Greatest Error Messages:

Technologizer had an article on what are claimed to be the 13 greatest error messages of all time. Some of my favorites are missing from the list, of course. The web 404 error is claimed as the most important error, since its ubiquitousness accompanied the world-wide spread of the web itself. I would put this message as a close second:

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That's what the control terminal at Three Mile Island displayed when the software was overwhelmed by error messages of a melt-down. I imagine the terminal operator shouting, "Can you be more specific?"

Here are two other messages that Technologizer somehow missed:

"Cannot execute as a child of Basic." (A mainframe error message to a programmer. Reported by Steve Weintraub.)

"There is an error somewhere between the beginning and the end of your program." (a Fortran Compiler message. Most developers know that this particular error is ALWAYS true, it need not be stated.)