26 May
2004
26 May
'04
3:48 p.m.
On May 26, 13:07, Fred Cisin wrote:
We had an elderly applicant for a teaching position
who tried to use
one
of the machines in the lab. When he couldn't find
the CD drive, he
put
a CD into the 5.25" floppy drive. The college
administration morons
actually hired him for one semester! (I mention that he was elderly
only
to discount the possibility that he was too young to
be familiar with
5.25")
At the other end of the age scale... My pal Fran wondered where a few
of his CDs had gone to, until he opened his PC to change a card, and
found a stack of them. His four-year old son had sometimes "missed"
the CD-ROM drive slot, and inserted the CDs in the gap between the
CD-ROM and the floppy.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
University of York
26 May
26 May
3:52 p.m.
New subject: What's the weirdest thing that you've ever found inside a computer?
Pete Turnbull wrote:
On May 26, 13:07, Fred Cisin wrote:
At the other end of the age scale... My pal Fran
wondered where a few
of his CDs had gone to, until he opened his PC to change a card, and
found a stack of them. His four-year old son had sometimes "missed"
the CD-ROM drive slot, and inserted the CDs in the gap between the
CD-ROM and the floppy.
I've seen that in 6 or 7 different machines, all from day-care and
kindergarten facilities.
Doc
6:33 p.m.
I used to configure and upgrade first-generation PCs for a subsidiary of
Magnavox. One day I pulled one out of stock and noticed a hole in the
top of the box surrounded by white powder.
Opening the box I saw that the hole and the powder continued through to
the computer case.
Removing the case from the box I saw that the hole had been produced by
a large masonry nail that had been fired from a nail gun perpendicular
to the preferred direction. It had pierced the top of the PC and gone
entirely through the disk drive and most of the way out of the bottom of
the case.
The white powder was from the sheetrock wall that it had pierced prior
to entering the PC box.
From the position of this PC in inventory (4-5 feet off
the ground with
nothing between it and the office space) it is entirely likely that
it
gave up its life to save one of ours.
The construction folks next door were none too happy to buy the machine,
but they paid list price plus a fair markup and they patched the wall.
Erik Klein
www.vintage-computer.com
www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum
The Vintage Computer Forum
11:51 p.m.
At 19:52 26/05/2004 -0500, you wrote:
Pete Turnbull wrote:
"Me too"
Also (more on topic) 5 1/4" floppies going the same way..
I remember (few years back) buying a new cd-rom drive from a local bucket
shop for a PC we were building. Plumbed it into the machine, powered up,
pressed Eject, and in the tray already was a genuine Windows 95 CD-Rom,
with serial number written on it in a pen (and the words "shop
copy"). Hmm... "New" ?
Most dangerous object I found: Doing a cabling job some years back in some
offices in Liverpool, stood on the top of a step-ladder, pushed up a tile
in the false-ceilings whereupon it tilted abruptly and a large, heavy,
hammer shot past my eyes and hit the floor with a loud thud..
That was a slightly more lucky escape than the time I was working elsewhere
on a Cat5 wall socket when the customer's MD decided to "help" me by
putting the ceiling tiles back. Unfortunately, they were large heavy
asbestos-type tiles, and the one he decided to put back was directly above
my head: It broke as he lifted it up. That cost me a trip to casualty and
two stitches..
Rob.
On May 26, 13:07, Fred Cisin wrote:
At the other end of the age scale... My pal Fran
wondered where a few
of his CDs had gone to, until he opened his PC to change a card, and
found a stack of them. His four-year old son had sometimes "missed"
the CD-ROM drive slot, and inserted the CDs in the gap between the
CD-ROM and the floppy.
I've seen that in 6 or 7 different machines, all from day-care and
kindergarten facilities. 
27 May
27 May
12:42 p.m.
New subject: What's the weirdest thing that you've ever found insidea computer?
Doc Shipley wrote:
Pete Turnbull wrote:
I've seen my accountant do it and have now installed a block of
plastic to stop him from doing it above or below the drive. (I do
his support, he does my taxes and accounting, in case you
wonder why I would be inside his computer).
Jim
On May 26, 13:07, Fred Cisin wrote:
At the other end of the age scale... My pal Fran
wondered where a few
of his CDs had gone to, until he opened his PC to change a card, and
found a stack of them. His four-year old son had sometimes "missed"
the CD-ROM drive slot, and inserted the CDs in the gap between the
CD-ROM and the floppy.
