🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <22...@opus.cs.mcgill.ca> pet...@opus.cs.mcgill.ca (Peter Deutsch) writes:
|> >       Talking about how-to-turn-off-machine I forgot to say
|> >       that BESM has a software feature to block power turnoff
|> >       (I think it's a quite valuable idea, especially for Unix
|> >       machines; what's about self-turning-on machines? ;-).
|> 
|> i have seen such a unix machine---the off switch just started a software
|> routine that does synch and then turns off the power via software.

The Tandy 200 laptop did one better: it was not only turned off by software,
but on again as well.  The internal clock could be set to turn on the machine
at any given time and run a specific program.  Made for a handly alarm clock.
(And turning off your power bar wouldn't even override the software shutdown,
unless you also took out the batteries).

On another note--these things had to be the most indestructible computers of
all time.  Mine once had 1.35 litres worth of big gulp go in the keyboard
and out the serial port; before that mess was all cleaned up, it went over
the edge of a stairwell and fell twenty feet onto tiled concrete.  I found all
the little pieces, snapped them back together, and it worked fine.

It also housed an ant colony for a few months.  I think they were feeding off
the last of the coke stains.

Jeff Petkau: pet...@skdad.USask.ca
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