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From: art@oahu.cs.ucla.edu (Arthur P. Goldberg)
Newsgroups: rec.humor,comp.misc
Subject: Re: Looking for Computer Folklore
Message-ID: <21012@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU>
Date: 26 Feb 89 01:49:27 GMT
References: <7143@pyr.gatech.EDU> <4744@sfsup.UUCP> <2887@sybase.sybase.com> <1912I78BC@CUNYVM> <555@maths.tcd.ie>
Sender: news@CS.UCLA.EDU
Reply-To: art@cs.ucla.edu (Arthur P. Goldberg)
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Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department
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At Cal Tech's observatories had a computer in the late 70s whose disk 
crashed its head several times over the course of a year.  The crashes were 
extremely severe.  The head would grind into the magnetic coating, stripping
it off large sections of the disk and filling the inside of the drive with
ferric oxide filings.  An UGLY sight.  The repair people would come,
replace the disk drive and reassemble the disk from tape.  Then the new
drive would do the same thing several months later!  The machine was
in a nice, clean room with the door closed, in a normal office building.
Nobody could determine what was happening.

Then one smart and observant repairman asked whether the copy machine
sitting in the hall outside the computer room was always there.  It was.
It turned out that the copy machine toner would evaporate and leak.  Because
it was denser than air the toner fumes would fall down to the floor and
be sucked under the door of the computer room by the room's negatively
pressurized ventilation.  Once inside the room, the toner would delaminate
the disk, and presto! we'd get a disk drive quisinart!
 
Arthur Goldberg                          Illegitimati Non Carborundum
3680-D Boelter Hall
UCLA Computer Science Department
LA, Ca. 90024
(213) 825-2864 / 656-3763
art@cs.ucla.edu

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