User swore their screen was blank, until admitting it wasn't

""My job was architecting and writing programs that automated the network, connecting the bank's mainframe to terminals," Charles told On Call. He was very good at that job and built a reputation as a go-to resource for anything to do with the bank's networks. Which is why one day the bank's help desk called and asked for Charles because a user claimed to have a problem that had utterly confounded both first and second level support."

"Charles called the user, who sounded quite upset because he was trying to edit a file but the screen of his terminal was blank. "I asked him the ID number of his terminal and looked at what the network had to say about it," Charles told On Call. He learned that the terminal was running just fine, and that every piece of the network between the mainframe and the user was online and in good order. Charles could even see the user's editor session"

""That was strange because in those days the terminals had a status line at the bottom showing the machine ID, whether they are connected, what the cursor position is and other information," Charles told On Call. "This status line was always there. Always. The user said the screen was black. I checked again and again. We went through this for nearly half an hour. Nothing ever changed. I said everything looked fine and the user said the screen was pitch black.""

Charles worked at a very large German bank as an architect and developer of programs that automated the network connecting the mainframe to terminals. He became a go-to resource for network issues. A help desk escalated a case where a user could not edit a file because the terminal screen was entirely black. Network diagnostics showed the terminal running and every link between the mainframe and the user online; an editor session was visible on the host. The terminals normally displayed a persistent status line with machine ID, connection state, cursor position and other information. Support and the user exchanged conflicting reports for nearly half an hour.

Read at Theregister