My office was off the main computer room at Rutgers University. It was in the basement of a seven-story building. The sad thing is that the roof leaked. We'd have buckets in the machine room and in my office. One day, one of the janitors was being helpful by trying to take out the bucket to empty it and knocked my desk phone into it. I told him not to worry. I took it apart and dried it out as best I could. It worked fine for about a year until it started behaving oddly. The phone guy came out and looked inside it. "This thing is all corroded inside." I'm like, "Don't know how that could have happened. It looks like someone dumped it in a bucket of water."
The theory from the building people on campus was that the builders had screwed up the waterproof membrane in the courtyard that joined the two building towers. Finally, we got this idea. We'd have the campus fire company come out and spray water in various places with a fire hose until we found where the leak was. A few minutes into this exercise a vast stream of water appears raining down on a computer (3B5, had it been the 3B20 it would have probably been designed for that). Turns out it wasn't the membrane but rather the drain pipes from the drains in the courtyard. I finally solved a problem that had been with the building since it was built a decade or more earlier.
The seven story building was great for two other things. We could go up on the roof on July 4 and watch several different fireworks displays. It was also an interesting place to conduct science experiments to see what happens when various pieces of computer equipment get rapidly decelerated after falling 80 feet.
The theory from the building people on campus was that the builders had screwed up the waterproof membrane in the courtyard that joined the two building towers. Finally, we got this idea. We'd have the campus fire company come out and spray water in various places with a fire hose until we found where the leak was. A few minutes into this exercise a vast stream of water appears raining down on a computer (3B5, had it been the 3B20 it would have probably been designed for that). Turns out it wasn't the membrane but rather the drain pipes from the drains in the courtyard. I finally solved a problem that had been with the building since it was built a decade or more earlier.
The seven story building was great for two other things. We could go up on the roof on July 4 and watch several different fireworks displays. It was also an interesting place to conduct science experiments to see what happens when various pieces of computer equipment get rapidly decelerated after falling 80 feet.
