Favorite Head Crash (was Re: modern removable media drives)

From: Chuck McManis <cmcmanis_at_freegate.com>
Date: Fri Nov 13 18:47:33 1998

1977, I'm an intern at IBM in Colorado (on Diagonal Hwy). The group I'm in
is being transferred gradually out to Phoenix so most of the group had gone
and most lunch times I and the systems programmer (SP) share a 370. I was
writing some code that took advantage of the vector based operator display
(I started with the mickey mouse clock program and went from there). The
systems programmer looked at me in a strange way and said, "Chuck, do you
hear something?"

"No, I don't hear anything", I replied but then a moment later I could hear
was sounded like a high pitched whine. Perhaps a mosquito in the machine room.

"I think it is coming from over there." says the SP who is pointing to the
3350 disk farm. The "farm" has fifteen 3350 DASD units in racks of three to
a rack. These 3350s (perhaps all 3350s are like this) were on rack slides
and when you pressed "unload" they would spin down, slide out, and the top
would open like the trunk on a '71 Pontiac Bonneville.

"Yup," I agreed, "it certainly sounds like that .... OUCH!" as the sound
went from a mosquito like whine, quickly descending into the clearly
audible, and down into a deafening SCREEEETCH!

About the middle of the row of racks a red fault light flickered, then came
on brightly. The drawer of the middle disk moved out by itself and when the
top opened a greyish black cloud came out, paused for a moment over the
drive, and then was whisked away by the air conditioning.

"I believe that pack has crossed over to the other side." said the SP in a
complete dead pan protestant minister delivery.

I literally fell out of my chair I was laughing so hard!

--Chuck
Received on Fri Nov 13 1998 - 18:47:33 GMT