I've seen that in 6 or 7 different machines, all from day-care and
kindergarten facilities. 
26 May
26 May
5:11 p.m.
New subject: What's the weirdest thing that you've ever found inside acomputer?
At 01:48 AM 5/27/04 +0100, Pete wrote:
On May 26, 13:07, Fred Cisin wrote:
LOL! You wouldn't believe how many Fisher-Price people (~2" tall plastic
or wood toy figures) that I pulled out of my VCRs when my kids were little.
The dammed tape slots were just the right size to admit them.
Joe
We had an elderly applicant for a teaching
position who tried to use
one
of the machines in the lab. When he couldn't
find the CD drive, he
put
a CD into the 5.25" floppy drive. The
college administration morons
actually hired him for one semester! (I mention that he was elderly
only
to discount the possibility that he was too young
to be familiar with
5.25")
At the other end of the age scale... My pal Fran wondered where a few
of his CDs had gone to, until he opened his PC to change a card, and
found a stack of them. His four-year old son had sometimes "missed"
the CD-ROM drive slot, and inserted the CDs in the gap between the
CD-ROM and the floppy.
7:56 p.m.
New subject: What's the weirdest thing that you've ever found inside a
At the other end of the age scale... My pal Fran
wondered where a few
of his CDs had gone to, until he opened his PC to change a card, and
found a stack of them. His four-year old son had sometimes "missed"
the CD-ROM drive slot, and inserted the CDs in the gap between the
CD-ROM and the floppy.
On Mac IIs (and similar machines) with one floppy drive, the blanking
plate for the other floppy slot is almost almost missing. It was common
to find a pile of floppies on the drive chassis behind that slot....
-tony
27 May
27 May
2:58 p.m.
New subject: What's the weirdest thing that you've ever found inside a
-----Original Message-----
From: cctech-bounces(a)classiccmp.org
[mailto:cctech-bounces@classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of Tony Duell
Sent: Thursday, May 27, 2004 12:56 AM
To: cctalk(a)classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: What's the weirdest thing that you've ever found inside a
At the other end of the age scale... My pal Fran
wondered where a few
of his CDs had gone to, until he opened his PC to change a card, and
found a stack of them. His four-year old son had sometimes "missed"
the CD-ROM drive slot, and inserted the CDs in the gap between the
CD-ROM and the floppy.
On the same theme but much older Users. I used to work for a company where
we wrote software that retrieved Credit Reports from the Credit Bureaus and
also reported info to the same for banks and finance companies. This was
back when some were starting to convert over to 3 1/2" drives in their
systems.
1). The VP of the lending dept, of a fairly large bank in Delaware, called
because he needed new disks sent because the machine ate the 3 5 1/4" disks
we sent him with the software, while he was installing it. It kept asking
for the next disk and never gave any of them back. He claimed he never
received a Disk 2 apparently. All were neatly stacked in the case.
2). Another lady called because the update disk we sent her was defective.
We sent her a 5 1/4" Disk and she cut it down to fit in her 3 1/2" drive and
stuck it in there.
Greg Manuel
GM Consulting
==> FREE spam killer: http://eliminatespam.com * FREE PopUp Buster+:
http://popupbuster.net * $500 BONUS: http://www.freebonus4you.com/
6:49 p.m.
New subject: What's the weirdest thing that you've ever found inside a
2). Another lady called because the update disk we
sent her was defective.
We sent her a 5 1/4" Disk and she cut it down to fit in her 3 1/2" drive and
stuck it in there.
About 20 years ago, some machines over here used 3" (not 3.5") disks. The
drives were cheap, but the disks were more expensive than the 3.5" type.
Anyway, I hought one of the drives and used it as a second drive on my
OS-9 box (a much hacked CoCo II). One day I needed some more disks. I
went to the computer shop to buy some and asked for 3" disks.
I was told "Oh, we don't have any 3" disks. We've got 3.5" disks,
can you
cut them down". I was then offered 3" disks at the 3.5" disk price.
Needless to say I bought rather a lot of them.
-tony
7366
days inactive
7367
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8 comments
8 participants
participants (8)
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classiccmp.org＠irrelevant.fsnet.co.uk -
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doc＠mdrconsult.com -
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jwstephens＠msm.umr.edu -
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