[oclug] OT: Famous Blue-Screens of Death

[doug at jumpgate.homeip.net]

On 30 Apr 2001, at 15:51, Dave Edwards wrote:

> Andrew Hutton wrote:
> > Yep, and the ironic thing... last time I was coming home from Swansea
> > I ran into a similar BSOD at Heathrow.
> > 
> > Makes you wonder about some of the people making the decisions if the
> > SAME problem is happening for more than 2 years in somewhere as anal as
> > a British Airport.
> 
> It made me wonder what the ``you-can-set-your-watch-by-it'' airports in
> Zurich or Geneva run.  That brought to mind something told me by a friend
> with a connection at CERN, cradle of the WWW, among other things: 
> apparently the Swiss banks are so conservative and fearful of change
> (unless it rattles) that they are still each running a floor of old VAXen
> as their IT backbone, and are still disinclined to change anything.
> 
And what, exactly, is wrong with VAXen? I'd say there's a very 
good reason (stability) for them to still be there.  :-)

<<completely off-topic bit>>

At my former employer, one of my associates heard water running 
while sitting in her cube next to the data center.  She opened the 
data center door to find water pouring from a broken pipe right into 
the primary mail hub (a MicroVAX 3400).  And mail was still getting 
through!

After dropping the power, shutting off the water, and drying 
everything out, we had a DEC rep check everything over, and after 
replacing one "questionable" card, the box was put back on line.  It 
stayed up and running until the VMS based mail system was 
replaced several years later.