Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!apple!desnoyer
From: desnoyer@Apple.COM (Peter Desnoyers)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Looking for Computer Folklore
Message-ID: <25194@apple.Apple.COM>
Date: 2 Feb 89 17:55:17 GMT
References: <7143@pyr.gatech.EDU> <11630010@hpsmtc1.HP.COM>
Organization: Apple Computer Inc, Cupertino, CA
Lines: 19


Along the lines of the burning Amdahl -

Someone told me that one of the big old Cyber systems (went by the
name of "Star", perhaps?) had racks and racks of memory, and that the
power supplies in these memories had reliability problems. Evidently
the filter capacitors would fail short every so often. I am told that
they investigated several ways of detecting these shorts and bringing
them to the operators attention. They tried an ammeter on the console
- it didn't work. (It would go from perhaps 2000 to 2050 amps - not a
noticeable increase.) Evidently the solution was to put a smoke
detector in the top of each rack, and wire each of them to a light on
the operator's panel, the assumption being that if a memory bank was
smoking, it required service.

[This recounting is n'th hand where n >> 1, and probably contains
serious factual errors. Corrections by those who know are invited.]

				Peter Desnoyers