A pair of self-service weighing scales at a Tesco store in Coventry has been photographed displaying HTTP error codes instead of a working interface, delighting readers of The Register's long-running "Bork" series that documents malfunctioning public technology. One unit showed "404" (the web error for "not found"), while a second displayed "403" ("forbidden") alongside a request for a human to fix its label feed, prompting jokes about scales too dangerous for ordinary shoppers to use.

The devices appear to be from Avery Berkel's XT scale range, which run on Linux and feature large colour touchscreens capable of showing produce-selection menus and advertising to boost basket spend. Depending on the model, they carry either 2GB or 8GB of memory, a stark contrast to the simple mechanical scales they replaced, which needed no power or software to function. The find was spotted and submitted by a reader, continuing a tradition of readers hunting out real-world computer errors on public-facing screens and kiosks.