back to article A nice cup of tea rewired the datacenter and got things working again

Many folks start their day with the gentle stimulus of tea or coffee. But each Friday morning The Register offers a different way to kickstart your brain: a fresh serve of On Call, the reader-contributed column in which you share stories of trying to bring tech back to life and we try to tell them in an amusing fashion. This …

  1. Blergh

    There is a proper way to do most things

    "feel free to brew me a mug of strong Earl Grey with half a teaspoon of sugar and full cream milk"

    What the Hell!!!!!

    Even using a mug is just plain wrong. However, if you've found something that works for you, then so be it.

    1. Captain Hogwash

      Re: There is a proper way to do most things

      As another commentard said on here many moons ago, "Brew what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law".

      1. DancesWithPoultry
        Megaphone

        Re: There is a proper way to do most things

        Yeah, but Earl Grey isn't tea.

        It's talcum powder.

    2. Neil Barnes Silver badge
      Pint

      Re: There is a proper way to do most things

      A mug is fine - provided its a porcelain mug, of course, and the contents are lapsang souchong, no milk, no sugar.

      Though this is also accepable --->

      1. Joe W Silver badge

        Re: There is a proper way to do most things

        You drink beer out of a porcellain mug?! (sorry...)

        I drink Darjeeling FTGFOP[1] (far too good for ordinary people :p ), but 1. quite strong 2. in large quantities and 3. out of a mug. No sugar no milk, no lemon.

        Life is too short to drink bad tea.

        [1] ok, or autumnal - which has a more aromatic taste. Or nice gunpowder tea, or - what my tea shop recommended - Java (which does not become bitter in a thermos mug, which I sometimes use). Earl Grey is an abomination unto Nuggan and shall be shunned.

        1. UCAP Silver badge
          Thumb Up

          Re: There is a proper way to do most things

          +1 for the PTerry reference!

        2. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

          Re: There is a proper way to do most things

          Darjeeling is my preferred tea in the afternoon, but at work I stick to Keemun black tea. No matter how strong you make it, it never turns bitter

        3. ibmalone

          Re: There is a proper way to do most things

          Thompson's Punjana, which can handily also be used to treat fencing. I've tried Barry's (the southern equivalent, no, not England), and will concede it also does the job. Fortnum and Mason (yes, England) do an Irish Breakfast tea and while they seem to have got the general idea they haven't quite got the spirit of it.

          (Okay, will admit to drinking Thompson's signature or Irish breakfast in preference, as more than one cup of punjana has a bizarre drying effect, I swear it's got stronger.)

          1. l8gravely

            Re: There is a proper way to do most things

            On the left side of the Pond, where my late departed Brit mother only drank coffee, I got introduced to Tea at a young age and have loved it ever since. So far the best of the best for day to day is "Tetley's British Blend" closely followed by "Yorkshire Gold". Guess where Mum came from! :-)

          2. mirachu Bronze badge

            Re: There is a proper way to do most things

            Going to guess tannins are to blame. They are known for drying your mouth.

        4. Muscleguy

          Re: There is a proper way to do most things

          Russian Caravan tea* no milk, no sugar but lemon is my idea of tea heaven.

          *Long leaf black tea which has been slighly lapsanged.

        5. Captain Hogwash
          Coffee/keyboard

          Re: There is a proper way to do most things

          Darjeeling? Strong?

          It's very nice but strong is never a word I'd associate with it. Assam is another story.

        6. Scene it all

          Re: There is a proper way to do most things

          "You drink beer out of a porcellain mug?! (sorry...)"

          I have had beer out of a porcelain mug. It was in Germany, where they do such things.

      2. Muscleguy

        Re: There is a proper way to do most things

        I have a white porcelain tea mug with A Brew Will See You Through on it. Put a brew in it and you can see it through the mug.

    3. KittenHuffer Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: There is a proper way to do most things

      There is only one way .... and that is the standard way!

      ---------> Just nipping out for a hot one! What do you mean, I'm not allowed?!?

      1. Tim99 Silver badge
        Boffin

        Re: There is a proper way to do most things

        Alternatively, the Royal Society of Chemistry may well have the definitive method for black tea with milk: archive.org, 2003.

        It appears that adding the milk *first* allows the tea's bitter polyphenols to combine with the milk's proteins and fats; adding the milk last denatures it and prevents this reaction. You may prefer a more bitter brew, but the milk first method can avoid the need to add sucrose.

        1. JulieM Silver badge
          Boffin

          Re: There is a proper way to do most things

          If you added milk to the tea, how can it be black?

          1. Tim99 Silver badge

            Re: There is a proper way to do most things

            Er, because it is black tea that you add to milk? Not, say, white tea (China or Fujian White); or green tea, with milk (yuk).

      2. JulieM Silver badge
        Boffin

        Re: There is a proper way to do most things

        There are at least as many right ways to make tea as there are people who drink tea.

