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To: martin_fierro

I’ve seen one to almost rival those. Many years ago I worked at a PC shop as a programmer/PC fixer/customer rep, and one of my sites was a ready-mix concrete plant. I’d had to install a multi-user system—one Compaq Deskpro 386/25 PC, two terminals (SCO Unix, baby)—in the office, which was occupied by two of the most godawfully stupid women I’ve ever met.

Anyway, several months later, they called and said the system had stopped working and could we please fix it? So our usual PC tech went out there and brought the Compaq back in. When he popped the case, we were appalled. 6+ months of being in a closed cinderblock office with two two-pack-a-day chainsmokers, combined with the air being saturated with cement dust, meant that the entire motherboard was BROWN. It looked about like your picture of that front panel. All the ICs were just lumps in a fuzzy brown stinking nicotine blanket. Their tape backup drive, which had had the same tape in it for the entire time (as they were too stupid to remember the instructions we gave them about backups), was jammed with brown dust and wrecked. We had to drag the thing outside and use high-pressure air to blow out the entire inside, and when we did, this gigantic cloud of smoker byproducts and rock dust went flying. It was hideous.

IIRC we had to replace the tape drive (which had quit working months earlier and they didn’t tell us about it), the motherboard, and the floppy drive as a precaution. By the grace of God the hard drive still worked and they hadn’t needed the tape backup.

}:-)4


4 posted on 05/16/2010 4:24:37 AM PDT by Moose4 (November 2, 2010--the day that "YES WE CAN" becomes "OH NO YOU DIN'T")
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To: Moose4
Many years ago ... Compaq Deskpro 386/25 PC, two terminals (SCO Unix, baby)

Many years ago? Boy, I'll say.

7 posted on 05/16/2010 4:34:48 AM PDT by martin_fierro (< |:)~)
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