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From: oster@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu (David Phillip Oster)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: What the world needs now [ is an exploding computer ]
Message-ID: <19211@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Mon, 1-Jun-87 13:03:02 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.19211
Posted: Mon Jun  1 13:03:02 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 3-Jun-87 01:11:27 EDT
References: <12067@topaz.rutgers.edu> <910@killer.UUCP> <15@gordon.UUCP> <2725@phri.UUCP> <8252@bu-cs.BU.EDU>
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Reply-To: oster@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu.UUCP (David Phillip Oster)
Organization: School of Education, UC-Berkeley
Lines: 38


This folt tale was told to me when I was an undergraduate. I'd like
confirmation, and details. 

Long ago, in the early days of computers, a machine at MIT had 1
device controller and attached to it were 7 tape drives (numbered 1-7)
and one of the first, early disks, (numbered 0) inevitably each yesr
some bright undergraduate, (let's call her Sally) would look at the
machine and wonder, "Hmm, they're all on the same controller. I wonder
what will happen if I send device 0 a rewind command."

So Sally writes a short program to rewind the disk. She hoes into the
machine room so she can watch the fun. She runs it and the machine
room is filled with the sound of a disk destroying itself.  It sounds
like a household garbage dispos-all filled with scrap metal.  After
about a minute, it stops.

Sally is panic-stricken, and thinks to herself, "Oh, no, I've
destroyed the only disk drive. When they catch me they'll have me
paying for it for a decade."

Then she notices that the system is still up, that jobs are still
running. She goes over to the disk drive and removes the rectangular
sheet metal side cover so she can see into the works. There, mounted
under disk drive, was a standard household garbage dispos-all, filled
with scrap nuts and bolts, connected to the 120 volt power via a relay
that must in turn get triggered via the rewind line from the device
controller. Sally goes to put the side cover back, and notices, taped
to the inside, a sign saying in big letters, "Gotcha!" and signed by
the professor who owned the machine.

I've also heard stories about students programming a series of disk
seeks at the resonant frequency of the disk drive cabinet, so that the
entire cabinet could be made to "walk" menacingly toward the operator.
Maybe we need comp.misc.folklore.
--- David Phillip Oster            -- "The goal of Computer Science is to
Arpa: oster@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu -- build something that will last at
Uucp: ucbvax!dewey.soe!oster       -- least until we've finished building it.t.