Thread View: alt.folklore.computers
2 messages
2 total messages
Started by k... Kalib N. Sumter
Fri, 21 Sep 1990 01:27
Story
Author: k... Kalib N. Sumter
Date: Fri, 21 Sep 1990 01:27
Date: Fri, 21 Sep 1990 01:27
63 lines
3719 bytes
3719 bytes
It was a cold day in December, and the computer was on the desk right next to the wall. Under the desk was a heater, on full blast. The rain hit the windows and sounded like gravel pounding on concrete. The computer was a '486, which almost engulfed the entire table space. There was a table to the right which was heavily littered with half empty 'Pepsi' cans and 3-day old, half consumed cups of coffee. There was an open bag of 'Doritos' spilled across the floor and ground into the carpet. 'Van Halen' was playing on a nearby stereo. There were no real curtains up, rather 'E.T.' sheets put up to block the sun on a hot summer day, and left there since. There were diskettes strewn about the bed and floor. The 486's cover was off, and was propped up in the corner. The chassis was open with wires running to a hard drive that sat on the ledge of the desk. The telephone rang, and the caller was greeted with a high pitched sound. The carriers mixed and went silent. Kabe, who had been sitting on a chair, playing his bass guitar to the music, looked up to see who the caller was. "Login:" flashed across the screen. Kabe leaned his bass across the bed. It slid slowly off and fell to the floor with a large thump. Kabe's face showed a sudden look of pain, but paid no attention and returned his eyes to the dust-ridden screen. "Welcome back, Hacker X. Steve Wozniak is on the other node." At the main BBS prompt, he entered 'C' for Chat mode. The computer began to make a horrid squealing sound. It was obvious that this program was written on an INFERIOR machine and was meant to run much slower. Kabe reached for the keyboard, but hit a nearby glass of 'Kool-Aid', spilling it into his diskette box. He glanced at the mess and grimmaced, then muttered, 'Ah screw it, I have backups'. "Hey, Kabe, what's up?ga Not much here. I was just trying to figure out all of the notes in 'Cabo Wabo'. Oh, Cool. Anyhow, are you done with my hard drive? I am going to need it back soon. You said that you only needed it TEMPORARILY.. Oh... You need it back now? Oh, ok. Well, let me back it up and I will bring it over later, how's that?" At this point, Kabe leans back in his chair and his knees hit the underside of the table. The hard drive, which until now has rested on the edge of the desk, topples off and slams onto the floor. 'Uh, oh', he muttered. "Uh, Luke? Yeah? Uh, I just had some sort of hard drive crash.... Oh, well, back up what you can and do a low-level. Uh, that's gonna be kinda hard to do....." *-------------------------------------------------------------------* | Kalib Sumter 2510 Wittkop Way #2; Sacramento, CA 95825 | | Internet k...@sactoh0.SAC.CA.US | *-------------------------------------------------------------------* -- *-------------------------------------------------------------------* | Kalib Sumter 2510 Wittkop Way #2; Sacramento, CA 95825 | | Internet k...@sactoh0.SAC.CA.US | *-------------------------------------------------------------------*
Re: Story
Author: adu... Allan Duncan
Date: Mon, 24 Sep 1990 05:20
Date: Mon, 24 Sep 1990 05:20
26 lines
1736 bytes
1736 bytes
>From article <40...@sactoh0.SAC.CA.US>, by k...@sactoh0.SAC.CA.US (Kalib N. Sumter):
[much story deleted]
> At this point, Kabe leans back in his chair and his knees hit the
> underside of the table. The hard drive, which until now has rested on the
> edge of the desk, topples off and slams onto the floor.
In this lab we have pedestals on top of the benches (you put a CRO or a
sig-gen up there and keep the workspace uncluttered). Well, I kept the
CP/M machine up there too, and had a disk drive sitting outside the case
whilst aligning it. At some stage it got knocked when not connected to
any cables and it went over the back (island bench) onto the lino
covered concrete floor, making an indentation in the lino.
The head alignment moved a little, but the main damage was the drive
motor, which had its shaft press fitted to the _heavy_ rotor. Refitting
it made it functional, but the bearings sounded a bit rough (so did
brand new ones - don't know why).
The drive still continues to give service! ( YE Data - good solid
construction).
Allan Duncan ACSnet a.duncan@trl.oz
(03) 541 6708 ARPA a.duncan%...@uunet.uu.net
UUCP {uunet,hplabs,ukc}!munnari!trl.oz!a.duncan
Telecom Research Labs, PO Box 249, Clayton, Victoria, 3168, Australia.
Thread Navigation
This is a paginated view of messages in the thread with full content displayed inline.
Messages are displayed in chronological order, with the original post highlighted in green.
Use pagination controls to navigate through all messages in large threads.
Back to All Threads