That sure is enough to make any support staff sweat!
Good find!
> -----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
> Van: olympus-owner@xxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:olympus-owner@xxxxxxxxxx] Namens Chuck Norcutt
> Verzonden: woensdag 5 november 2008 19:51
> Aan: olympus@xxxxxxxxxx
> Onderwerp: [OM] Re: Nathan's PAD 26/10/2008: my kingdom
>
>
> Reminds me of a baffling case I had about 1980. Back then I was the
> software support manager for a large scale mainframe
> timesharing complex
> with three CPUs occupying a 12,000 square foot machine room
> chock full
> of disks, printers, tapes and other equipment. One day one
> of the CPUs
> just froze up and required a reboot... something you just aren't
> supposed to do with main frames and especially a time sharing complex
> with many hundreds of terminals attached. It tends to tick off the
> users. But damned if it didn't happen again in a day or two.
> And then,
> over the next couple of weeks, it happened several more times. Not
> every day but enough to be very disconcerting. But it
> finally happened
> enough that we were able to notice that it always happened
> between 5:30
> and 6:00.
>
> To make a long story short we finally figured out that the
> failure was
> tied to the incremental backup cycle which normally began at
> about 6:00.
> The tape operator would wheel a shopping basket sized cart
> of magnetic
> tapes past that CPU every night as he began to prepare for the 6:00
> backup. If he happened to come close enough to the CPU a
> giant static
> spark would leap from the front of the cart (out of his view) to the
> cover and frame of the afflicted CPU. Not a good thing but
> normally not
> harmful if the CPU was properly grounded. But it wasn't grounded and
> the big static spark would kill it instantly. As it turned
> out the CPU
> had been serviced recently and the servicing engineer had
> forgotten to
> reattach the frame ground strap after removing it during the
> servicing.
>
> Sometimes it takes some good luck as well as good detective work to
> ferret out the source of a problem.
>
> Chuck Norcutt
>
>
>
> Ken Norton wrote:
> > >At least until the cat decides to go and sit on the
> >> keyboard. The laptop gets very unstable by then ;-)
> >
> >
> >
> > Years ago, I worked software technical support. These were the days
> > before the x386 processor and most PCs were less than
> stable in a high
> > RF or static environment. We provided scheduling/billing software
> > systems to radio stations.
> >
> > One day, I got a phone call and was told that the computer
> just went
> > nuts and there was gibberish typed on the screen. Another day she
> > called and the printer started printing reports all on its
> own. Later
> > on, she calls back and the computer has more gibberish typed on the
> > screen. On it goes for three weeks.
> >
> > This was, of course, a classic example of RF Interference wrecking
> > havoc with the computer. I had seen this happen dozens of
> times and
> > the symptoms were nearly identical. Within the industry,
> we just call
> > it "RF".
> >
> > We tried everything to recreate the problem, to no avail.
> I had the
> > station engineer do various things, had him check grounding and
> > shielding, etc. We even took the station off the air! (He
> insisted
> > that they didn't actually broadcast from that location, but
> from five
> > miles away--which was technically correct, but a TV station did
> > broadcast from a tower not 600 feet away).
> >
> > I was absolutely insistant that it was RF Interference, and
> the chief
> > Engineer was equally insistant that it wasn't.
> >
> > This went every day, at various times of day, for almost
> three weeks.
> >
> > Then one day I get the call. "Ken, you are absolutely correct. It
> > was RF. RF the cat!" The radio station had this stray cat that the
> > DJs had fed and it never left. It became the station cat.
> They named
> > it "RF".
> >
> > Well, it was wintertime in Michigan and the cat sought out
> a warm spot
> > to sleep. The perfect location was on top of the computer
> monitor.
> > It was actually quite hilarious as the cat would get statically
> > charged and the hair would poof out like a sea urchin. (I saw this
> > happen with a Himalayan one time and that cat became the size of a
> > rather large dog!)
> >
> > The lady running the computer had a horseshoe shaped desk where her
> > computer was on one side, the typewriter and telephone were on the
> > other. The telephone would ring, she'd turn around and
> answer it. It
> > would be an agency phoning in an order, so she'd load up the order
> > form in the typewriter and work away. A minute later, the computer
> > behind her started beeping, printing or doing something
> else. RF the
> > cat would wake up, stretch, jump down off the monitor ONTO THE
> > KEYBOARD and then onto the floor, exiting the room before she was
> > aware of what had happened.
> >
> > It is amazing how you can be 100%, yet 100% wrong.
> >
> > AG
> >
> >
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