darkon
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 Posted: Tue Jun 24, 2008 1:05 pm Post subject: [alt.fan.cecil-adams] Re: Wifi rears its ugly aerial again |
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From: Bill Turlock <"Bill Turlock "@sonnnic.invalid>
Newsgroups: alt.fan.cecil-adams
Subject: Re: Wifi rears its ugly aerial again
Nick Spalding wrote:
| Quote: |
Neal Eckhardt wrote, in <5j94v3t8ru89ggssf5s55kmmnf64n7gsr5@4ax.com
on Tue, 01 Apr 2008 08:11:35 -0400:
On Mon, 31 Mar 2008 22:57:07 -0800, Bill Turlock <"Bill Turlock
"@sonnnic.invalid> wrote:
Ah. Mine was in'65-'66. We ran the computers on oil back then.
Well, at least the disk drives had oil in them.
The 1301 even did the head positioning arithmetic hydraulically. There's
a nice description of the access mechanism in:
http://www.research.ibm.com/journal/rd/083/ibmrd0803W.pdf
The 1311/2311/2314 just moved the head hydraulically.
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Time for another re-post of my favorite computer experience:
One night back in the mid 60s, the 7094 at USAF Global Weather
Center in the SAC Underground shat itself and stopped. The NCOIC
ran out into the main hall of the 3rd (top) floor (we weren't
_that_ important) of the U.G. to the wx map plotter room, where
the CE hung out. (We had 'em on-site 24/7 in those days).
He came in with a deck to run some diagnostics, and all the
operators went down the ramp to get a smoke ('cept me--I smoked
too, but I had been so thoroughly seduced by the whole
blinkenlites thing that I just had to stay to watch). Well, says
he, looks like we got a bad bit in the core.
I followed him back into the catacombs. He stopped at one of the
many identical beige cabinets, produced his key ring and opened
the door. Inside was a device which looked to me more like one of
those large black dome-topped refrigeration units you'd see in a
large commercial fridge than anything else. He explained to me
(correct me if my facts and/or memory fail me) that the 7094 came
in two flavors of memory-the air-cooled type and the oil-cooled
variety. This one was oil-cooled, and we were looking at the
vessel containing the core and the non-conductive circulating oil
required to keep it from overheating.
Even though we two were the only ones in the room, he looked
furtively over his shoulder, dug out his keys again and opened
the adjacent cabinet. He got out a piece of 2x4 lumber about 2
feet long.
He held it with one hand on an end, the other near the middle,
and placed the far end next to the large black dome. Then he drew
back a bit and gave the dome a smart smack with the end of the
2x4.
We went back to the console to run the diagnostics again and sure
enough, the bad bit had been cleared. It seems that sometimes a
tiny piece of dirt, an impurity in the oil, or a sliver of solder
would get lodged between the sense wires shorting them out, and
it had to be jarred loose so the filters could pick it up.
On the 2x4 someone had written in black magic marker, "CORE
WHOMPER".
This is no sh|t, I was there.
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