10 Dec
2009
10 Dec
'09
5:39 a.m.
On Thursday (12/10/2009 at 01:58AM -0500), Ethan Dicks wrote:
On 12/9/09, Chris Elmquist <chrise at pobox.com>
wrote:
Wow! Neat! (I almost said "Cool" ;-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETA10
http://ed-thelen.org/comp-hist/vs-eta.html
The CP board(s) sat in a cryostat... think "hot tub"... full of LN2.
There were a lot of challenges bringing the machines up or down for
service... because you had to warm them up and remove the board from
the LN2 or put it back in.
When you took it down, you'd let the LN2 boil off but in the mean time
the board would frost up like no tomorrow. They had special heater/dryer
things to try to mitigate this.
Then, when you'd put it back, chips would pop off the board when they
hit the LN2 ;-)
There were a lot of physics issues to overcome. Most of those we did.
Political and management issues were the impossible ones to overcome.
It was cool though. Literally and figuratively. Lots of interesting
and amazing stories of fun with LN2.
From 1983
to 1989, at ETA Systems, we ran our computers submerged in a
bath of liquid
nitrogen. :-) Condensation on machines brought from cold to warm in
most of North
America or Europe (or Brazil, Japan, Oz, NZ, etc.) would be something
to watch for and be careful around. We never had those problems at
Pole.
Yes... Right. I failed to indicate a context switch from South Pole to
our own basements/backyards. Here in MN, where it is -7F this morning,
if you bring in a piece of gear from the garage, it's going to fog up in
an instant... just like my eyeglasses do when I come in from shoveling
snow :-)
Chris
--
Chris Elmquist