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From: gshippen@pollux.usc.edu (Gregory Shippen)
Newsgroups: rec.humor,rec.humor.d,comp.misc
Subject: Re: Looking for Computer Folklore
Keywords: green-houses diskdrives
Message-ID: <15301@oberon.USC.EDU>
Date: 11 Feb 89 01:15:21 GMT
References: <7143@pyr.gatech.EDU> <532@geovision.UUCP> <768@ur-cc.UUCP> <1012@ncrcce.StPaul.NCR.COM> <380@frksyv.UUCP> <7754@netnews.upenn.edu> <82736@felix.UUCP>
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Reply-To: gshippen@pollux.usc.edu (Gregory Shippen)
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Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
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Way back in the stone-age of microprocessors I worked for a small company which
made a TI9900 based machine for dentist offices.  It included an old Diablo
10Mb disk drive.  This was a 5Mb fixed, 5 Mb removeable type drive.  These were
the unsealed non-winchester type of course so you had a filter inside the drive
to keep the disk area clean.  (You know, the kind you put in expensive computer
room).

I was involved in fixing many of the disk drives that came back after
suffering a dreaded head crash.  I remember distinctly getting one disk drive 
back.  We opened the drive up and removed the fixed disk since it had crashed.
The platter had a distinct faded look, the usual dark brown had turned into a
very light brown.  The drive was filthy.  Due to the strange shape of the
drive, we asked the field service guy just where the drive had been.  He 
explained that the doctor who owned the office had put the entire system 
except the terminal in was described to me as "the green-house".  Looking back
I suspect it was probably something akin to a solarium! He probably didn't like
the noise the system made (ahh for the good old days when disk drives 
effectively simulated jet aircraft on takeoff) and put the system in the
nearest place where nobody would be bothered.

Sadly, I suspect that the company's demise some years later was due largely to
the fact that the hardware required careful preventative maintenance and was
unsuited to the turn it on and forget about it mentality of dentist's 
assistants and receptionists.  Therein points I suspect to a major element in
the ultimate success of PC's -- winchester disks. Turn it on and forget it!

Greg Shippen
gshippen@pollux.usc.edu
University of Southern California
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