northrup@wpi.wpi.edu (Jim Northrup) (10/17/89)
I had an interesting error this evening. I was running low on memory (I mean _real_ low) when I opened up a disk icon from the Workbench. Apparently, I ran completely out of memory in the process. What's interesting is the way my 500 crashed. The internal drive continued to whirrrrr.... The external drive began chattering very, very loudly. Imagine loading and old Electronic Arts copy-protected disk on a C64 1541 and holding it up to a microphone.... My dot matrix printer spit a bunch of ink out onto the paper, forming a Rorschach-like blob, and then the head began whizzing back and forth printing italic-!'s and ^?'s. The screen began flashing yellow; the title bar couldn't print error messages fast enough. It was pretty scary! Ctrl-Amiga-Chickenhead* fixed it up okay, but I think that's my most impressive crash to date. * Just kidding, my Amiga's not _that_ old. -- Jim Northrup northrup@wpi.wpi.edu Assistant Professor, Department of Mathematical Sciences Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester MA 01609 I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. Then I would know when to duck.
gmb@iclswe.UUCP (Grahame Budd) (10/18/89)
Another interesting error... I use my 500 mostly for games and so it is connected up in a complex with the Video recorders, Hi-fi and TV tuner. The selection onto the monitor is a bit complicated but you can see either the Amiga output, T.V. or Video depending on the selection. I was watching a tape a few weeks ago. When it finished the system flipped back to show Amiga output with a GURU error. The system seemed to have crashed while I was watching the tape. I couldn't remember which program was active so I simply 3-key reset. The GURU didn't even flicker. Thinking that this was a VERY hard fault I switched the power off and on. The GURU still didn't flicker. Then I noticed that the machine wasn't in fact switched on. It turned out that the local TV station was processing its graphics with an Amiga 2000 and it was that machine which had crashed and was broadcasting its GURU to most of the homes in Stockholm. We had to phone them up and ask them to press thier left mouse button. Had me worried for a while there though!
bryan@cs.utexas.edu (Bryan Bayerdorffer @ Wit's End) (10/19/89)
In article <372@iclswe.UUCP> gmb@iclswe.UUCP (Grahame Budd) writes:
=-Another interesting error...
=-
=-
=-It turned out that the local TV station was processing its graphics with an
=-Amiga 2000 and it was that machine which had crashed and was broadcasting its
=-GURU to most of the homes in Stockholm. We had to phone them up and ask them
=-to press thier left mouse button.
=-
The local cable company in Keene, NH has a channel that carries
schedules of upcoming community events, and so on. The screen consists of a
static graphic in the top half, and a vertically scrolling chart in the bottom
half.
One day I was flipping past this channel, and noticed a
familiar-looking requester in the middle of a blue screen, which said, "Disk
full, please delete some image files."akl@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Rob Tillotson) (10/19/89)
In article <397@mohawk.cs.utexas.edu> bryan@cs.utexas.edu writes: >schedules of upcoming community events, and so on. The screen consists of a >static graphic in the top half, and a vertically scrolling chart in the bottom >half. > One day I was flipping past this channel, and noticed a >familiar-looking requester in the middle of a blue screen, which said, "Disk >full, please delete some image files." Hmm, this sounds very much like what happened one night this summer on our local cable system. They have a "program guide" channel like this - the bottom half has scrolling lists of programs, and the top half is either all video or half video and half static text. One night about 10pm we were flippling through the channels and came across a Guru Meditation box on the top of the screen, and the program guide was showing satellite listings (and weather reports from Tulsa, OK) instead of local ones. Also, the top half had two different video windows instead of one text and one video. Unfortunately, nobody was there to reset it... but I did manage to catch the reboot on tape the next morning. There was the familiar shades-of-gray sequence, followed by a CLI screen which showed an addmem of 256k. Someone typed in a command and the program guide reappeared, and black overlays covered the bottom and half of the top regions. Next, a blank program guide started scrolling by, and a couple of minutes later the real data started appearing. The most amusing part of this, though, was the fact that the national video portion of this program guide was sponsored by Commodore-Amiga, so I now have a tape of an Amiga 500 commercial with a Guru box on top of it... G'day, eh? --TS -- Rob Tillotson Usenet: akl@mace.cc.purdue.edu 320 Brown St. #406 BITNET: ROBT@PURCCVM West Lafayette, IN 47906 Fido: 1:201/40.302