        Which means if an unscrupulous person were selling something like a washing powder claiming to remove 100% of tea stains, or tea-proof protective covers for sensitive equipment, they potentially could influence the result by making the tea a certain way and subsequently deny responsibility for the failure of the product to behave as advertised on the grounds that the complainant was making the wrong sort of tea. O.K., it's not quite as serious as Diesel-engined vehicles producing dangerous emissions except under unrealistic driving conditions; but there is still potential for many hours to be wasted in court.

        This is the main purpose of having a standardised cup of tea: Not so much for anyone to drink, and indeed it is the fate of most cups of tea prepared according to The Standard not to be drunk; but for ensuring repeatability when testing the way other products behave in the presence of tea, by ensuring the tea is the same every time, no matter who is carrying out the tests or what the product is. It's at once all about the tea, and not about the tea.

        Icon: I've worked in product testing in a previous life -- although tea resistance did not feature in any of the test specifications.

    4. Anonymous Coward Silver badge
      Holmes

      Re: There is a proper way to do most things

      > "feel free to brew me a mug of strong Earl Grey with half a teaspoon of sugar and full cream milk"

      It's just trolling. Ignore it

    5. MrXonTR
      Holmes

      "feel free to brew me a mug of strong Earl Grey with half a teaspoon of sugar and full cream milk"

      Fetch me my fighting trousers!

      - https://youtu.be/0iRTB-FTMdk

      1. an it guy

        Re: "feel free to brew me a mug of strong Earl Grey with....

        How has no one mentioned Pu Ehr tea. Jet black from the first cup till about the 8th refresh of water (or the 3rd full pot of tea), and can be steeped fro God knows how long without tasting bitter, ever.

        And it's got more caffeine than other teas.

        So earl grey with milk and sugar can be made to walk off a very short plank.

        Remove the sugar and milk and I'll accept it

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: "feel free to brew me a mug of strong Earl Grey with....

          Beautiful Pu Erh. I came across it by accident, and then learned to like it.

          Regrettably it does not look like a black or brown brew.

          Almost translucent.

          1. FIA Silver badge

            Re: "feel free to brew me a mug of strong Earl Grey with....

            Thank you, I've just added that to the list, sounds very interesting.

            With all this tea talk it's probably worth mentioning High Teas who do some lovely brews.

            The Buckingham Palace Garden Party is a personal fav, as is the Rwandan Rukeri Estate.

      2. Evil Scot Bronze badge
        Holmes

        Raise my pinky finger to you sir

        How was I supposed to know it was Princess Ann.

        Please don't ask what's in my pipe

    6. dr.k

      Re: There is a proper way to do most things

      And, use the leftover tea leaves to fertilize your rose plants. You can upvote me later!

    7. Groodles
      Megaphone

      Re: There is a proper way to do most things

      Earl Grey? With milk and sugar you say?

      Heathen!

    8. anothercynic Silver badge

      Re: There is a proper way to do most things

      MILK? With Earl Grey? Who *is* this heathen?!?!

      A squeeze of lemon, sugar as you prefer, but *never* milk in Earl or Lady Grey tea. Ever! That's heresy!

      And yes, same with Lapsang Souchong. No milk anywhere near that tea!

  2. mtrantalainen

    Great story and it also shows why all modern servers should be running with UPS. If that had been case here, the log would have shown that UPS had to fix the power every now and then which is much more easy to diagnose than random crash out of blue.

    And it might be onpopular opinion but I actually prefer my Earl Grey tea with nonfat milk. I think using milk with fat hides some of the flavor of the tea. And I use at least one full spoon of sugar, too.

    1. uccsoundman

      Didn't we have a tea party up in Boston?

      American here: I tried Earl Grey and really didn't like it. It tasted like perfume to me. I like my super-strong Chai tea (tastes like mulled cider). But for everyday consumption I prefer whatever tea Lipton is. If I drink it hot, I change between black and some milk and touch of sugar. But I'm from the South, and the official beverage of the American South is STRONG Lipton tea, over ice, with about a pound of sugar. Iced tea is my preferred beverage too, but diabetes runs in my family so it is unsweetened. And iced tea has the advantage you don't have to light the kettle every day at 4pm.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Didn't we have a tea party up in Boston?

        Being a southeastern American visiting London in the early naughties, I was really missing iced tea while there. Especially when there was a heat wave. No AC, no iced tea, and over 80 °F / 27 °C temperatures? Really?

        For rightpondians, I highly recommend trying iced tea on a hot day, at least once. There's a reason it's so common in the US - it's very refreshing in warm weather.

        1. Brew a black tea using your usual method. Your choice of which. A cheap one is fine.

        2. Sweeten to taste. (US iced tea varies from tea-flavored sugar sludge all the way to totally unsweetened. Whatever you like.)

