29 Jun
1997
29 Jun
'97
3:27 p.m.
On Sun, 29 Jun 1997, Brett wrote:
Not EXACTLY what I meant 8-) I was wondering - with
all the secoandhand
smoke info flowing around - if you ever had a "hardware" failure directly
tied to cigarettes? I had one. The damn thing rolled off the ashtray onto
Well, I _do_ insert a cleaning diskette into each drive every year
whether it's given me any grief or not. Of course, I've been using the
same 5.25 cleaning disk since 1979 and the 3.5 since 1986. I suppose I
should at _least_ buy a new bottle of the stuff I'm supposed to dribble
onto the cleaning disks.
a 5 1/4 disk. Melted it before I could get to it.
That's why I make
backups! But I use to teach computers in - oh 82-85. We used 8 inch drives
and thru a *design* flaw the fans sucked instead of blew. Used to flip my
The _only_ diskettes I've ever damaged directly with cigarettes have been
intentionally. A floppy gives me grief, I quadruple the diameter of the
sector detect hole as a warning to others. Oh, and I do that to any and
all unsolicited (which means all) AOL disks I encounter. Since the new
3.5 inch AOL disks don't have easily expandable sector detects, I just
start the tip of the cigarette through the "O" in "AOL". And the
occasional AOL CD goes in the microwave to make pretty lights.
ashes right in there. Used to throw the floppy up and
then jump on it.
In all those years, I lost one disk. Had my boots reheeled after that 8-)
But smoking and computers are A BIG NO!NO! I can see a problem with maybe
CD-ROMS and floppies - tar gumming up the works - but I have never had a
failure that wouldn't have been as bad if it was Kool-Aid or something.
I think sugar based stuff is the worst for computers. Conductive and
fluid! Ouch!
Had a cat knock a 16oz. can of Midnight Dragon Ale into a keyboard once.
Just a PC keyboard, so nothing crucial -- I gave the keyboard to an idiot
to clean and make his own and spent $20 on a better keyboard.
--
Ward Griffiths
"America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within
the system, but too early to shoot the bastards." --Claire Wolfe