Teletype catching fire [was: technical question]
Vincent Trouilliez
vincent.trouilliez at modulonet.fr
Mon May 23 14:17:55 UTC 2005
> It's not that much of a story really. Back in the late 70's I was
> working for a team here at the University writing operating systems (the
> system was called MUSS and is described in a couple of papers in
> Software Practise and Experience, Volume 9, Number 8, August, 1979).
>
> We had a machine whose main interface was one of these ASR-33 teletypes.
> These things are highly mechanical and driven by a largish electric
> motor.
>
> The nature of the work was such that we did most of our development over
> night and to keep the team informed, everything was recorded in a log
> book.
>
> I came in one morning when my colleagues had been working through the
> night to discover that the teletype had been replaced and there was a
> note in the log book saying 'terminal caught fire'. The entry was timed
> somewhere near to 5 o'clock in the morning.
>
> It seems that all this night work was just too much for this device, and
> the motor burned out creating a deal of smoke and even more worry for my
> colleagues.
>
> The teletype got replaced by a VDU (really modern). The problem I then
> had was I spent months getting the driver for this VDU to work properly.
>
> So there you have it.
>
> Regards,
> Tony.
Thanks for sharing Tony :-)
--
Vince
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