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Excerpts from netnews.alt.folklore.computers: 15-Dec-89 Re: Cold Starts
Sean Colbath@cs.rocheste (2171)


> Although not very similar, your subject line reminded me of an interesting
> incident that occured at an academic site that I was involved with.  This
> site was a large IBM VM shop, with most of the computing done at the central
> campus. 


Although even less similar:  We have an IBM 3083 running VM/CMS which is
the only water-cooler computer in our machine rooms. [There are two
machine rooms, the 3083 is in the lower machine room.] All the other
computers are air cooled, with glycol-based air conditioners keeping the
temperature [fairly :-)] stable.  Of course, in the true redundant way,
the cooling unit for the the 3083 has a glycol-based air conditioner
next to it which keeps the water for the 3083 cool.   If the machine
shuts down, you must shut down the a/c unit within 10-15 minutes, or the
lines freeze.  If the a/c unit dies, the machine will alarm 'high
temperature' and, if you don't shut the machine down in about 10
minutes, it will take itself down.

Well, we had been having intermittent problems with the a/c unit, and
one fine day, the system console in the upper machine room set off it's
alarm and complained of 'high temperature.'  The lead Operator reset the
alarm on the system console and then sent his shift-partner, a student
Operator, down to check things out.  The student Operator reset the a/c
unit, which made the system happy, but the console down there was still
producing an audible alarm.  The student called the lead Operator and
asked, "The alarm is still going off.  What should I do?".  The lead
Operator said, innocently enough, "Turn it off."

So the student turned off the computer.

Yes, he lived.     :-)

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Esther C. Filderman             ef...@andrew.cmu.edu
Andrew Specialist		Computing Services
Computer Operations	Carnegie Mellon University