        3. Chill it. I mean actually cold, not room-temperature with one ice cube, but at refrigerator temperature. This is key.

        4. Add ice just before consuming. (Refrigerating first keeps it from being too diluted.)

        5. Sip on a hot day.

        6. Ahhhhh!

        (Note: I'm not bashing on the UK. Really, I'm not. Your hot tea is MUCH better than ours. But for hot days, try iced tea yourself and see why we drink the stuff.)

        1. Martin-73 Silver badge

          Re: Didn't we have a tea party up in Boston?

          Agreed, I like the Lipton peach iced tea

      2. dr.k

        Re: Didn't we have a tea party up in Boston?

        To the fellow American -- Chai is synonymous with tea. Chai Tea is a tautology.

        1. anothercynic Silver badge

          Re: Didn't we have a tea party up in Boston?

          Thank you! Just like naan bread. No, it's a naan. Just naan. It means bread.

  3. Little Mouse

    A cup of tea didn't literally save the day, but it did put everyone in the right frame of mind after a major unexpected power outage.

    We had time to plan the various steps of the power up - Lots of steps, lots of dependencies. What needed to be checked before we moved onto the next step, etc. All scribbled onto a whiteboard ready for when the power came back. But then we had to wait for an unknown number of hours, knowing that management would be on our backs to get everything back on as soon as possible the moment the lights came back on.

    The one key risk that we oldies wanted to avoid was flipping from half-asleep boredom to unruly excitement in a heartbeat when that happened - Too much potential for excitable engineers to power up the wrong thing at the wrong time and set us all back.

    So step one on the chart was - "Put the kettle on and have a brew.", and we took that 10 minutes to calmly go over The Plan one more time. One of the best spent 10 minutes of my working life.

    1. Return To Sender

      Yep, rush at your peril...

      Every test plan bar one that I wrote for customer IBM HA/CMP clusters included a "get well away from the keyboard" (go get tea/coffee, walk around the building, whatever) step between test phases. Because without that there was a tendency to try and get through the tests as quickly as possible, which didn't always give the cluster time to settle properly (background processes completing etc.).

      The 'bar one' that I didn't write this in for was the one where the customer's team demonstrated what happened if you didn't wait long enough.

      1. JimC

        Re: Yep, rush at your peril...

        I used to work on a Novell Directory Services installation with in excess of a hundred servers. If there was a serious problem to fix it was vital not to rush, since the databases needed time to sync up after making changes. So when there was a big fix to do I used to bring in a book, and stop and read a chapter when the directory needed to be left in peace to do its processing. Impatience was always an enemy with NDS, and reading the book took away the psychological pressure to do something when it was better to wait.

    2. BenDwire Silver badge

      And that 10 minute pause will also give a little time to make sure that the supply is stable, and not about to go back down when the original fault resurfaces.

      Even my trusty old APC UPS waits for a while before restarting after a controlled shutdown. Admittedly that's more to do with getting a bit of charge into the cells, but it's quite effective at allowing thought processes to reboot too.

    3. J.G.Harston Silver badge

      When doing electrical work my electric shock recovery plan is the same: make a cup of tea and take the time to drink it. It forces you to let your body relax and disperse the stress chemicals from the shock, and gives you time to see if any adverse effects surface. I've also used making a cuppa to time mixing mortar.

  4. drand
    Coffee/keyboard

    I hope he didn't bring his tea into the datacentre!

    Also is el Reg doing a site traffic census today. Mentioning tea, coffee, beer or bacon sandwiches is a sure-fire way to bloat the comments!

    1. Ken Shabby
      Pint

      Re: I hope he didn't bring his tea into the datacentre!

      Dip someone mention beer and bacon sandwich’s?

      1. Prst. V.Jeltz Silver badge
        Coat

        Re: I hope he didn't bring his tea into the datacentre!

        I've found you can only get so much beer into the sandwich before structural integrity is compromised.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: I hope he didn't bring his tea into the datacentre!

          The trick is to bake it into the bread, unfortunately it kills the alcohol content though

        2. M.V. Lipvig Silver badge

          Re: I hope he didn't bring his tea into the datacentre!

          Not if you use a bowl.

      2. mirachu Bronze badge

        Re: I hope he didn't bring his tea into the datacentre!

        "Sandwich's" is a possessive. You want a plural.

  5. batt-geek

    back in the early days of the UK's national lottery i worked for a company in bracknell that was involved with the networking for this new lottery; their datacenter was a glorified portacabin on stilts in the warehouse

    Everything worked well but i remember shortly before i left that we needed to add another power circuit for a digital alpha machine.

    I was down there with the sparky when he opened the large electrical distribution box at the back of the cabin; sitting in the bottom was a mug of very old, mostly dried out coffee

    "i always wondered where that mug went" was all he said, and then simply carried on adding the new wiring.

    needless to say i checked that distro box before it was sealed back up...

