Arrr! Can a sailor's marlinspike fix a busted backplane?
- Reference: 1738311248
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/01/31/on_call/
- Source link:
This week, meet a reader we'll Regomize as "Horatio" who told us he once planned to spend a long weekend aboard a 95-year-old tall ship that was preserved in its 1913 condition (a time when ships were often powered by both engines and wind).
"It had big, heavy sails and many lines to haul by hand," Horatio told On Call, though it lacked showers or air conditioning. Electricity was available for a few hours a day, but at night conditions reverted to the age of sail.
[1]
Horatio planned to spend four nights afloat and was wearing what he told us was "full old-time sailor dress." He also carried a knife and a marlinspike, a long metal implement that sailors use to help work with rope.
[2]
[3]
One modern item that made it into Horatio's seabag was a mobile phone, because he was on call.
One night, the phone rang and Horatio was forced to roll out of his bunk, take the call, and learn he was needed at work.
[4]
Horatio sought and received the Mate's permission to go ashore, allowing him to return to the 21st century - 2008 to be specific - and head to work.
"I rolled in and walked across the main floor and all the heads swiveled to look," he told On Call.
That reaction was entirely understandable because Horatio hadn't changed into modern clothes.
[5]
"I was quite a sight in period costume with the knife and marlinspike," he told us. The elaborate knot wrapped around his wrist was also not the sort of thing you often see in an IT department, and the whole outfit came as a complete surprise to colleagues because despite Horatio holding this gig for a decade, he'd never mentioned his after-work maritime activities.
[6]Tech support fill-in given no budget, no help, no training, and no empathy for his plight
[7]Devs sent into security panic by 'feature that was helpful … until it wasn't'
[8]After a long lunch, user thought a cursor meant their computer was cactus
[9]Techie fluked a fix and found himself the abusive boss's best friend
Horatio reckons his colleagues were so stunned by his appearance that none could even muster a lame pirate joke.
The job he was called out for was simple. "It was a broken backplane power connector and I was able to do temporary repair by moving some of the cards around a bit to reduce the power load on that connector."
Once everything was shipshape, Horatio had the choice of returning to sea or staying ashore.
He chose the latter. "After a hard day sailing and hard hauling by hand, I was done. I went home and slept hard."
This On Call tale was sent in response to another about a reader who showed up to a support call [10]dressed as a Klingon .
What's the weirdest outfit you've worn when fixing tech? [11]Click here to share your sartorial story and help us dress up a future Friday column. ®
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[1] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Z5ytVvUkJZjo34YU3DpMDgAAAUw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
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[6] https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/17/on_call/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/10/on_call/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2024/12/27/on_call/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2024/12/20/on_call/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/03/on_call/
[11] mailto:oncall@theregister.com
[12] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Schoolboy error
During a Charity dress down day, (back to School) I was sent on a mission of mercy to our sister site on the opposite side of the City.
Strolled in an waved at Securiy.
Walked into the Call Centre, found my User, fixed PC and went to the coffee room for a well earned brew.
Stirring my java, a Colleague commented on my attire. I'd been there an hour and not one wag saw fit to crack a joke at the IT Schoolboy's expense.
Should have tested the wave forms.
"Are you a software pirate?"
Very...
Moxy of him !
Maritime IT is shocking, not so sure he was in period dress, just dressed for the "live" IT standards...
We all remember Windows for Warships (TM)!
Many boats still use NMEA 0183 (released 1983) to communicate between their instruments, many at 4800 baud.
NMEA 2k (released 2000) is only just becoming the norm, not helped by a few manufacturers doing the classic IT think of making connectors propriety.
I once worked for a "manager of ships" - The Greek dad owned ~80 and managed for others another ~400 odd. The sons ran the business day to day. 400 people had to come to an office so they could be seen "working". Each ship was a separate legal entity so the cash was safe in the event one sank / had an incident etc. The ships ran hooky copies of everything - why spend money if there's no way to get caught, and if you do, the liability stops at the gang plank!
Meanwhile dad was lauded as a a great businessman and placed on a pedestal to be worshipped by the industry.
Hm, I need to find that version of Windows. Windows 2000 UI was very near perfect before "must look like teletubby" came along. Had the classical real-search as well instead of relying on an never-up-to-date index. (Only one tiny UI feature was better in Vista UI, see [1]disable full row select search results.)
[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=windows+7+disable+full+row+select
I always changed the look on XP to 'classic' so that is was like 2000. I still don't understand why MS won't provide that functionality now.
NMEA
NMEA should be good, in theory, but we've found manufacturer's implementation of it can be shocking.
We were trying to debug why a chart plotter would never show the correct time after startup, even though it was talking OK to the GPS module. Eventually, with the aid of a USB NMEA interface*, we found the issue; the first thing the chart plotter did was send out a request for the correct time, the second thing it did was respond to the request and send it's own time (which was incorrect as it had no inbuilt RTC) which it then read back in! As it now believed it had the correct time it was ignoring the time data from the GPS. We were able to send the necessary commands to turn off time responses from the plotter but surely that should have been the default?
*Getting that working at all was another long story involving an IT specialist, an electronics engineer and someone with a foot in both camps!
Repair by moving some of the cards
'Ere was I, a-hopin' for a tale o' strugglin' against a knot in the CAT o' 5 tails. Droppin' the sorry mess that be comin' out o' the patch cabinet onto t'windlass and 'auling the server rack agin the 'eaving tides o' the treacherous raised floor.
Yah could a'least 'ave spliced the power cord.
Un-Regomize + Photo!
Please!