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Yes, there's nothing quite like braving the M4 into London on the eve of a bank holiday just to eject a non-bootable floppy

Stuart Castle Silver badge

Sort related, and I've said this before, but I used to support a University computer lab.

Ten of the machines in the lab were dedicated to video editing. Standard Definition, but this was the late 90s, so outside Japan, HD wasn't an option. They were proper broadcast quality editing machines though.

They each had a £5k video editing card, that was essentially a high end PC on two cards, that had it's own external SCSI drive, and video monitor. So, each machine had two monitors, one dedicated to Video work.

One of the lecturers had booked those machines for his lectures. Now, the fact that he'd done this was annoying as he taught database design, so didn't need a high end machine, but while I could (and did) complain, it was my job to support the users of those machines, so I did that. He came in my office really panicking one day. Apparently someone had broken into the lab, and stolen a load of computers, keyboard and mice.

Being slightly concerned, as we had expensive computers in that lab, and the only entrance/exit to the lab was visible from my office, so one of us should have noticed any theft, I asked him to show me where the PCs were missing from. He took me to the video editing computers, pointed to one of the video monitors, and said look, there is no PC.

I gently explained that there were no computers missing, and that these were video monitors attached to the PCs that were there.

The thing is, while beyond the fact they had a screen, these monitors did not look at all like PC monitors (they actually looked like 14inch portable colour TVs with the tuning and sound circuitry removed, which is essentially what they were). The lecturer had also been using those computer for months.

The other thing I remember from those computers was that these cards generated a *lot* of heat, and whoever specced the computer to hold them came up with an amazingly powerful (and therefore hot) spec for the time, then decided they needed to into tiny desktop cases, with almost no ventillation. When I took over supporting them, I put my hand on the top of the case, and burned my hand.

Shortly after that, after I made the point the University was destroying computers worth over £6,000 each, by putting them in tiny cases. They were due an upgrade soon, and when they were upgrade, the University specified full size towers with plenty of ventillation.

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