One door opens, another one closes, and this one kills a mainframe
- Reference: 1697441470
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/10/16/trainee_learned_an_important_lesson/
- Source link:
This week, meet "Buster" who "back in the day" (so you know this was a while ago) toiled was a computer operator working with a Honeywell 6000-series mainframe (so you know this was a long while ago). In case you're unfamiliar, the Honeywell 6000 was the rebadged version of the General Electric GE-600 series, acquired in 1970 when GE quit the computer business (because clearly it was just a passing fad. When Honeywell sold off its computer business in 1989, the 6000 disappeared).
The 6000 series were huge cabinets basically the size of a refrigerator. And, even more fridge-like, they had hinges on the side so the front could swing open, much like a fridge door. This could be done while the machine was operating if necessary.
[1]
Anyway, if you're into the history of mainframe computing the Honeywell 6000 was a nifty beast.
[2]
[3]
But back to Buster. The system he cared for had a number of these huge cabinets, containing vacuum-drop tape drives, punched card input, a "vicious line printer" and more. Each of which could be opened up to show off the little hamsters on wheels making it all go.
(That last part might not be entirely true.)
[4]
All up the system was about six or seven meters long, to Buster's recollection. It operated 24 hours a day and it handled the business's computing needs as well as its internal accounting, payroll, etc.
One night he was showing it to a new trainee, going from one section to the next, swinging open each cabinet to point out the CPU, core memory, the printer interface, tape drives, and so on. As they reached about the second or third to last section, and swung the door open, the whole system started leaning forward.
It turns out you're not supposed to open all the cabinets at once.
[5]Scripted shortcut caused double-click disaster of sysadmin's own making
[6]Lost your luggage? That's nothing – we just lost your whole flight!
[7]No, no, no! Disco joke hit bum note in the rehab center
[8]Chap blew up critical equipment on his first day – but it wasn't his volt
In a panic, half afraid they were about to be fired for destroying a mainframe computer and half afraid they were about to be crushed to death under the weight of said mainframe, Buster and the trainee ran frantically back and forth, shutting the cabinet doors and securing them so they could not swing open again, all the while pushing pointlessly against the machine as if they had any hope of holding it up.
When enough of the doors were closed, the mighty 6000 regained its center of gravity and returned to its resting position – with what Buster describes as a "crash."
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That's not a good word when it comes to computers. Especially not when you're talking about a mainframe literally landing "with a crash." That's not in the design parameters.
Cautiously, Buster checked the operations of the machine. All seemed to be functioning as normal. Careful inspection of the hardware didn't show anything obviously out of place. They don't build 'em like that anymore.
He and the trainee vowed never to speak of the incident again – especially to management.
How about you? What's the dark day in the server room of which you've vowed never to speak, but that's burning away in the back of your conscience? Unburden yourself in [10]an email to Who, Me and we'll provide what absolution we can.
Seriously, we could use a few more reader tales in the ol' Reg mailbag – send them in! ®
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Re: Tech support call
Water is kind, unless it shorts something fragile it will get better.
Sugar, on the other hand, murders circuit boards.
You're not supposed to open all the cabinets at once
If, like me, you were wondering how heavy the cabinet doors would have to be:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honeywell_6000_series#/media/File:Honeywell_66_60.jpg
That's a big fridge, and I don't fancy fixing the ice-maker.
Re: You're not supposed to open all the cabinets at once
Hmmm. How much of the works can you fit to the door before it stops being a door and becomes just a hinged extension of the chassis. I'd say this is borderline.
He was obviously offering the prospective recruit a tip or two
I hope he gave the PFY a balanced introduction...
The good news is, it didn't end with a trip to the tip.
OOPS!
Narrow escape there. Reminds me of the time I was showing some students around the Centre for High Performance Computing at the university, and we came across the fridge-sized cabinet housing the Cray J932. Not much to look at, but with an impressively big rectangular green LED showing the machine was up and running, and a (very well recessed) power button below. One student asked what would happen if he pressed that button, whereupon I said that two little semicircular steel claws would come out and clip off his finger, and if that malfunctioned I had a set of pliers to complete the job. He seemed to accept that "explanation."
Reg Standard Units
I think that using a refrigerator as a unit of measure is ambiguous given that fridges in the US (or at least those I see on telly programmes) are massive compared to the ones we use in the UK.