  6. Ian Tunnacliffe

    Tea in the machine room

    Yonks ago I worked on an IBM mainframe installation in Kuwait. At that time (early 80s) the economy of Kuwait was founded, not on oil as many mistakenly believed, but on car crashes, photography and sticky green tea. Whenever we had a visit from an IBM hardware engineer the staff would assiduously bring him his sticky green tea in a small glass which he slammed down on top of whatever bit of kit he was working on. Having come from a very controlled data centre in west London I found this shocking and scary but I have to admit that to my knowledge it never caused a problem. At least he went out of the machine room to smoke.

  7. Sam not the Viking Silver badge
    Pint

    I'm alright, Jack.

    I've mentioned this before, but when our industrial estate suffered a general power-cut, the only things that kept operating from the UPS were our book-keeper's laptop, phone-charger, radio, desk lamp and foot-warmer. She alone was bathed in light, comforted by Radio 2...... Not for long, the UPS was over-loaded.

    Her 'office' was in the same room as the server and she had 'modified' the electrical connections to suit her personal arrangements.

    1. Pen-y-gors

      Re: I'm alright, Jack.

      Radio 2? That's a sacking offence, even if meddling with the electrics isn't.

      1. ChrisC Silver badge

        Re: I'm alright, Jack.

        Depends which era we're talking about here - today's Radio 2 listeners wouldn't recognise it from a decade or so ago, though if they'd been Radio 1 listeners at the time then they may be getting a feeling of familiarity...

        1. DancesWithPoultry
          Unhappy

          Re: I'm alright, Jack.

          If I caught myself listening to Radio 2.....

          ....I think I'd do the decent thing and politely ask to be left alone with a bottle of whisky and a service revolver.

    2. Captain Hogwash

      Re: I'm alright, Jack.

      Ah, Radio 2. Jimmy Young, Terry Wogan. Are they still on?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: I'm alright, Jack.

        No, but it seems that Radio 2 presenters move over to Greatest Hits Radio, bringing their format with them.

  8. FirstTangoInParis Bronze badge
    Mushroom

    Ye olde country house

    Many years back I was working in a lab contained in an outbuilding of an old country house, as seemed to be the fashion among Brit tech companies back then. On arrival I was shown the 3COM file server (I said it was a while back) with attached UPS. The team had discovered that putting the kettle on over-stressed the feed to the outbuilding. Likewise hoovers etc.

  9. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
    Coat

    Of course tea makes things work better

    Especially when used as a strong Brownian-motion generator with an atomic vector plotter suspended in it. Fire up the old Bambleweeny 57 Submeson brain!

    The one with the HHGTTG radio play cassette tapes in the pocket please.

    1. Kevin Johnston

      Re: Of course tea makes things work better

      Ah, so that is where my tapes went

      :)

      1. Evil Scot Bronze badge

        Re: Of course tea makes things work better

        Thank goodness you didn't leave them in the car.

        That would be a sheer heart attack.

    2. Roger Kynaston
      Coat

      Re: Of course tea makes things work better

      Yeah, but asking Eddie (I have called my test HPC cluster Eddie) to make a cup will cause it to crash.

      -->

      Ditto as I am on leave in a few hours.

  10. This post has been deleted by its author

  11. Anonymous Anti-ANC South African Coward Silver badge

    Recently we suffered a power failure to one of our sites.

    Turned out the installed battery and inverter was powered by a simple two-pin plug, and not a proper high-amperage plug.

    Of course it melted and burnt a wee bit :)

    I miss PhotonicInduction, he should come back to YT and do some proper entertainment.

    1. JollyJohn54

      I ain't 'aving it! Let's crank it up until it pops! Immortal words before krzzzzzzzz BANG.

      Lightning in the loft with 270kV or melting spanners with 3000 amps. 12 years of electrical mayhem so far and still the best intro/outro music on youtube.

      Photon's power supply https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJVNT-LkCjA

      Yes, I'm a fan.

      1. Martin-73 Silver badge
        Pint

        At least once a day, on site...

        I exclaim 'i ain't avin it, where's my 'ammer'

  12. Bebu
    Windows

    When everything has gone to the hot place in a handcart...

    A deep breath, the least repellent cup, mug, vase left unwashed in the tea room sink with hot black coffee (the buggers never replace the milk, and the 43 rat dropping brand really needs milk) and popping outside for a cancer stick with the ersatz coffee cooling gave one the chance to carefully consider the various options available.

    I wonder whether over time the frequency of serious IT cock-ups is inversely related to the incidence of lung cancer?

    After DNS it is almost always the power supply if you include wiring, leads, plugs, socket, demented UPSs and the very odd* gormless sparky. ;)

    * as in rare. Lacking gorm in a sparky is longevity limiting.

    1. Martin-73 Silver badge

      Re: When everything has gone to the hot place in a handcart...

