> I'll see your fluro starter and raise  you a line of metal can transistors
> in the lab power sockets and then turn the mains on.

Hmm, the things we do when young and silly.

I was a lab boy in the physics lab during my last year of secondary school.
We had all sorts of equipment for doing the experiments described in the
PSSC Physics curriculum (anyone remember this course back in the mid 1960's
?). One of the items was a large bench power supply, capable of 3 outlets,
each going to 30V at 30A, AC or DC. The voltage control was a variac, and a
simple bridge rectifier was switched in for the DC mode. We had great fun
using this to try arc welding the vertical rods of test tube stands
together, and all sorts of other weird and wonderful experiments in our
lunch hours.

As for "professional" situation stories, I also have one. The company I
worked for decided to install the first of a new line of computers it
decided to try and sell, in the head office building, which was a
multi-storey one in downtown Wellington, New Zealand. This machine consisted
of a single rack unit for the CPU, with a CDC disc drive in a separate
cabinet. A low raised floor was fitted for the equipment to sit on, so that
all the cabling could be "underfloor". This meant that the rack unit had to
be lifted up, and there was minimal clearance to the suspended ceiling,
which got the inevitable knock or two. Next thing the fire alarm goes, and
the whole building empties of people, to await the arrival of the fire
service to declare the building safe, and everyone troops back in. Some more
fiddling with the machine and again a knock or two on the ceiling, another
fire alarm, and repeat evacuation. In due course it was discovered that the
fire sensor just above where the computer was being installed had the wires
to the alarm panel just twisted together, not even in a piece of "chocolate
block" screw connector, and the bumps the ceiling received were enough to
disturb the connection and set of the alarm.

--
http://www.piclist.com#nomail Going offline? Don't AutoReply us!
email listserv@mitvma.mit.edu with SET PICList DIGEST in the body