Ehlers Danlos I wonder.

I also wonder about anyone who has a server with such an easily accessible reset button, even back in the days of NetWare and "built from parts" servers I'd never connect the reset switch unless it was well recessed or covered because *nix and Novell didn't cope well with unscheduled resets

Seriously, downvotes for common sense cover up the reset switch FFS.

It's as if you lot have never learned that people accidentally press switches and reset stuff if they're not protected or disconnected.

And Ehlers Danlos is hyper mobility, the condition is potentially why the gangly youth could hit the reset switch by accident when it seemed so unlikely. Us, the EDS society symbol is a Zebra

I once (briefly, thank FSM) worked for a small, independent finance software company. The "IT Room" was a bunker in the basement full of boxes of old, knackered bits and cards. And the production server which was a tower unit. Situated next to the door. The power button sticking out nicely as if to say "press me!" It was not covered. I managed to hit that power button accidentally, downing the whole office, twice.

Despite my requests to be allowed to cover the button it remained prone when I departed several months later. Because they, er, didn't want me to make any changes to the server.

While I agree with you, and have practiced what I preached over the years (unplugging the reset button on PCs is simple, and cures many ills), try to remember that back a third of a century ago (or thereabouts) Microsoft was trying to convince TheGreatUnwashed that they could purchase a computer from any old shop on the highstreet, plug it into another computer, and be instantly running a network. No need to buy a "server", no need to hire a CNE (or similar), just plug it in and it would work. Modern Computing in 1992 was Wonderful with Microsoft and Intel running Windows for Workgroups!

So TheGreatUnwashed did[0] just that. But all those highstreet computers had reset buttons. And the owner/operators had no clue that the button could and should be disconnected when the machine was placed into the server roll that it was usually unsuited for to begin with. Thus all the stories we hear today about all the wild and wacky ways that the users found to reset them, usually at the most inopportune time.

[0] And, as we all noted at the time, it quite often didn't. Some of us made a living from this discrepancy.

a server with such an easily accessible reset button, even back in the days of NetWare and "built from parts" servers

I've seen generic "white box" cases with reset buttons which protruded, and some for which you needed a pencil or ballpoint pen to activate.

PC keyboard-lock keys locked out only the keyboard. Minicomputer lock keys could lock out the entire switch panel, including HALT, CONT(inue), START, LOAD ADDR(ess), etc., and most-importantly, the power on/off function.

They allowed you to do any switchery needed get the computer up, then in the PANEL LOCK position, remove the key.

The downside is that if you really need to reset or switch off in a hurry there'll be no pencil or key handy.

I was 7 or 8, younger brother couldn't figure out why the family PC would sometimes turn off at random while he was using it.

The PC had a AT-style on/off push-button switch on the front, I remember you had to power it off with that after initiating shutdown in Windows. It was a pizza-box style design (think the form-factor was LPX iirc) and had been placed underneath the desk on the floor by our father.

Turned out when my brother was sat on the chair this put his big toe at the exact height of the power button, and when idly swinging his legs as kids do he'd power the PC off.

One of my previous tower PCs had a power switch right on the top of the front panel itself. The manufacturer had carefully designed the top of the panel so that it was slightly lower than the top of the PC case itself. This meant that placing anything on top of the PC wouldn't accidentally depress the power switch.

Of course, they never factored in cats jumping on top of the PC and switching it off!

I was once showing a group of international students around our high performance computing centre at the university. When we came to the Cray J932, with its impressive large green rectangular power led, and beneath it a red, very well recessed reset button, one of the students asked what would happen if he pressed that button. I stated a small metal claw would emerge and snip his finger off, and if that failed, I would remove the offending digit with pliers.

He decided not to test this.

I was just putting the finishing touches on a small cluster of vaxen at SLAC one fine Friday afternoon. The annual Big Game between Stanford & Berkeley was to be the following day. A couple of grad students started passing a football (American version) between themselves. In the glass room (that wasn't glass). Just as I was threatening mayhem if they didn't knock it off, the ball hit the Big Red Button. Needless to say, a bunch of very pissed off people couldn't attend the game the following day. The grad student's computer privileges were suspended for the rest of the academic year. Personally, I'd have hung them by the thumbs in the Quad as a warning ...

We had an HP full tower PC that was under the desk; unfortunately the power switch was immediately adjacent to the floppy disk eject. I cut up a mag tape cartridge case to provide a very effective hinged molly guard!

I had to rearrange the cables for my gaming PC as I kept hitting the switch on the surge protector with my feet

In my first job I was in charge of repair as well as Hw/Sw development. As an Epson dealer this meant printers as well as computers. There was a particular hinged printer part (I think it was a hinge, but I can't remember exactly) that made a perfect Molly Guard and the company owner and I discussed fitting it to all computers we supplied.