      Every sparky has off days, for some unfortunates, it's the last day

      1. M.V. Lipvig Silver badge
        Flame

        Re: When everything has gone to the hot place in a handcart...

        Sounds like a great recruiting slogan for sparkys.

        "Become a Journeyman Electrician - you'll love every day on the job, except one!"

  13. Andy The Hat Silver badge

    "No, it probably couldn't run Crysis. It's a wonder it could run anything."

    Oh ye of little faith! Have you never run Colossal Cave on an RM380Z? Or an entire finance system on a similar system that has been "upgraded" to dual drives?

    I even remember writing a simulator to plot the the motion of charged particles in combined electric and magnetic fields on one of those.

    We ran a multi-user terminal system that was a set of Z80 boards on a common bus sharing a single 8" boot/storage floppy ...

    Believe it or not, most operating systems fitted on a single floppy disk with space to spare and we didn't insist on pretty graphical front ends, just tools that did the job.

    Just pulling my blanket over my knees and warming my hands on my cocoa ...

    1. GlenP Silver badge

      You could actually run CAD on a single 3 1/2" floppy disk system. It probably wasn't recommended, and required quite a bit of swapping disks, but it was possible.

      1. BenDwire Silver badge
        Windows

        My first CAD system ran on a single 5¼" drive ... 360k IIRC. Dasoft 16 anyone?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          My first experience with CAD was Autocad version 11, on 5 1/4" floppies.

        2. timrowledge

          Mine was a really simple one I wrote in NS32032 assembler for a board I built, with a Pluto graphics processor and a VAX 11/730 as a disk server. And a Beeb, just because. And a 6dof input thing I made. A whole 2fps!

        3. J.G.Harston Silver badge

          My first CAD system was about 35K of code on a Beeb.

    2. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

      A Norsk Data machine of that vintage probably ran Sintran. Now there's an OS with a weird command line, I didn't need those memories to be revived.

    3. Trygve Henriksen

      I have Colossal cave on my Psion Organiser II.

  14. MJI Silver badge

    Second best?

    But I cannot think of a better hot drink than tea.

    There just is not one.

    1. John Robson Silver badge

      Re: Second best?

      The only one better than a generic tea is the specific one that's in my hand (and in the hands of those around me - I'm not a monster).

  15. Pen-y-gors

    Intensive care

    Brings to mind the old 'patients always dying in bed 3 in ICU at 8pm' tales - when the cleaner plugged her hoover into the socket used by the heart-lung machine.

  16. chivo243 Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    Not tea

    Back in the early days, my then boss, when challenged with a problem would say, grab a cuppa, I'll be back. He'd slip out to the smoking lounge(I said back in the early days!)for a cig, and he'd return, and usually have a solution by the time I was done with my tea! Fun times... I miss that guy.

    1. Fogcat

      Re: Not tea

      Back in the days when there were smoking rooms there was one in our building which was shared by everyone... cleaners to the board. I learnt so much about what was going on in the company just by sitting quietly in the corner with the reports I was reading and listening to the execs chat.

      But on the other hand a different building that also had a similar smoking room that was used by all the data entry staff (yes it was a long time ago) on their 15 minute break. If you walked into that room just after one of those breaks had finished you could barely see the opposite wall! No need to light up.

  17. AlanSh

    Tea & reminiscence

    Tea, the best tea is M&S decaffinated tea. [This may introduce some flaming]. It's smooth, strong tasting and has no caffeine to harm the body.

    Onto things one can do with old kits. Back in 1979, we had Data General Nova 3's & Nova 1200's running RDOS - a single user text based system - and twin 5.25" floppies. I managed to get it to run a 2 user database system in Fortran with full screen data display (using assembler to put the data on the screen where it needed to be) and introduced overlays so I could get more code running. I guarenteed access to any data record in less than 1 second - and it did it. [Eat your heart out DBASE & Oracle - I had it first!!!]

    1. mirachu Bronze badge

      Re: Tea & reminiscence

      Caffeine is actually beneficial in sane amounts and assuming you're not sensitive to it.

    2. James Anderson

      Re: Tea & reminiscence

      What’s the point of necking the brown muck if there’s no caffeine in it?

      May as well be drinking Liptons,

    3. Antron Argaiv Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      Re: Tea & reminiscence

      ex-DGer here. Our engineering group of 6-8 people used a single Eclipse 130 as a timesharing (AOS) system. Serial terminals on our desks, printer in the lab, and we even ran CEO email on it. Built up from parts by someone with more experience than PFY me. This would have been early 80s. And it wasn't just email -- we ran compiles as well.

      Kids these days...

  18. Will Godfrey Silver badge
    Facepalm

    Pah! Kid's stuff

    Consider if you will, a huge cardboard box factory with lots of very small folders printers and stackers with their supplies all going back to a massive 3 phase supply. Also connected to this was a substantial ventilation system with a truly monster star wound fan motor. This entire system had run for years, with new bits of electronic-y stuff added to the individual phases over that time.

