Debugging Lotus 1-2-3 by fax

Summary

There isn't a lot to this story beyond the fact that in around 1990 I helped debug someone's Lotus 1-2-3 set up via fax. But it's a good reminder of how important the Zeroth Law of Debugging is (see below).Without some sort of online connection with these folks, and with transatlantic phone calls being very, very expensive (I was in the UK, they were in the US) fax was the obvious answer.I was reminded of this when I came across the actual fax itself:What I asked them to do was give me the output of /ppomr. Hitting / in 1-2-3 started the menu system and each letter took you down a submenu until you hit an actual menu item. /ppomr is /Print Printer Options Margins Right (read all about it in the Quick Reference) and so I was asking for the size of the right margin when printing. Here's what that looks like in action:And then I instructed the person on the other end to alter the left margin with /ppoml (/Print Printer Options Margins Left). I also told them if they wanted a change to the page headers I'd need to "send them a disc" (i.e. mail a floppy disc to the US!)If you are going to debug anything you need to tighten the loop between trying something and observing the output of your change. This should be the Zeroth Law of Debugging: get the smallest/fastest test case so you can iterate.Worst case send faxes across the Atlantic.