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From: rick@oresoft.UUCP (Rick Lahrson)
Newsgroups: talk.bizarre,comp.misc
Subject: Re: What the world needs now
Message-ID: <37@oresoft.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 25-May-87 02:52:46 EDT
Article-I.D.: oresoft.37
Posted: Mon May 25 02:52:46 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 26-May-87 01:07:29 EDT
References: <12067@topaz.rutgers.edu>
Reply-To: rick@oresoft.UUCP (Rick Lahrson)
Organization: Oregon Software, Portland OR
Lines: 23
Keywords: Originally from a friend
Xref: mnetor talk.bizarre:1876 comp.misc:584

In article <12067@topaz.rutgers.edu> trudel@topaz.rutgers.edu (Jonathan D.) writes:
>
>... is a piece of software that actually makes a computer blow up ...

A small step was taken toward this end back in the early sixties, in IBM's
System/360 model 30 CE school.  Seems one of the better students had time
enough to pore over the schematics and discover which cores (remember core
memory?) were located just beneath the overtemp sensor.  He wrote a small
program that did nothing but abuse those particular cores by writing ones
and zeroes alternately to them, until they heated up, and the temperature
sensor shut down the machine.

First, of course, the program printed out "Programmed Power Down" on the
console.  Caused a lot of bewilderment among the students and instructors.
Especially since the big feature being touted about the S/360 was that it
was so oriented to multiprogramming that it didn't even have a HALT
instruction.

-- 

Rick Lahrson  ...tektronix!oresoft!rick

Disclaimer:  If I ever speak for anyone but me, I'll warn you in advance.