    Sadly, that big chunky fan developed a S/C on one winding, at which point it was discovered that entire setup had quite leisurely main supply fuses and a woefully inadequate neutral connection. There were bangs and flashes from nearly all the other equipment and much release of magic smoke. The factory never re-opened.

    1. ChrisC Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: Pah! Kid's stuff

      It wasn't called Pandora's, by any chance?

      1. KittenHuffer Silver badge

        Re: Pah! Kid's stuff

        Twas cardboard boxes! Not unobtanium boxes!

  19. Jess--

    The joys of a sagging mains supply.

    we used to run rides and always had big batteries on charge (for the kiddies sit on rides) and you could watch the ammeter on the chargers bounce up & down in time with the bass from the sound system not from vibration purely from the power cable dropping voltage when the sound system pulled max power.

    1. Caver_Dave Silver badge

      Lived at the end of a small village in the rural Midlands of the UK in the 1980's.

      Sunday mornings, when everyone was cooking their Roast Lunch, our 240V could be read at around 180V.

      I sent Polariod photos of the Avometer to the Electricity company, who subsequently sent a real Engineer out to look on a Sunday morning, whose comment was "bugger me, I've never seen it that bad before".

      A whole new set of cables were strung from the nearest town, in addition to the original supply. Never had a problem after that.

  20. ChrisC Silver badge

    Ah, youngsters...

    "It's a wonder it could run anything"

    Spoken like someone who's so used to accepted levels of resource wastage in current PCs that they've either forgotten or were never aware in the first place of just how capable systems *could* be when programmers were forced into making the most out of every last bit, Hz, pixel etc...

    1. Sceptic Tank Silver badge
      Alert

      Re: Ah, youngsters...

      Thank thuck those days are behind us.

      1. ChrisC Silver badge

        Re: Ah, youngsters...

        Oh yes, because I simply *love* paying for effectively a fraction of the storage space or processing power my PC says it has on paper, just because modern standards of coding are more interested in the shiny shiny and barely at all about the resources expended in achieving it.

        I mean, when I can fire up my 30 year old Amiga and be placed into an OS which *still* handles multitasking more gracefully than a PC, despite the latter now offering orders of magnitude more power to throw at the problem, then you know something is very badly wrong with how software is written these days.

        Fortunately for those of us who do still believe in the concept of efficient coding, the world of embedded systems continues to provide us with a safe place where such beliefs continue to be respected and valued.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Ah, youngsters...

          I cannot upvote these comments enough.

          There's no excuse for me to be able to type faster than the computer can handle it. Or for a document to lock Word solid for several minutes (not an exaggeration!) on opening while it thinks through the formatting. Or for a Flash ad (ok, that goes back a bit) to drag the entire machine to a halt. Or for an update to a simple 2D game to be 200 MB.

          I learned programming on TI graphing calculators About 30 kB of space - that's code, variables, images, storage, EVERYTHING - and a very slow processor. Learned to program efficiently because of it, and wish every coder was required to go through something similar!

  21. MGyrFalcon

    Bad Sparky, bad!

    We needed a new step up transformer (back fed 480D/208Y step down in D-D configuration) to power some new plasma equipment a few years ago. We put the transformer in place and our electrician came to run the feed, paired MCM500/phase. Those cables are thick and hard to deal with if you're not familiar, so I was helping out. I got into the switch gear rated 3KA@208V, sitting up, legs out the front while the electrician fed the cables to me. I wasn't being super careful assuming the cabinet was de-energized. After about 10-15 minutes of pulling wires I suddenly hear 'I wonder if I turned off the mains....'. I froze for about 5 seconds before I heard the thunk of the mains feed being cut. I crawled out and he and I stood there and shook for about 15min. I got a coffee to calm my nerves before climbing back in. Apparently the electrician had not had enough coffee/tea before starting.

    1. Contrex

      Re: Bad Sparky, bad!

      "After about 10-15 minutes of pulling wires I suddenly hear 'I wonder if I turned off the mains....'."

      I once worked for a firm where someone got a broken nose for pulling a stunt like that. And the breaker kept his job.

      1. MGyrFalcon

        Re: Bad Sparky, bad!

        Honestly, I was shaking way too hard to swing at anything. At least the electrician had the good graces to be as shook up as I was.

    2. Antron Argaiv Silver badge
      Mushroom

      Re: Bad Sparky, bad!

