Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!bu-cs!purdue!decwrl!sun!pitstop!sundc!seismo!uunet!mcvax!ukc!stl!stc!idec!camcon!mfr
From: mfr@camcon.co.uk (Mike Richardson)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Computer Follies
Message-ID: <1962@titan.camcon.co.uk>
Date: 22 Sep 88 10:50:36 GMT
Organization: Cambridge Consultants Ltd., Cambridge, UK
Lines: 20

An earlier folly mentions watering some bit of computer equipment. I once
spilt a cup of coffee into the electronics on a drum line printer. OOps, I
though, as the output became scrambled, I'm going to have to admit to this.

However, on closed inspection, the line lengths were OK and the line and
page throws were still correct, just the printing characters mixed up, so
it looked like the coffee had just got to the circuits controlling the
print hammer timing. Intrigued, I peered closer and, after a minute or so,
some characters seemed to be coming out correctly.

I quickly set some more print jobs going, to keep the machine busy, and,
lo-and-behold, over a few minutes, everything gradually corrected itself.
Phew, I got away with it, and the printer worked fine until scrapped a few
years ago.


On a different note, there was a report in a computer paper here a few
years ago about an operator who had been sacked (dismissed) after being
discovered one night shift with his car in the computer room, having
removed several of the false floor panels to use as a work pit!