Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.PCS 1/10/84; site ahuta.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxj!houxm!ahuta!dmt From: dmt@ahuta.UUCP (d.tutelman) Newsgroups: net.micro Subject: Re: an old idea whose time has come again Message-ID: <377@ahuta.UUCP> Date: Fri, 18-Jan-85 08:12:34 EST Article-I.D.: ahuta.377 Posted: Fri Jan 18 08:12:34 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 19-Jan-85 01:17:17 EST References: <593@houxn.UUCP> Organization: AT&T Information Systems Labs, Holmdel NJ Lines: 19 REFERENCES: <593@houxn.UUCP> Gee, diagnostics by ear. I have a similar story from software development for the #1ESS at the Indian Hill Bell Labs. We could tell if our software was about to crash the system if the relays in the trunk circuits started clicking in a certain pattern. We could sometimes halt things when they did that, in time to get a meaningful diagnostic dump (which you couldn't do AFTER it crashed). The reason was that the system recovery software (NOT part of what we were writing) was doing some reinitialization on the hardware if our programs went just a little insane. Dave PS - We also had an interesting visual diagnostic tool: an oscilloscope set up to display memory references as X-Y points on the screen. By watching the pattern on the screen, it was possible to detect impending disaster even faster than by listening to the clicks; however, you couldn't do this solo and still run the console.