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From: mark@cbosgd.UUCP (Mark Horton)
Newsgroups: net.micro.att,net.micro.pc
Subject: Re: MS DOS crashes on random keyboard input
Message-ID: <2049@cbosgd.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 25-Apr-86 01:37:25 EDT
Article-I.D.: cbosgd.2049
Posted: Fri Apr 25 01:37:25 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 27-Apr-86 07:28:00 EDT
References: <2026@cbosgd.UUCP> <810@cyb-eng.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T CARECOMM, Columbus
Lines: 25
Xref: watmath net.micro.att:1142 net.micro.pc:7960

In article <810@cyb-eng.UUCP> bc@cyb-eng.UUCP (Bill Crews) writes:
>> If I set my 9 month old in front of an IBM PC or an AT&T 6300
>> and let him pound on the keyboard, in short order he manages
>> to crash the machine.  (Often the screen goes blank, and much
>> of the time CTRL ALT DEL won't reboot, I have to do a hard reset.)
>
>Try doing the same thing at a shell prompt on a Unix terminal, and be sure
>to include the Ctrl and Esc keys.  For that matter, try the same thing on
>a 3270 attached to a 370, and include the Sys Req key.  I imagine it is
>possible to insulate the terminal/PC availablility from hostile attack,
>but probably not without significant reduction in usability.

I can't speak for a 3270, but I put them in front of a UNIX terminal
at the shell all the time.  I've seen a few strange things, like getting
the terminal into setup mode, or managing to get the login shell to dump
core, but these are pretty rare.  What's more common is they type until
the line buffer fills up, then it beeps continuously (which they love)
until I hit DEL.  But I've never seen UNIX crash, and I've never seen
them get into a state where I can't fix it quickly and easily, and it
never gets into a state where the child doesn't continue to find it
interesting to play with.  (In fact, my Ann Arbor Ambassador keyboard
is by far their favorite, probably due to the keyclick and fast
auto-repeat.)

	Mark