In the mid to late 1950's, I was a computer technician on fighter plane weapons systems when the computers were still analog, before digital.
The computer itself was a black box about 24x24x6, and contained maybe a dozen small servo motors that interacted with each other.
The servo motors received inputs such as true air speed, relative air density, muzzle velocity of the guns, and boiled it all down into inputs in the airplane's gun sight so the image the pilot saw in his gun sight was not the actual enemy airplane, it was a representation of where the enemy plane would be when the armament hit it.
When a servo failed and needed to be replaced, there was a lengthy alignment process to make sure all the servos were happy with each other.
That brought up an interesting situation. I was probably a Corporal at the time, and one Friday morning I'd just begun the alignment on a computer when the squadron commanding officer, a Lieutenant Colonel, came through on his Friday morning inspection tour. He stopped at my bench and seemed interested in what I was doing, so I explained the system to him. I never did figure out whether he was genuinely interested or checking to see if I knew what I was doing. Anyway, we chatted for maybe 20 minutes and he went on his way. While that was going on, I noticed my OIC, a Captain, was standing to the side giving me funny looks.
After the Colonel left, the Captain came over and asked me if I realized that was my commanding officer. I mean, I'd been in the squadron a year, why wouldn't I know that was my CO?. He asked questions and I answered them. It was that simple. I don't know why it bugged the Captain.
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