Which office drone misplaced the computer tape?

A great 1965 ad from Fortune asks the burning question: who is responsible for misplacing the data-tape?

the case of the disappearing data (Apr, 1965)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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Mark Dow

Nancy Havens, and she’s still got it. Anyone see Nancy lately?
Brainspore

Thank God they have a guy wearing black horn-rimmed glasses on the case.
xenphilos

Oh, man, I want a BoingBoing version with Cory on the bottom right and the rest of the gang in the squares.
- Phikus
  
  I thought that WAS Cory…
i_prefer_yeti

I’m betting it’s in the conservatory with Professor Plum.
http://twitter.com/PsychicWhoosh Michael W.

I am glad to see Truman Capote on the case.
- http://borborygmist.influxofdust.com/ Wayne Dyer
  
  I thought Stan Freberg.
  - davidsfp
    
    That is Stan Freberg.
    
    He probably wrote the ad copy too.
http://twitter.com/PsychicWhoosh Michael W.

Nancy Haven’s car can be found submerged in a swamp near the Bates Motel.
http://www.youtube.com/user/PipLagenta Pip_R_Lagenta

Forget the damn tape! Nancy Havens has disappeared! Let’s get our priorities straight.
invisiblemonkey

Phone book. How adorable.
planettom

The data tape was never found, but six months later, the Acme Visible systems analyst and Miss Smith were married!
http://profiles.google.com/bentobjects Terry Border

If Cory is the glasses dude, then Xeni is Nancy Havens.
- Donald Petersen
  
  Beschizza is Marilyn Smith.
PhosPhorious

I’m so glad that Tom Lehrer is on the case.
pjcamp

Let me guess — all of them have a banana up their bunghole.

Just look at it!
Antinous / Moderator

Marilyn Smith has that dog-who-peed-on-the-rug look on her face.
http://libraries.unl.edu dross1260

I thought we were relying on citations only?
Robert Cruickshank

Nancy got married and is now Nancy Davolio. I’m pretty sure she has it.
Guest

I’m going to go question Marilyn Smith some more.
http://echofox3.blogspot.com efergus3

Simple solution - have them ALL taken out and shot. The guilty get punished, and look at them. They’re all drones, easily replaced.
Philboyd Studge

These people look like Drew Friedman comics turned to flesh.
phisrow

“Your sad devotion to that ancient religion has not helped conjure up the stolen data tapes…Or give you Clairvoyance to find the rebel’s hidden fortress.”
Mister44

I dunno – I saw this guy whistling down the hall. I thought he was delivering the water. http://images.wikia.com/starwars/images/1/1a/R2d2.jpg
waetherman

Guy on the lower right is clearly Cory. From upper left to lower right; David Pescocitz, Xeni Jardin, Mark Frauenfelder, Sean Bonner, and Maggie Koerth-Baker…
InclinedPlane

I’m glad I’m not the only one to make this connection: http://i.imgur.com/OVpLS.jpg
- atimoshenko
  
  And here I thought only coyotes worked for Acme…
deliciouspineapples

They’re all useless.

He should kill them.

Kill all of them.
Paul Renault

1965 mainframe? My guess is that the guy who’s job it is to be a component of the computer (that is, shuttling tapes back and forth as per the computer’s requests) is the one who misplaced the tape.

/one of my bosses did this as a Summer job.
Guest

They all look like inmates from an asylum, dressed in the clothes they were wearing when they were involuntarily committed. It could have been any of them.
Lobster

Acme will make sure you never misplace your tapes again… by fastening them to anvils. If you ever need to move your tape they sell an array of small but powerful rockets.
http://maggiekb.com/ Maggie Koerth-Baker

I’m now feeling like we need to pose this up. I call Jo Ann Taylor, though. Rob gets to wear the Marylin wig.
parfae

Forget the data tape, why are those first two people morphing into rodents?
benher

Horace Cotton is in the throes of… something. Apparently he found a different tape?
Their feldspars

A guy once said to me, “I know I had some invisible tape here, but now I don’t see it anywhere.”