Wirehead Update

From: Bill/Carolyn Pechter <pechter_at_shell.monmouth.com>
Date: Thu Apr 9 12:59:22 1998

> The systems that need to be brought in and dealt with are
>
> 11/34 without programmer console
> 11/84
> 3 PDP8i
>
> I'm really excited about them because they're all in good shape...well
> the 11/34 MIGHT have a problem with the RK-05f. In the truck, on the way
> back from St. Louis the 11/34 broke loose from its straps (due to the
> lack of diligence on the part of my assistant) and rolled all over the truck.
> Hit the accellerator, *BOOOOOOM*, hit the brake *BOOOOOOM*. I thought
> someone had hit me with their car. But it appeared undamaged and I've
> heard stories about DEC gear being rolled down stairs and still working
> so I'm somewhat hopeful. ;-)

Don't worry about the RK05f. If the head was retracted and locked it'll
take almost anything.

RKO5 war story follows:

I had one that was bounced up and down two flights of stairs after being
"scrapped" due to a fire at one site. I took it home, alcohol bathed
the platter, reinserted it and booted RT11 without problems (and with
the customer's data intact). The only real fire damage was the serial cables
that were a bit charred and severed by (I think) axes.

The beast (11/23 cpu in an 11/03 corporate cab) ran RT11 and served as
a Sysgen test bed for a while until I sold it to a friend who
modified the RKV11 for 18 bit addressing and ran RSTS on it.

I head crashed an RK05 at DEC Princeton running RT11 on the finance 11/70
during a PM once. The head hit a 1/4 inch bulge in the disk platter
caused by DEC Security mailing me back the disk standing on edge (touching
one screw that holds the case on the platters ). (Don't ask me about
that one... they had this policy of inspecting all packs coming out of
training after someone tried to bootleg VAX/VMS in the mid '80's, anyway
after about four weeks they send me back my RT11 games/gen pack with
RT11v4 on it.)

I figured a sysgen on the 11/70 would be quick and a valid PM test (since
the diags already worked and the machine was down for the day for a move).

I heard this loud ping ping ping sound and unloaded the pack to see a black
scarred upper head. I had no spares and no time to get them and align
the head in time. My coworker now in DEC Colorado said not to worry and
scraped the head with a pocket knife removing the scar and we then alcohol
cleaned it. The drive ran all diags and under the OS (RSTS/E 7.2)
error free.

Bill
Received on Thu Apr 09 1998 - 12:59:22 BST