On the older 7bit tape drives with the header that went up and down as the tape was unloaded and loaded, it was also possible to put a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The tape load then caused the SE LOTS of problems. Just ask the Raytheon Boston data center people in the late 1960s. I am not sure if the incident happened in 1968 or early 1969. I heard about it in May or so of 1969. It took a while to figure out what happened to the tape drive.
Also, in the old wire wrapped tape controllers, a little bit of left over wire could cause lots of problems. We had a controller that someone at the factory had left a bit of wire cut, but not removed near the top pair of terminals. As that piece of wire fell through the pairs of terminals over the next six months or so, our SE was scratching his head a lot: one drive would fail, then the next one. He finally figured out it was something in the controller when the third drive started failing in similar ways to the first two that now worked perfectly. Lloyd ----- Original Message ---- From: Robert Shimizu <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Fri, March 23, 2012 12:02:49 PM Subject: Friday fun: Halon dumps and POK Resets All: * It is possible to disconnect the vacuum duct to a 3420 tape drive. * It is also possible to connect a condom on the supply-side duct. * It is also possible to press "LOAD". * It is also possible to put the Lead Operator on the floor convulsed in laughter. -- Robert W. Shimizu Partner ColeSoft Marketing, Inc [email protected] www.colesoft.com (800) 932-5150 (928) 771-2005 Fax ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
