[Info-vax] The best VMS features, was: Re: openvms renaming file

[Jan-Erik Söderholm]

Den 2018-05-30 kl. 16:47, skrev hammondreg at hotmail.com:
> The best VAX/VMS feature was this (which made even MY jaw-drop).
> 
> I had started teaching a SysManagers course in the Arndale Centre in
> Stretford and then things started to go swimmingly (excuse the pun)
> Arriving for work early (as ever) I glanced through the window of the
> computer room where our 11/780 was humming away as per usual, only THIS
> TIME it had 2 ft of water lapping around the base!
> 
> It appears the air-conditioning had sprung a leak in the night and was
> slowly but surely filling up the computer room; and yes - before you ask
> - all the cabling was under the floor and yes it was completely covered
> in water; and no - I wasn't brave enough to actually enter the room and
> press any buttons.
> 
> But could I still log in?  Sure as hell I could!  What a system!!!
> 

Nice storry. :-) Let me share another...

In the 80s, we had a computer room with a couple of PDP-11. The room
has some windows... One night, during a cold winter storm, one of the
windows had blown open. The water based warming system below that
window had frozen and cracked the pipes. As long as it was cold and
below 0 deg C, it was just fine.

In the morning one guy saw the opened window and simply closed it.
As soon as the temp rise above 0 deg C, the cracked pip begun to leak
water, of course. Or "leaking", it had full pressure and a strong
douche of water hit the roof and dripped down over the racks. Like
in a heavy rain, just that it was 60-70 deg C water. Have you ever
been in a steam bath/sauna, you get the picture. The windows between
the PDP11 room and the operator room had foggy windows. Think “Steamy
Windows” with Tina Turner. 😊

No one saw anything until the workshop manager (this was a production
facility) who had his cubicle like 50 m from the computer room, found
that he had his feets in water. Now someone hit the emergency stop and
we began to sort out the mess. Took a while before someone found the
main valve to close the water supply, and we had water falling down
in the stairways.

The LA120 was not too happy about it, but the two PDP-11 just booted
up after some drying up.

Jan-Erik.