Date   : Fri, 26 Jun 2009 19:50:34 +0100
From   : mike@... (Mike Tomlinson)
Subject: Only one beep

In article <4A44F140.9050101@...>, Pete Turnbull
<pete@...> writes

>I have once had to deal with a piece of kit that had actually stopped 
>because of dust.  When I worked for a maintenance company

I was a field circus engineer for a while too.

>the case of this (silent, which was unusual) PDP-11

Wasn't DEC kit lovely (and I mean original DEC, before the HPaq
takeover)?  We ran our department on Alphas and Tru64 for many years.
It was so good to be able to integrate the first Linux boxes (Red Hat
4!) with very few issues.  The server was a Digital PWS 433au for yonks.

>I did suggest that 
>perhaps they shouldn't keep it flat on the floor under the reception desk.

heh, my story's similar, except it was an original IBM XT which had
spent thirteen years in a cubbyhole with no ventilation next to the
milling station it was controlling.  It was milling wood, thankfully,
not metal.  Left on 24/7.  Failed after a power cut.

They had no backup of the MFM hard drive.  I had to get it red hot with
a hairdryer before it would boot, since it had been running so hot in
its normal daily life.  The PSU fan in the machine was seized and I
think it had been like that for years, and the machine was solid with
sawdust.

Managed to get the data off the disk too.

-- 
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(='.'=)  Bunny says Windows 7 is Vi$ta reloaded.
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