The following has been doing the rounds on the Net, but usually without any attribution.
The haiku were originally the results of a contest run by Salon.com; the details are here , including the names of the authors of all the individual haiku. Not long after they first came out, in February 1998, email versions started circulating. At first they were just unattributed lists of the haiku, but after a while people started embellishing them with the UL that Sony had created these for their Vaio operating system.
[My thanks to Chris Wesling for providing this attribution information]
Sony has announced its own computer operating system now available on its Vaio PC. Instead of producing the cryptic error messages characteristic of Microsoft's Windows and DOS systems, Sony's chairman Asai Tawara said, "We intend to capture the high ground by putting a human, Japanese face on what has been, until now, an operating system that reflects Western cultural hegemony. For example, we have replaced the impersonal and unhelpful Microsoft error messages with our own Japanese haiku poetry." The chairman went on to give examples of Sony's new error messages:
A file that big? . . . It might be very useful . . . But now it is gone.
You seek a Web site . . . It cannot be located . . . Countless more exist.
Chaos reigns within . . . Stop, reflect, and reboot . . . Order shall return.
Aborted effort . . . Close all that you have worked on . . . You ask way too much.
Yesterday it worked . . . Today it is not working . . . Windows is like that.
First snow, then silence . . . This thousand dollar screen dies . . . So beautifully.
With searching comes loss . . . The presence of absence . . . "JuneSales.doc" not found.
The Tao that is seen . . . Is not the true Tao . . . Until you bring fresh toner.
Windows NT crashed . . . The Blue Screen of Death . . . No one hears your screams.
Stay the patient course . . . Of little worth is your ire . . . The network is down.
A crash reduces . . . Your expensive computer . . . To a simple stone.
Three things are certain . . . Death, taxes, and lost data . . . Guess which has occurred.
You step in the stream . . . But the water has moved on . . . Page not found.
Out of memory . . . We wish to hold the whole sky, . . . But we never will.
Having been erased, . . . The documents you are seeking . . . Must now be retyped.
Serious error . . . All shortcuts have disappeared . . . Screen. Mind. Both are blank.
The computer haiku messages are just as informative as Microsoft's and they make you pause just long enough that you're able to fight the impulse to put a fist through the screen.
And I found some more in the same vein at http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~eleanorb/funnies/computer.text
Everything is gone . . . Your life's work has been destroyed . . . Squeeze trigger (yes/no)?
Seeing my great fault . . . Through darkening blue windows . . . I begin again.
The code was willing . . . It considered your request . . . But the chips were weak.
Printer not ready . . . Could be a fatal error . . . Have a pen handy?
Errors have occurred . . . We won't tell you where or why . . . Lazy programmers.
Server's poor response . . . Not quick enough for browser . . . Timed out, plum blossom.
Login incorrect . . . Only perfect spellers may . . . enter this system.
This site has been moved . . . We'd tell you where, but then we'd . . . have to delete you.
wind catches lily . . . scatt'ring petals to the wind: . . . segmentation fault
There is a chasm . . . of carbon and silicon . . . the software can't bridge
To have no errors . . . Would be life without meaning . . . No struggle, no joy
No keyboard present . . . Hit F1 to continue . . . Zen engineering?
The ten thousand things . . . How long do any persist? . . . Netscape, too, has gone.
Rather than a beep . . . Or a rude error message, . . . These words: "File not found."