stevesu@bronze.UUCP (Steve Summit) (09/23/83)
I had DEC field service install a new backplane in an expansion
box for the 11/44 I maintained while I was at MIT. I invited him
out so he could check out what equipment he'd need. He said (a
lot like Robert Redford in The Sting) "SureHellYeahFine" and
showed up a week later with the wrong backplane and no mounting
hardware. A week later he was back with the right backplane but
still no hardware. He ran off to another computer center on
campus, scrounged some hardware, and got the backplane in. We
connected up a unibus extension cable, threw some boards into the
new backplane, and powered it up. The CPU hung. We decided the
power supply voltages must be wrong so he rearranges some of the
connectors on the power supply (this enormous 200 pound thing
that sounds like an airplane taking off and could probably power
one), powered it up, and the cpu hung again. He rearranges more
connectors. Still hung. He pulls out a vom (for the first time)
and actually checks some backplane voltages. He doesn't think
they look quite right. He whips out a small screwdriver and
begins rearranging the pins in the power supply connectors. I'm
just looking on in horror. (Fortunately the boards have been
removed by now.) Still no go. He opens up the '44 and begins
comparing voltages. (He never did dig out any document that said
emphatically which voltage should be where. Strictly
trial-and-error.) He rearranges more pins. Still no go. By
this time he begins to suspect the unibus cable and runs off to
yet another computer center and borrows one. Still doesn't work.
Eventually we discover that the boards are in the backplane
backwards (unibus coming in at the end of the bus where the
terminator should be, and vice versa). He hadn't thought it
would matter.
Actually, he's a nice enough guy and I feel an itsy bit guilty
cutting him down like this, but he just looked hysterically
incompetent sitting there prying pins out of connector blocks and
trying new permutations and combinations. DEC is giving MIT
millions of dollars worth of computer equipment over the next few
years, along with permanent on-site field service reps, and this
guy will be one of them.
Steve Summit
Tektronix, Inc.
tektronix!tekmdp!bronze!stevesumike@uniq.UUCP (09/24/83)
(Almost, but not quite) sorry to contribute another DEC Field Service story: Nothing much, really; we were just accused of having Unix invert the vectors on a DH11 - you know the story - foreign software. (Actually he got confused about ones and zeros and which resistors to clip off.) Mike Hall ...ihnp4!we13!uniq
karn@eagle.UUCP (Phil Karn) (09/25/83)
MY favorite CE was the rep who maintained the system I ran as an undergraduate. Indelibly etched in my memory is an image of him hanging over the top of an opened-up RK05, with an inch-long ash on the end of the burning cigarette in his mouth! Phil
padpowell@wateng.UUCP (PAD Powell[Admin]) (09/25/83)
Well, folks, I think that these repair people are not real turkeys. For example, our VAX was delivered in YOYO mode, (went up and down when it damn well wanted), and we finally decided the local field service guys had had their chance. We fired lightning bolts, letters, and personal invective at various people in DEC. No response. Well, one day after sitting here and going through three crashes in an hour, I put a flame on over the net. AMAZING!!! Suddenly there were people from the district Field service, head office, etc. We had line monitors, Remote dianostics checked out, and various things. The local field service guru, who is actually quite clever, sat on a phone waiting for the crashes. We decided after an entire afternoon of staring at bits, flags, and other things, that there was absolutely nothing wrong with the parts of the system... Gotta be the cables. We switched cables. No NO NO faults. The field service guy wanted to switch them back. We stuffed a pair of allen wrenches in his ears, and told him that NOONE was going to touh our machine until the next time it crashed. By the great hair arm, that was 3 months ago. Moral of the story: 1. Murphy was right. 2. Somebody WAYYY up there in the DEC organization reads the network news. 3. Never trust a cable. Patrick Powell, Ex-Wateng Administrator, Ph.d Candidate...