roscoed7, but a few were on Roscoed9.

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Mouse Problems

A computer's mouse is supposed to act as an extension of your hand. The movement of the mouse cursor on the video display is supposed to match the movement of the mouse in your hand. And when you press the mouse button, the computer is supposed to activate the object on the display behind the mouse cursor.

Once in a while my mouse behaves this way, perfectly. But most of the time it does not. Ahead I describe mouse problems that I have, some of which I am having now as I write this.

Almost all of these problems are consistent with a Psychotronic Server doing Windows Message Interference with mouse event messages.

I have witnessed mouse problems on the following computers, most of the Computers That I Use.

Mouse Problems can make the mouse cursor difficult to control, make clicking unreliable, and make using a mouse an unpleasant experience. The following are the problems I witnessed.

Jerky Mouse Cursor

Often the mouse cursor movement is jerky.

The cursor follows the mouse movement. It eventually gets to the correct place. But it gets there by jumping, after short random delays, from one spot to the next, instead of smoothly following the mouse's movement. This makes positioning the cursor difficult.

This behavior is consistent with Windows Message Delaying of mouse messages.

Blinky Mouse Cursor

My mouse cursor usually blinks or flashes on the display as I move the mouse.

It acts as if the computer is overloaded and can not update the display fast enough. But the computer is not overloaded, because the System Monitor shows that Kernel Processor Usage is very low, well under 20%, during this behavior.

This is consistent with Windows Message Discarding of some mouse cursor paint messages.

Mouse Lock Up

Sometimes my mouse locks up. It stops working completely. The cursor will not move.

Usually it is temporary, lasting a few seconds. But sometimes it lasts much longer. Sometimes it appears to be associated with another event.

Once it happened for the duration of the creation of a Windows 95 Startup Disk.

This behavior is consistent with Windows Message Discarding of mouse messages for the duration of the lock up.

Incorrect Mouse Cursor Shape

The shape of my mouse cursor is often incorrect.

It stays incorrect until I move it to a different Window area.

The mouse cursor is supposed to have different shapes over different parts of a window. For example, it is supposed to appear as:

But often the cursor does not change to the correct shape. This behavior is consistent with Windows Message Discarding of the Windows WM_SETCURSOR message.

Mouse Cursor Creep

Sometimes the mouse cursor creeps slowly across the screen by itself.

The mouse cursor moves a short distance and stops, and repeats this at irregular intervals. The creep is usually exactly vertical, or exactly horizontal. I usually notice this when I am using programs that I can operate well with only the keyboard.

The creeping movement has happened when the mouse was sitting alone on a small free standing table, on the floor of my basement apartment. So it could not have been caused by vibration.

This behavior is consistent with Windows Message Creating of fake mouse movement messages.

Mouse Scrolling Problems

I experience various Scrolling Problems when I use my mouse with scroll bars.

Mouse Jamming

Sometimes the mouse appears to jam.

It appears to jam either horizontally or vertically. Also, usually it is a one way jam. I can move the mouse cursor down but not up, or right but not left.

This has happened with only mechanical mice:

It acts as if the ball inside the mouse is slipping against one of the measuring rollers in one direction. But this might be only a Cover, because when I open the mouse, remove the ball, and examine the insides, I find no foreign material there, and the ball and the rollers are clean and move freely. This has happened with and without mouse pads.

This behavior is consistent with Windows Message Discarding of particular mouse movement messages.

Mouse Button Bounce

Sometimes it appears that I clicked the mouse button twice, but I clicked it only once. It appears that the button bounced.

When it bounces on a scroll bar it can cause me to miss an entire page of a document. When it bounces on my e-mail software's Next button it can cause me to miss an entire message.

This behavior is consistent with Windows Message Duplicating of mouse button messages.

Mouse Rate Changes

Sometimes it appears that the ratio, of the distance moved by the mouse cursor to the distance moved by the mouse, changes. The cursor seems to move in the correct direction, but by unexpected amounts. It makes positioning the mouse cursor difficult.

Other Mouse Problems

I have other problems with computer mice, but they might not be real Computer Problems.

These difficulties can be created with Clumsiness With Psychotronics or Weakness With Psychotronics.

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Scrolling Problems

Often a document, such as a Web page, e-mail message, or picture, is taller or wider than the window in which it is displayed. When this happens, for a user to see the entire document, the document musted by "scrolled", moved within it's window.

Scrolling can be done with the keyboard, or with the mouse and a scroll bar.

Most documents are scrolled up and down. This can be done with the up and down arrow keys, the PageUp and PageDown keys, or with the mouse on a vertical scroll bar. There is probably a vertical scroll bar on the right side of the window that you are viewing now. >----->

Some documents are also scrolled left and right. This can be done with the left and right arrow keys, or with the mouse on a horizontal scroll bar, which is usually along the bottom of the window.

A Scrolling Problem is a Computer Problem involving scrolling Here are some of the Scrolling Problems that I have experienced.

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Program Pausing

Here I describe some of the ways that your computer can stop working temporarilly. It happens to me almost every day.

Some of the pauses last for only a split second. Some of the pauses last for many minutes. They seem to be designed to waste your time, and cause errors.

When a program that I am using pauses, there is often another program doing something in the background. But Windows supports multitasking. Well behaved programs do not block other programs, especially the one with focus and running in the forground. Also, the pausing is not consistent.

So this correlation of pausing behavior with background activity is probably an intentional part of a Cover, to make us think that one program is causing another to malfunction.

Here are some examples of pausing that I have experienced.

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Web Browser Problems

The Web Browser is one of the most popular types of Internet programs in use. If it doesn't work well, then a user's Web Surfing experience will be inefficient and unpleasant.

I have experienced the following Computer Problems while using my Web Browsers. Most of these have happened with both Microsoft and Netscape browsers.

For more information, see:

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