At 11:52 AM +0100 1/9/98, Gunnar Helliesen wrote:
>I once rode on top of an 8600 on top of an elevator (it wouldn't fit
>inside) when we needed to move the machine up a couple of floors.
>
>I also once sat on the "bench" of a Cray XMP while it was running.
>Strange feeling, leaning back against the machine and both hearing and
>feeling it humming...
>

OK, I guess we're wandering a bit here, but it's friday anyway, so I
thought I'd share my elevator/VAX story.

When we picked up the 750 I was talking about yesterday (it was being
discarded by the chem dept.), we needed to move it to the old student union
building where the campus radio station (WRUR 88.5 FM Rochester, NY USA).
Unfortunately, the radio station was only accessible by a service elevator
that normally had the "loading dock level" locked out.

Seeing as how we were all fully qualified engineers (I have a BA in
History, and my partners-in-crime were a Geologist and a business major),
we decided to just remove the control panel from the elevator and short the
keywswitch to allow us to go to the loading area.

I don't know how many of you are familiar with the Milton-Bradley game
"Operation".  You essetially have a little alligator clip on a wire, and
you have to pick up these little pieces without touching the metal sides of
the game board (which completes the circuit and sets off a buzzer).  Well,
we found out that elevators react fairly badly to being shorted
accidentally. (Don't touch the sides!  Bzzzzzt!)  One of us (I won't say
who) touched a wire to the control unit enclosure.  This combined with the
fact that the "door open" sensor didn't work allowed the elevator to shoot
up to the top floor, lock all of the doors and turn itself off completely.
This left me and two friends trapped in a freight elevator with an 11/750
that we didn't have any inventory paperwork for,  an attached RK07, a great
big CDC XMD 850 drive, and no way out.

When security arrived, the guard seemed unamused.  However, the guy who
came to repair the elevator practically fell down laughing.  (We had
covered up the evidence of our tampering).  He couldn't believe anyone
would make a computer that big, and he got a  really big kick out of
standing on it to climb up and repair the fuse on the drive motor.

We finally got everything worked out, and within a few hours we were
running VMS 5.4.  We never even came close to using the 32 serial ports on
the machine.  We finally gave it away to one of the computer interest
groups at a neigboring school (the building had no air conditioning, making
it impossible to run the system in the warmer months - our attempt to puta
fan on in place of the front panel failed miserably).  Now that NetBSD/VAX
is making such good progress, I wish I still had it.  (But not enough to
get into the elevator with one again!)

As a side note, the little power conditioner that was in the RK07 is still
filtering power for the station's transmitter control rack to this day.
DEC sure knows how to build them.  :)

Boy, that was really off-topic.

Oh, and just as an offer:  if anyone in the Rochester/Buffalo (NY, USA)
area needs help moving VAXen around for NetBSD or similiar hobbyist use, I
hereby offer the services of my trusty 1974 VW Transporter.  It can
certainly carry an 11/750, and has a cargo capacity of close to a ton (just
under 1000kg), provided you're not in a big hurry.

There.  That was *sort of* on-topic. :)

- Tom

--
Tom Guptill
UNIX Systems Manager
Department of Physics and Astronomy
University of Rochester