Sigh. Bringing up a PDP-8/M

From: Huw Davies <H.Davies_at_latrobe.edu.au>
Date: Tue Apr 13 19:31:10 1999

At 13:09 13/04/99 +0930, Geoff Roberts wrote:

>> With apologies to all the good DEC FS guys that I have worked with over
>the
>> years (and no apology for the one or two who were worse than useless - the
>> TE16 on fire being the best (worst?) experience).
>
> I'd really love to hear about that one.....:^)

Well this was several (many?) years ago when I managed a VAX-11/780 (1.25Mb
memory, 2xRM03, 1xRM80, 1xDZ11, 1xTE16 and a Printronix printer). Life was
so much easier then! We'd had some problems with the TE16 (half inch tape
drive for those not intimately familiar with 15 year old Digital hardware).
I can't remember what the problem was but we got a new FS engineer out to
check it out. I'm not sure of the details but I guess he connected the
power up wrong cause when he turned the TE16 back on the lights in the
computer room dimmed and suddenly large amounts of magic smoke (along with
some nice orange/yellow/green flames were visible (the TE16 was out on its
sliders). The fire was put out (by me) using a CO2 extinguisher.

 Huw Davies | e-mail: Huw.Davies_at_latrobe.edu.au
 Information Technology Services | Phone: +61 3 9479 1550 Fax: +61 3 9479
1999
 La Trobe University | "If God had wanted soccer played in the
 Melbourne Australia 3083 | air, the sky would be painted green"
Received on Tue Apr 13 1999 - 19:31:10 BST