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From: dgh@Unify.com (David Harrington)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: expression "on the rag"
Message-ID: <1991Jan3.084723@Unify.com>
Date: 3 Jan 91 16:47:23 GMT
References: <807@npdiss1.StPaul.NCR.COM>
Sender: news@Unify.Com (news admin)
Reply-To: dgh@Unify.com (David Harrington)
Organization: Unify Corporation, Sacramento, CA, USA
Lines: 35

In article <807@npdiss1.StPaul.NCR.COM>, mercer@npdiss1.StPaul.NCR.COM (Dan
Mercer) writes:
> Path:
unify!csusac!ucdavis!ucbvax!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wua
archive!emory!hubcap!ncrcae!ncrlnk!ncrstp!npdiss1!mercer
> 
> Looked through the jargon file for my favorite expression "on the
> rag",  meaning the computer is having problems staying up.  Anyone
> else familiar with it?  First heard it in 1987 at RPI.  We had an IBM
                                            ^^^^

> 360/50 - then state of the art.  Averaged 50% downtime (real nightmare
  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 A strange "state" of "art" indeed, for 1987 :-)

> - 4000 students sharing 4 keypunches - systems personnel had 2 more,
> but frequently commandeered the students keypunches.  We also had
> these weird plastic doohickies where you turned a dial to get the
> right code and handpunched (usually very inaccurately) the codes.
> 
> Anyway,  whenever the system was down,  they hung a red flag on the
> flagpole outside the center (probably not the current center).
> Anybody have an earlier provenance?
> 
> 'Tute sucks.
> 

As to your question, uh, OTR has, well, *biological*, rather than *electronic*
origins.  Ask any woman.
 
--
David Harrington                                  internet: dgh@eire.unify.COM
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