Inadvertent Van de Graff generator
Similar tale from a couple of decades ago:
A clean room with ESD conductive flooring, lots of high speed (for the time) opto-electronics components and a very expensive high-speed oscilloscope. On a trolley. With rubber wheels. Bring the 'scope over to investigate circuit board not quite working properly, apply probes, suddenly circuit board is working even less well than it did.
Eventual realisation that conductive floor + rotating rubber wheels + conductive trolley = Van de Graff generator.
Solution? Attach a small chain to the trolley frame that drags on the floor....
Apocryphality rating? Well, this is the story I was told when I asked why all the equipment trolleys had little chains attached to them that dragged along the floor...
Biting the hand that feeds IT