      When I worked for Data General, it was in the Comms (and later, Comms and Networking) Group. We occasionally had customers in Europe with offices that were made up of several older buildings, each with their own power (I think you can see where this is going). RS232 was the order of the day, networking had yet to make its appearance. Masses of serial terminals were wired into terminal multiplexer cards in the computer (Think "Eclipse", 16-bit). This *usually* worked well, as RS232 transceivers have a limited tolerance for common mode DC bias voltage. And good electrical practice (at least in the US) would have the ground (earth) conductors of all the buildings bonded together. But sometimes, this doesn't happen, and when the difference between computer and terminal common voltage references (almost always tied to local power earth/ground) is large enough, BOOM! goes the RS-232 transceiver. ..if you're lucky. If you're unlucky, the wiring begins to glow and smoke. The common reference conductor between terminal and computer is usually 22-24 AWG wire and is not designed to carry significant current. When it does, things get exciting...and expensive. This explains the optically isolated serial interfaces available from Black Box and others.

      Oh...and make mine coffee, please, and always in a ceramic mug, preferably with a vendor's logo on it.

      1. DS999 Silver badge

        Re: Bad Sparky, bad!

        I've seen ground potential differences in the SAME building, if it was added onto later and the addition had its own electrical panel and separate service entrance (I guess because that was easier than trying to retrofit things in the existing part of the building that was being used)

        1. IvyKing Bronze badge

          Re: Bad Sparky, bad!

          I was working in a building where there was a 70V difference in "ground" potential between different parts of the building. People were wondering why they were feeling tingles when hooking up the BNC's for the ARCnet connection. Apparently some electrician was swapped the ground and neutral conductors for some of the circuits between what used to be separate suites in the building.

  22. JulieM Silver badge

    The second-nicest thing in the world

    The second-nicest thing in the world is taking just a few minutes' time out from a crisis unfolding around you to brew a hard-won mug of tea under adverse circumstances, before returning to face it with renewed vigour.

    The nicest is having that aforementioned steaming mug thrust into your hands by someone who knows exactly how you like it; and whom you realise, in that moment of bonding, you can trust with your life.

    1. Anonymous Custard Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      Re: The second-nicest thing in the world

      Doubly so if aforementioned someone is your boss, or even better someone higher up the tree who is wise enough to know exactly what their role should be in such circumstances (ie support, facilitating and tea-boy - generally getting behind you and not in your way).

  23. kaseki

    Darjeeling-based Earl Grey is recommended.

    Not withstanding the Brit penchant of making dairy-neutralized tannin and calling it tea based on the plant leaves involved, a light, unadulterated, short-steeped Darjeeling Earl Grey will provide access to actual tea flavors. For this I suggest Ronnefeldt Tippy Golden Earl Grey. Drunk in the USA, ordered from the Dominion of Canada, packaged in the Federal Republic of Germany, sourced from East Bengal in the Republic of India (Bharat), this international brand yields an infusion far superior to those based on the Ceylon-derived, bergamotte-drenched, over-fermented leaves widely available.

    (This writer is not related to any person, natural or otherwise, associated with Ronnefeldt.)

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Johnny Foreigners!!!

    "world's second best hot non-alcoholic beverage"

    Tell me you're not British without telling me you're not British.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Johnny Foreigners!!!

      "I enjoy iced tea."

    2. Benegesserict Cumbersomberbatch Silver badge

      Re: Johnny Foreigners!!!

      Yeah, nah.

  25. ComicalEngineer

    Late 80s, still running DOS and Lotus Symphony in a 100 year old building ....

    Random crashes of certain PCs including the high powered "luggable" *laptop* computer used by the equally high powered American accountant who had been parachuted in to tell us how to run the company (one of the ones that had no battery but you could carry it in a suitcase- the computer, not the accountant).

    One day his computer blew a fuse and there was the unmistakeable smell of burning insulation and a small puff of magic smoke accompanied by a scream and a stream of US language investive audible all the way down the corridor.

    Turned out that the circuit that included our computers was also one of the phases which powered a large 450V, 3-phase electric motor on a high shear mixer in the adjacent building. Turning the mixer on or off caused a massive power spike through the circuit. As it was only turned on or off once or twice daily (and ran 24/7) switching on or off didn't often coincide with office hours. Oddly, the other side of the building was on a different circuit fed from another 11kV incomer.

  26. KillStuffMount
    Coat

    "two slaves attached over RS-232 with no internal storage"

    Not much point offering them a cup of tea then.

  27. Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
    Happy

    Fear and loathing and tea.

    There is nothing like seeing tea heading for powered up equipment and theres nothing you can do about except laugh because you're not responsible.

    You see we had the battery pack on a robot go down, so a quick call to a maintence tech to get him to come in and swap the old batteries for some new ones

    "Cup of tea while you work?"

