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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxn!ihnp4!stolaf!mmm!mrgofor
From: mrgofor@mmm.UUCP (MKR)
Newsgroups: net.rumor
Subject: Re: Computer Horror Stories
Message-ID: <476@mmm.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 7-Feb-86 13:44:46 EST
Article-I.D.: mmm.476
Posted: Fri Feb  7 13:44:46 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 9-Feb-86 08:03:12 EST
References: <14700001@hplabsb.UUCP>
Reply-To: mrgofor@mmm.UUCP (MKR)
Organization: 3M Company, St. Paul, Minn.
Lines: 33
Summary: 

In article <14700001@hplabsb.UUCP> follmer@hplabsb.UUCP writes:
>
>I was wondering if anyone out there has some horror stories about the
>computer industry; crashed systems or lost backups.  For example, I heard
>a story once about a guy who lost a month's worth of code due to some 
>backup problem.  This was about 6 in the morning, and apparantly, the
>guy caught the next plane to Nepal and joined a monastery.  This is the
>best it could be pieced together since he hasn't been heard from since.
>He just drove to SFO international, put the ticket on his Master Card,
>and disappeared.  Case closed.  The guy was pretty upset, but on his way
>out the door, according to the guard, had a wild grin of calm and happiness,
>as though he'd won the last round with the machine through some Deux
>ex machina.
>
>Have you heard any similar stories?

At a customer site several years ago (before customers knew about backups)
I watched a colleague reverse the order of source and destination devices
and back up a brand new 50Mb blank disk cartridge onto the customer's
disk pack. The customers had never done a backup (they had had the system
for several months). He was somewhat embarrased.


Then there was the time I was consulting independently - helping someone
add more hardware interface cards to the chassis on an Interdate 6/16.
Not having the right tools for a particular job, I had to kluge up a
paper clip (the ultimate tool). Unfortunately, this clip got away from
me at just the wrong time and fell down the wire-wrap posts on the
backplane like a pachinko ball. It managed to fall between th +12v line
and a +5v line - shorted out and blew up every board in the computer
(just the line drivers, but still...). That, too, was somewhat embarrassing.

--MKR