[ale] Up for 1 year

[James P. Kinney III]

On Mon, 2003-09-22 at 10:37, Geoffrey wrote:

> > The friend that introduced me to Linux had a Slackware box that had been
> > up for nearly 2 years. The department was moving to a new building and
> > it was going to need to be switched off. We spent nearly a week toying
> > with ways to keep power applied safely while the box was carried down 5
> > floors and 2 blocks down the street to the basement of the new science
> > center at GSU. The limiting factors were : it was not already on a UPS
> > (they were still VERY expensive in 1995 for a University budget for a
> > grad student computer) and it was already powered up so soldering jumper
> > leads to existing power connectors while powered on just didn't seem
> > like a good idea.
> > 
> > End result was safety won out and we powered it off. :(
> 
> wimps.

HEY!! We were more concerned about trashing the box! We actually cut
into live power lines on an extra machine to see if it was possible to
add a pair of 3-prong plugs to support changing extension cords while we
went down 5 flights of stairs, down 2 city blocks, across one heavily
trafficked street, and then back down another flight of steps to the new
lab room. The problem was electrical. Different supply lines had
different voltages and different ground connections. We burned up 5 or 6
power supplies making the transitions between buildings. We considered
running a REALLY long cord but the transition to the new building power
was the impossible one. It was actually out of phase with the building
across the street. So we would have needed a phase-modulating power
supply to interface between the AC supply and the pc power supply. We
had one in the department, but we were expressly forbidden from using it
or any other equipment currently in use by any research professor on any
project. 

And you called us wimps! 
-- 
James P. Kinney III          \Changing the mobile computing world/
CEO & Director of Engineering \          one Linux user         /
Local Net Solutions,LLC        \           at a time.          /
770-493-8244                    \.___________________________./
http://www.localnetsolutions.com

GPG ID: 829C6CA7 James P. Kinney III (M.S. Physics)
<jkinney at localnetsolutions.com>
Fingerprint = 3C9E 6366 54FC A3FE BA4D 0659 6190 ADC3 829C 6CA7
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