    "Sure"

    And off goes an operator to make some tea (I wont do it as my tea turns out like dishwater flavoured with various industrial oils.... It is by coffee alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed, the hands acquire shakes, the shakes become a warning. It is by coffee alone I set my mind in motion)

    Tech has the back off the control cabinet in the meantime and is starting on unclipping/removing batteries... and the tea arrives. which he puts on top of the cabinet... where he's put the bolts for the cabinet...... and yes the tea goes over...... and now the stress starts.... just like many computery things, the batteries can only be swapped out while the power is on.... and a tidal wave of tea is heading for the air intake port and the main PCB..... the cursing begins ..... all we can do it stand there and watch as he lands a flailing arm in boiling hot tea in an effort to save him (and us) from an expensive bill.

    He succedes. good job there suffering 3rd degree burns just to save us a few bucks.

    But all good things come to an end, especially since my screen saver has been changed which means someone knows my password, and by someone I mean the PFY and by the PFY I mean she's going to find out what true fear means(being made to drink some tea I made will do as a start.......... )

  28. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I would say you jinked me with talking about UPSs

    But mine died before I got to this story.

  29. mmccul

    Tea count meter

    At work, I often set my status to how many cups (well, 10oz mugs) of tea I've had thus far that day, as an indicator of how stressful the day has been. People are okay at 2-3, get nervous at 4-5, start to panic anywhere above that. They also get nervous if I hit 4 cups by the 09:30 team check-in call.

    And for the record, single estate black tea from Sri Lanka or a small tuo cha (about 5-6g) of pu-erh, depending on my mood.

  30. calebdba

    Norsk Data

    Norsk Data minis: nostalgic reminder of my first IT job as a computer operator looking after 3 of those boxes (ND-100s IIRC) at a FE college in NE England. SINTRAN OS (UNIX hadn't made much of an impact yet in the sector but that would happen within a few years). A surprising amount of software available including the NOTIS-* office suite and email, Sybase database and I think AutoCAD

    8 inch floppies for most things, small HDDs unless you had deep pockets, and backups to cartridge tapes which mostly worked unless you tried to use them for too many backup cycles. Restores were fun as you had to spool through a multi tape volume until you reached the files you wanted

    No UPS (too expensive then) but they were on a separate circuit from the main office supply. And (through my rose tinted spectacles) very reliable in the main

  31. Charles E

    That Z80 rig was state of the art.

    I remember our office had a Vector Graphic MP/M system much like the one described here. Dumb terminals on desks, attached via RS-232 to the main computer, which had an insane amount of S-100 card slots and could run the new Corvus hard drives. Everyone ran Wordstar of course.

    1. Primus Secundus Tertius

      Re: That Z80 rig was state of the art.

      I had an Amstrad/Locoscript word processor (Z80 based) and added a 10MB hard disk to it. It also ran Arnor/Protext (an alternative word processor), and a Pascal compiler.

  32. Mast1
    FAIL

    "You're not using it right........."

    Slightly more recently than this story, in the days when the UK mains voltage had not harmonised with Europe, so was still 240 V (later to become a nominal 220 V).

    As a tech person, I worked in a non-tech department of a well-known university. Being the most computerised of the groups in the department, we had bought two UPS to support a small UNIX cluster.

    After a few years, as more groups acquired more mains-powered devices, come around 11 am when the kettles went on, the UPS switch in and start beeping, but mains feed is still "live". We check with the manual. which states that trip is set at 209 V.

    I found a consumer socket in the room close to the incoming feeder: yup 240 V, but 3 floors up 208 V (My reading of the then-applicable wiring regs allowed for maximum 8% voltage drop in feeders).

    I sent a report to a committee to suggest we needed re-wiring, and soon. Report rejected.

    Feedback received along the lines of "This person does not know how to use a UPS".

    It took a few more years before it was re-wired, in the meantime we had a regular alarm clock for the morning break. UPS capacity was sufficient to cover the surge.

    1. Dai Corner

      Re: "You're not using it right........."

      To be pedantic, the whole EU became nominally 230V, with suitable tolerances to ensure nothing changed but the paperwork.

  33. Paul Herber Silver badge

    Hold on there ...

    We are discussing tea and there has not yet been one mention of biscuits!

  34. Nematode

    Never mind tea, this recalls a DCS installation in a UK gas terminal years ago. I got a call on a Saturday morning saying the client was complaining that the printer was going nuts. No chance to ask what it was printing, just get on the plane we've booked you.

    Arrived on site, printer saying every few seconds that the slug catcher boot level was low-low, not it's not, yes it is...

    They'd not long restarted the plant and incoming sealine was ramping up, but the purchase spec hadn't told us the level was sometimes volatile. Added a quick something-order filter, printer quietened, back on the plane, swearing.

  35. DrBobK
    FAIL

    Wordplex - the horror, the horror!

    Wordplex was the first 'word processor' that I ever used. It was absolutely appalling. ed, and later edlin, were easier to use than the supposed 'word processor' Wordplex. I'm glad to hear that Norse Data killed.

  36. Horsie

    Am I the only one disappointed after not finding in the article a reference to finite probability drives?

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