5 Jul
2025
5 Jul
'25
11:24 a.m.
On 7/5/25 01:11, Paul Anderson via cctalk wrote:
When I worked for DEC in field service, we had a
customer almost next door
to us. We gathered outside to watch their new (maybe used) VAX 11/780 get
delivered. For whatever reason they used a ramp instead of the lift. The
780 got away from them, and when the wheels hit the pavement we watched as
it flipped over and landed on its side. One of the techs calmly said
"Someone should go order a new backplane".
This ALMOST happened to our first 780! The truck driver was
getting it off the truck with a pallet jack (I think) and
there was a slight misalignment between the truck bed and
the loading dock. The 780 started to tip, but he got his
shoulder against it and kept it from going over.
Another one I saw was our computer center was raising their
raised floor a foot, as it was getting TOO filled with
cables for airflow. They had the 360/65 disassembled
(processor and memory/power cabinet) and a SINGLE guy was
moving the CPU up a ramp to the higher portion of the
floor. He started to lose control of it, and it started
tipping. My first thought was that I was going to see a guy
get crushed to death right there! Incredibly, he get the
thing righted and pushed back up the ramp!
Jon