Ah yes, the dependable Molly Guard. I have one on my power bar to prevent accidental turnoff of the main computer, and a separate one upstairs to protect the CCTV cameras.

I even used to have one on the keyboard to protect against accidental autoloads while gaming. Oddly enough, I never needed one to deal with my own "Molly" when she was a toddler.

...the FLY

(Fumbly Legged Youth)

Or was Stefan a PFY?

(resident gangly youth) RGY would be variation on PFY - the BoFH could augment his team to have both. The PFY could open the window for bit of fresh air while the RGY uses his wayward gangly limbs to propel the current stinker into the carpark.

I assume the coroner by now has a custom form for Simon's workplace.

"I assume the coroner by now has a custom form for Simon's workplace."

With a roll of carpet or a quickly summoned up skip lorry there's no need to trouble the coroner.

> That was not an easy feat because the server was a meter to the left of his chair.

Well maybe they should put a coin or two in the meter and the server would have stayed up. Or do you mean metre?

A frisbee being launched across a machine room that just happened to hit the large, unshielded red power button on the PDU at the other end of the room. Boredom on a night shift is a dangerous thing! Happened many, many years ago, and I was on the following shift and had to help pick up the pieces.

Daughter, when she started to crawl, would press the reset button.

When I was working or playing games.

Solution - physically disconnect the reset button from the motherboard...

Oh, I was expecting "...So we got her taken into care". Erm, but no - your solution is...better.

Many moons ago I took my daughter to SLAC on take your kid to work day. At the ripe old age of 9, she had been there many times before and knew the ropes, but I figured she deserved a day out of school.

She told me as we were walking in that it'd cost me ten bucks for her to not push any buttons. I gave her the money.

On the way back out, I told her that it'd cost her ten bucks for me not to tell her mother she was running a protection racket. She made a face and paid up ... and promptly told her mother as soon as we got home. They both still laugh about it. So do I :-)

My first exposure to business computing was when I worked for a major high street retailler in the late 80's.

Our tills and stock system was tied together with a couple of mirrored Compaq PCs acting as servers.

This system was pretty reliable, with very little downtown until suddenly the servers started glitching, sometimes it was the one on the left, sometimes the one on the right. The glitches would void any transaction happening at the time of the glitch. These glitches rarely resulted in a full scale crash, just a minor hiccup that cancelled any inprocess jobs on the database.

The second time this happened we called in the IT bods from Head Office. They ran tests, installed power conditioners, checked logs, scratched heads, but the glitches never occured when they were on site, so they couldn't trace their cause.

They called in Compaq's engineers, who did the same tests, and couldn't find any cause, until just as they were about to pack up, a glitch occurred.

One of the engineers was looking towards the door as it happened, and saw the possible cause; the store manager walked past, and as she did, her analogue cordless phone rang, and she answered it, the EMP, small as it was, seemed to be enough to interupt the nearest server.

The solution, swap her phone for a new DECT phone...

Picture a data center in the basement of a tall building in San Francisco's financial district. Card punch up against a wall, near the ancient Otis heavy goods lift. Every now and again, at seemingly random times, the punch generated errors for a couple characters. Nobody could figure out why, not even IBM's field circus dudes.

Until IBM was traipsing in and out one fine weekend, upgrading who knows what hardware, as only IBM could. Someone (ahem) noticed that the gibberish was being generated about ten seconds before the elevator doors opened.

Turned out that the motor for the lift was drawing so much current when it first started that it was inducing errors in the punch on the other side of the wall. Nobody put two and two together prior to this because the lift rarely went into the basement (that level was key-protected) ... until IBM was in and out that morning.

Once I figured it out, and could reproduce the problem at will, a little shielding (spec'd, provided and installed by IBM, gratis!) made it go away permanently.

No need to picture it. The lab's first computer room - holding an Onyx -server - was, but not for long, the cupboard next to the lift.

I'm sure many have experienced similar - so, Route 1 is always "is everything properly plugged-in?"; I've 'fixed' a colleague's PC by doing just that.

Every time they made a substantial movement they pulled on their desk, which pulled on the power lead trapped against the desk divider, which was only just plugged in to the floor socket. A gangly, 'Yoot' hitting a reset is no surprise.

"handled tasks ranging from programming to support, and everything in between."

The good old days. Requiring specialists allows things to be made more complicated than is good for them and introduces gaps where everyone finds themselves waiting for someone else to do their bit.

KISS.