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From: mc68020@gilbbs.UUCP (Tom Keller)
Newsgroups: net.rumor
Subject: Re: Computer Horror Stories [Funny]
Message-ID: <103@gilbbs.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 21-Mar-86 03:01:58 EST
Article-I.D.: gilbbs.103
Posted: Fri Mar 21 03:01:58 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 22-Mar-86 23:52:16 EST
References: <14700001@hplabsb.UUCP> <476@mmm.UUCP> <9345@ritcv.UUCP> <1494@osu-eddie.UUCP>
Distribution: net
Organization: Gil's Place, Santa Rosa CA
Lines: 37
Summary: trs-80 I, dirty power


   In 1978, a company in my area which specialized in fruit orchard temperature
alarm systems (it being necessary to awaken the farmers to start the smudge
pots and ventilators (giant fans) in order to prevent damage to the fruit)
decided they wanted to go into the TRS-80 I peripherals business.  They hired
me as an engineering technician and programmer.

   There I was, working on programs to drive the peripherals, and having
even the simplest programs crashing and going haywire for no apparent reason.
Being brought up to never assume it's the machine's fault, I spent several
weeks trying to figure out what I was doing wrong.  

   The one day my boss asked me to go to the company next door and assist them
with a problem (they built hydraulic lift units, like the ones you see being
used in construction...turned out we built the electronic control boxes for
their lifts).  I walk into the shop, and am confronted by 12 extra heavy duty
arcwelding machines (these guys were welding steel up to 2" thick!).  After
solving their problem, I traced the power mains.  Sure enough, we were drawing
our AC feed from the same source they were, no transformers between us.

   A few hours, a couple of isolation transformers and caps later, and all 
of a sudden my code runs perfectly.

   The boss still didn't believe it, when I showed him the finally working
code...he had pretty much decided I was a flop as a programmer.  They decided
two weeks later not to go into computers...too volatile, they said.

-- 

====================================

Disclaimer:  I hereby disclaim any and all responsibility for disclaimers.

tom keller
{ihnp4, dual}!ptsfa!gilbbs!mc68020

(* we may not be big, but we're small! *)