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Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!nic.MR.NET!shamash!raspail!bga
From: bga@raspail.UUCP (Bruce Albrecht)
Newsgroups: rec.humor,rec.humor.d,comp.misc
Subject: Re: Looking for Computer Folklore
Message-ID: <1232@raspail.UUCP>
Date: 8 Feb 89 18:43:32 GMT
References: <7143@pyr.gatech.EDU> <532@geovision.UUCP> <4575@tekgvs.GVS.TEK.COM> <6255@saturn.ucsc.edu>
Organization: Control Data Corporation, Arden Hills, MN
Lines: 11


When Grinnell College upgraded from a PDP 11/45 to an 11/70, the DEC field
engineer finished the installation and booted the 11/70.  It started up, and
15 seconds later, it promptly died.  He tried it again, and it failed again.
He called up his superior, who thought about it for a few moments, asked him
if he had removed the loopback plugs on all the serial interface boards.  It
seems that RSTS/E sends out a message informing the users that the system is
on its way up, and when the message was sent, the loopback plug turned it
into a user input, to which the system sent a message 'input ignored.', 
which also became user input ..., and the system died because it ran out of
free buffers.