Subject: Re: computer follies

From: [email-masked] (Mitchell Wyle)
Date: 17 Oct 88 11:21:33 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Frank Wales) writes:
>In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Tom Almy) writes:
[...stuff deleted...]

Using the Boyer-Moore theorem prover on our network of 12 Crays, I was
seconds away from finishing a statistical text analysis algorithm which
derives the true conceptual meaning of all Indo-European languages and
dialects, effectively solving all performance problems in information
retrieval systems.  The forces invading from the Zuerich international
airport chose that moment to cut all power to the University, and
mortar shells were falling outside our building seconds later.

Luckily, our solar-powered, diesel-backed, quantum-predicting energized
deflecto-modulators kicked in femtoseconds BEFORE the power-failure
(elements of the system move faster than light), saving all 17
Terabytes of Cray Core and all 831 Terrabytes of index files my program
was using.  With projectiles exploding and whistling ever closer, I
decided on the final corrections through my brain-implant interface and
ran for the bomb shelters, knowing that the DWIN (Do-What-I-Need)
User-interface would finish cross-compiling my system for all processor
architectures from 4-bit Casio-watches and  HP hand-helds up through
Connection Machines CM-2s.

The autonomous tanks started using their armor-piercing rounds on the upper
floors of the computing center but...
-- 
-Mitchell F. Wyle            [email-masked]
Institut fuer Informatik     [email-masked]
ETH Zentrum                  
8092 Zuerich, Switzerland    +41 1 256-5237

---

From: [email-masked] (William R. Somsky)
Date: 20 Oct 88 00:49:31 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Mitchell Wyle) writes:
> ... Luckily, our solar-powered, diesel-backed, quantum-predicting energized
> (elements of the system move faster than light), ...

  That reminds me of the Sidrat 4200 machine we used to have.
(Came in a big blue box, about 1 meter x 1 meter x 2.5 meters.)
It had a tachyonic line-voltage monitor that would generated a
"power-failure-immenent" interrupt two seconds before the actual
failure to allow time for the machine to bring itself down gently.

  One day, one of our system programmers got the idea to make the
power-interrupt interrupt-handler REALLY rock-solid.  He designed
everything into it he could think of to protect the system:  core
dump for later retrival, full disk backup onto holographic media,
etc., etc., etc.  He even included a final disconnect_power_mains
routine ("to protect the power supply from line transients").

  Since the machine had full tensor architecture, this could all
easily be done in the alloted two seconds warning time.  In fact,
it took just 0.978 seconds.  So, a full second before the power-
failure, the computer was backed-up, shut-down and POWERED-DOWN.

  Of course, the line-voltage monitor detected this power shutdown
two seconds before it happened and initiated a power-failure interrupt
THREE seconds before the real power failure.  But the power shutdown
>From that one was detected as well, and ...

  The net result was that the machine shut itself off a full hour
before it was even turned on!

------------------------------------------------------------------------
William R. Somsky                          Physics Dept ; Princeton Univ
[email-masked]                 PO Box 708 ; Princeton NJ 08544