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Re: Still Going - IRS Still Using JFK-Era Computers

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On 2024-08-20, Don_from_AZ <djatechNOSPAM@comcast.net.invalid> wrote:

> Maybe during the summer sessions air conditioning was useful, but most
> of the year in Troy what you needed was HEAT! For a couple of years I
> lived down on River St and had to walk up the hill past West Hall and
> clear to the other side of campus to work at the Freshman dining hall
> for breakfast at about 6 AM. One of the banks downtown had a
> time/temperature display, and I remember one week straight where it
> never got above -20F when I walked by.
>
> That's why I live in Arizona!

There's this myth - fortunately fading now - that the purpose of
air conditioning is not to make a room comfortable, but to make
it COLD.  If you have to wear a thick sweater in August, the air
conditioning is being overdone.  Myths of operators storing beer
under the false floor notwithstanding, there's no reason to keep
the computer room uncomfortably cold.  (I've never worked with
cryogenic systems, but presumably they insulate the parts that
have to be really cold and leave the rest of the room alone.)

I used to get into "thermostat wars" in some shops.  I would
surreptitiously sneak the thermostat up to a comfortable level;
the machine didn't mind as long as the temperature was reasonably
cool and - most importantly - steady.  The regular staff would
discover the modified setting, have a fit, and turn it back down
to its original arctic setting.

At one PPOE we didn't even think we had a thermostat; the air
conditioning always ran full bore, and we'd turn it off at the
end of the day along with the computer.  One Friday evening,
the last person to leave (me) forgot to turn off the air
conditioner.  When we returned on Monday morning the room
was so cold you could almost see your breath condensing.
The oil in the disk drives' hydraulic actuators had congealed,
and the heads wouldn't load.  We had to let everything spin
for a couple of hours until things warmed up enough to run.
Eventually I did find the thermostat; it was in the crawl
space under the machine room (and below the real floor under
the false floor).  It was turned all the way down.  I set it
to something sane, and life was good - or at least better.

At another shop, the computer shared a tiny room with a huge
air conditioner.  Everything was turned off at the end of the
day, and turned on again the next morning.  The machine was
quite flaky.  One day a CE came in to look at it, and when
he pulled one of the circuit boards, a VLSI chip fell out.
The thermal cycling had caused it to walk right out of its
socket.  We started leaving everything on 24/7, and the
machine ran reliably after that.

It's not just computers that get thermal shock - witness
the number of summertime colds that result from going
back and forth between blazing hot weather outdoors and
brutally air-conditioned buildings.

-- 
/~\  Charlie Gibbs                  |  We'll go down in history as the
\ /  <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid>      |  first society that wouldn't save
 X   I'm really at ac.dekanfrus     |  itself because it wasn't cost-
/ \  if you read it the right way.  |  effective.  -- Kurt Vonnegut

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Still Going - IRS Still Using JFK-Era Computers "186282@ud0s4.net" <186283@ud0s4.net> - 2024-08-17 22:01 -0400
  Re: Still Going - IRS Still Using JFK-Era Computers vallor <vallor@cultnix.org> - 2024-08-18 02:24 +0000
    Re: Still Going - IRS Still Using JFK-Era Computers "186282@ud0s4.net" <186283@ud0s4.net> - 2024-08-17 23:07 -0400
      Re: Still Going - IRS Still Using JFK-Era Computers Louis Krupp <lkrupp@invalid.pssw.com.invalid> - 2024-08-26 13:29 -0600
    Re: Still Going - IRS Still Using JFK-Era Computers Woozy Song <suzyw0ng@outlook.com> - 2024-08-21 19:25 +0800
      Ancient Linux (was: Re: Still Going - IRS Still Using JFK-Era Computers) vallor <vallor@cultnix.org> - 2024-08-21 12:37 +0000
  Re: Still Going - IRS Still Using JFK-Era Computers rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2024-08-18 03:45 +0000
    Re: Still Going - IRS Still Using JFK-Era Computers "186282@ud0s4.net" <186283@ud0s4.net> - 2024-08-18 00:52 -0400
    Re: Still Going - IRS Still Using JFK-Era Computers Don_from_AZ <djatechNOSPAM@comcast.net.invalid> - 2024-08-18 08:27 -0700
      Re: Still Going - IRS Still Using JFK-Era Computers "186282@ud0s4.net" <186283@ud0s4.net> - 2024-08-19 23:59 -0400
        Re: Still Going - IRS Still Using JFK-Era Computers rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2024-08-20 04:39 +0000
          Re: Still Going - IRS Still Using JFK-Era Computers Don_from_AZ <djatechNOSPAM@comcast.net.invalid> - 2024-08-20 07:47 -0700
            Re: Still Going - IRS Still Using JFK-Era Computers Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2024-08-20 18:28 +0000
              Re: Still Going - IRS Still Using JFK-Era Computers rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2024-08-20 19:27 +0000
                Re: Still Going - IRS Still Using JFK-Era Computers Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2024-08-21 07:35 +0000
            Re: Still Going - IRS Still Using JFK-Era Computers rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2024-08-20 19:16 +0000
            Re: Still Going - IRS Still Using JFK-Era Computers Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2024-08-21 07:34 +0000
    Re: Still Going - IRS Still Using JFK-Era Computers Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2024-08-19 02:01 +0000
      Re: Still Going - IRS Still Using JFK-Era Computers rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2024-08-19 20:59 +0000
        Re: Still Going - IRS Still Using JFK-Era Computers "186282@ud0s4.net" <186283@ud0s4.net> - 2024-08-19 21:34 -0400
          Re: Still Going - IRS Still Using JFK-Era Computers Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2024-08-21 07:32 +0000
  Re: Still Going - IRS Still Using JFK-Era Computers Rich <rich@example.invalid> - 2024-08-18 17:26 +0000
    Re: Still Going - IRS Still Using JFK-Era Computers Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> - 2024-08-19 11:25 -0400
  Re: Still Going - IRS Still Using JFK-Era Computers John McCue <jmccue@magnetar.jmcunx.com> - 2024-08-18 19:54 +0000
    Re: Still Going - IRS Still Using JFK-Era Computers Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2024-08-19 02:02 +0000
      Re: Still Going - IRS Still Using JFK-Era Computers John McCue <jmccue@reddwf.jmcunx.com> - 2024-08-19 14:45 +0000
  Re: Still Going - IRS Still Using JFK-Era Computers Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> - 2024-08-19 09:39 +0100
    Re: Still Going - IRS Still Using JFK-Era Computers jgd@cix.co.uk (John Dallman) - 2024-08-19 20:09 +0100
    Re: Still Going - IRS Still Using JFK-Era Computers rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2024-08-19 20:56 +0000
      Re: Still Going - IRS Still Using JFK-Era Computers "186282@ud0s4.net" <186283@ud0s4.net> - 2024-08-19 21:43 -0400
    Re: Still Going - IRS Still Using JFK-Era Computers "186282@ud0s4.net" <186283@ud0s4.net> - 2024-08-19 21:36 -0400

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