Our computer science room was full of Commodore Pet computers. Well, I say full. It had three. But it wasn't a very bit room.
A playground urban legend amongst had it that there was a command you could type that was shrouded in mystery, and fashioned by the devil himself. When executed, this command would destroy the computer. This command was called the death poke.
This command was POKE 59458,62.
To make our crime untraceable, Pete wrote a small program that waited for someone to press a key before exploding. The rules of he-who-touched-it-last would then apply. Then, Pete asked Mr Samuals why his computer wasn't working.
Mr Samuals stared at it for a while, then tentatively tapped at the keyboard. And the dread poke was activated. We all stood well back - actually I think we leaned back - to avoid the shards of glass.
The display was reduced to a single line. A mild inconvenience, but no-one was picking sizzling electronics out of their face.
A quick double-flick of the on/off switch later, and the eerie reign of the death poke had ended.