Re: Reg Standard Units
Nah, it's a cool standard...
Total Recall
I didn't want to remember the event but this story poked a brain cell.......
New company, we had all put our personal investment in money, time, effort and skill and had taken our first biggish orders. We were renting premises. One of our first sub-contract motor-control panels was delivered to our 'factory' and we borrowed a local fork-lift truck to off-load...... Although we were beset with a range of skills fork-lift truck driving was not one of them. The panel, about 4 metres long, 2 high and 0.6 deep was carefully lifted off the wagon, reversed away, whereupon it did a perfect 270-degree slam onto the ground 5-foot below. The face of the panel was protected by protruding instruments (ammeters etc.) which were all damaged. The paintwork cracked and chipped. This could be a major financial hit, plus late delivery, reputation damage before it was even established.....
The instruments we could replace. Broken handles we could replace. Small dents we could fill. The internal relays that had all fallen out were re-inserted. One of our team was an amateur model-maker and he determined that he could restore the paintwork. With artwork worthy of the V&A, the panel was restored to nearly pristine glory.... undetectable except under forensic inspection. We re-packed it more carefully than it had been delivered to us and delivered it to site. It worked! The customer noted the panel had slightly mis-matched front appurtenances but this was an industrial site, it just had to work.
Many years later, I went back to the site and the panel was still in operation. I could see the evidence of its previous acrobatics but said nothing........
IBM, too, maybe...
There's an old story - almost apocryphal, I'm sure - about IBM's 3330 disk drives.
A full 'bank' of drives came as four cabinets of 2 disk 'drawers' that were mounted vertically, plus a control unit on the end (pic here: https://www.computerhistory.org/storageengine/track-following-servo-quadruples-hdd-density/ )
The disks themselves were 'exchangeable' - any single volume could be swapped for another by hitting the 'stop' button for the relevant drawer, waiting for the disk to spin down, opening the drawer, taking out ('dismounting') the disk that was there and putting a different one in, then firing that particular drive up again to make the new volume available to the system (and, yes, you could do that while the 'old' disk was actually in use - with predictable results!)
They story goes that while it was possible to open all four top drawers at the same time, it was inadvisable to do so since the entire 'bank' would topple forward (those 3330 disks were heavy .)
An extension to the story says that this problem was fixed by a special IBM part that could be attached - two extendable legs that attached to the front of the bank to provide extra physical stability.
Re: IBM, too, maybe...
That reminds me of another IBM story, I was assured, by someone who claimed to have been there, that this really happened but make your own judgement.
They were looking for some new tail-lift vans to deliver the large line printers. Ford UK's proposal was for Cargo vans but IBM decided they were larger than required and found an independent supplier who'd fit tail lifts to Transits, having figured that two printers would be within the van's carrying capacity and one would fit on the tail lift. As this was a big investment they arranged a grand unveiling with various senior management present. Having rolled a nice new printer onto the brand new tail lift the driver pressed the *up* button, at which point the printer stayed where it was and the front of the van rose into the air! The dodgy supplier hadn't calculated the loading correctly for a single large item being lifted, Ford had done so and realised a Transit wasn't suitable.
Now that's *proper* heavy metal... big iron still rules!
Buttocks Of Power
Rooting around the temperamental disc controller on the only rack of Dell gear on the estate for the umpteenth time, I bent low to stare angrily the same bloody capacitor that had to be shorted so that we could could get the disc array booted up again. I hadn't noticed the doors on the racks behind me had been removed for reasons unknown to me. Capacitor shorted, I moved back to return the controller to its operational position. I felt something against my right buttock then heard the unmistakable sound of a hefty bank of discs powering down. My backside had found the power switch and switched off the discs in the rack behind me. I waited for the box to reach quiescence then hit the switch (wiping it to remove finger prints), waited for everything to turn green, locked my own rack doors, then went back and checked which system I had just given an unscheduled DR test. DEV - phew! No harm done. Since then, like when I drive, I always check behind me before pulling out.
Tech support call
Was at work one day & I got a phone call from my wife: ” My laptop is making a strange beeping sound and there's water running out of the corner!". Turns out she'd spilt her glass of water over it. Told her to turn it off and let it dry out. Amazingly, it fired right back up as if nothing had happened & continued on for a few more years after that.