[jandrese]

I remember this joke going way back to the DOS days. The story goes that a developer was demoing his new voice control system for the computer when from the back of the room a voice shouted "FORMAT C COLON", followed by another voice shouting "YES".

[dalke]

There's an SNL skit from the 1970s with a (vaguely) similar premise. The short-order cook takes the order when the waitstaff yells out "cheeseburger". A patron doesn't want a cheeseburger as it's too early. The waitstaff says that it's not too early and everyone else has ordered a cheeseburger, and points to the other patrons exclaiming for each "cheeseburger". Which causes the cook to start making a large number of cheeseburgers.

Here's the skit: https://youtu.be/puJePACBoIo?t=215 .

These are all jokes based on in-band signalling failures.

[zyxley]

It's a joke in one of the old Dilbert strips, too. "I hope you don't accidentally DELETE a FILE!"