Re: Sparkies...
In the 1990s I was helping set up a Unix system which was to connect to (among others) a group of three intelligent terminals in an office 900+ miles away from the host. The connection was via a set of statistical multiplexors over a dedicated line leased from the national telco. As it was a dedicated, point-to-point line, there were no telephone numbers associated with it.
The sparkies at the remote office called me at the main office and said things were ready to go. I hooked my stuff up and enabled logins on those three RS-232C ports, called the secretaries at the remote office and had them (try to) log in, but they got nothing on-screen. I had them tap the Enter key a couple of times, and got nothing on the host end. Yup, their terminals' status lines showed connectivity with their stat mux, and my serial line monitor showed connectivity between the host and the stat mux in the main office. Gettys were running on the correct three ports, and my serial port monitors showed correct RS-232C signal statuses.
On each end, between the stat mux and the actual line connection was a CSU/DSU box, which was not in my area of knowledge. I looked at ours, and noted a green LED lit, and a red LED lit. I called the guy who knew about the CSU/DSU, and he said something was wrong with the line.
I had the remote secretaries hand their phone to the head sparky on-site, told him what I knew, and he replied, "The line's good, I checked it and it's got tone."
Me: "It's a dedicated line. It's not supposed to have tone."
Head Sparky: "Oh."
Three days later they got it fixed.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
