NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #16/NN_1992_16.iso/spool/sci/electron/13560

Text File | 1992-07-29 | 3.5 KB | 83 lines

Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Path: sparky!uunet!utcsri!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!neufeld
From: [e-mail] (Christopher Neufeld)
Subject: Re: Fry the Monkey
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Sender: [e-mail] (News Administrator)
Organization: University of Toronto Physics/Astronomy/CITA
References: <[e-mail]>
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 15:08:16 GMT
Lines: 71

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>
>It seems that a FE in Atlanta, Ga. was working on a PDP-11/34 that was
>used in controlled experments on the brain stimulus of live monkeys. The
>11/34 was hooked up to a DAC setup that was hooked into a interface that
>was wired to a monkey's skull. [...] So he fires up DEC-X and the
>diagnostics run the DAC's from minumim to maximum voltage, which fried the
>monkey's brain.
>
   Well, coincidences abound. Here's something from today's feed on
alt.folklore.computers:


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Article: 27039 of alt.folklore.computers
From: [e-mail] (Lupe Christoph)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Computers killing people? (WAS Re: 9 track data storage???)
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 27 Jul 92 22:02:16 GMT
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Sender: [e-mail] ()
Organization: cic
Lines: 49

[ ... ]

Not exactly at the point, but the jargon file entry {scratch monkey}
applied here:

:scratch monkey: n. As in "Before testing or reconfiguring, always
   mount a {scratch monkey}", a proverb used to advise caution
   when dealing with irreplaceable data or devices.  Used to refer to
   any scratch volume hooked to a computer during any risky operation
   as a replacement for some precious resource or data that might
   otherwise get trashed.

   This term preserves the memory of Mabel, the Swimming Wonder
   Monkey, star of a biological research program at the University of
   Toronto ca. 1986.  Mabel was not (so the legend goes) your ordinary
   monkey; the university had spent years teaching her how to swim,
   breathing through a regulator, in order to study the effects of
   different gas mixtures on her physiology.  Mabel suffered an
   untimely demise one day when DEC {PM}ed the PDP-11 controlling
   her regulator (see also {provocative maintenance}).

   It is recorded that, after calming down an understandably irate
   customer sufficiently to ascertain the facts of the matter, a DEC
   troubleshooter called up the {field circus} manager responsible
   and asked him sweetly, "Can you swim?"

   Not all the consequences to humans were so amusing; the sysop of
   the machine in question was nearly thrown in jail at the behest of
   certain clueless droids at the local `humane' society.  The moral
   is clear: When in doubt, always mount a scratch monkey.
--
| ...!unido!ukw!lupe  (German EUNet, "bang")     |  Disclaimer:            |
| [e-mail]       (German EUNet, domain)     |  As I am self-employed, |
| suninfo!alanya!lupe (Sun Germany)              |  this *is* the opinion  |
| Res non sunt complicanda praeter necessitatem. |  of my employer.        |


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--
 Christopher Neufeld....Just a graduate student  | Talk sense to a fool
 [e-mail]    Ad astra  | and he calls you
 [e-mail]                       | foolish.
 "Don't edit reality for the sake of simplicity" |       - Euripides