meo@stiatl.UUCP (Miles O'Neal) (10/13/88)
STAR TREK V - The EMAIL Message (or More Trouble Than Tribbles) The following was gleaned from a ship's log adrift in space near the new nebula LANpoop, named for the Starship LANpoop, which disappeared at about the same time the nebula appeared in the Atlanta Cluster in the Georgia galaxy, Sector 3, Quadrant 7. "Stardate 3.1.415.927, Admiral George P. Burdell, MIS Starship LANpoop. "We recently ran out of space on our F: drive (a networked DOS partition on STIATL (our unix isolation ward hardware), which is networked to some VAXen via TCP/IP). We realized we were silly to tie ourselves to 1 drive with limited potential, and soon schemed to create a truly virtual F: drive from our available resources. Steve Lyle, our Systems Administrator, 1st class, carried out the operation, without consulting the Captain of the Starship LANpoop." Captain: "Status report, Mr. Spock?" Spock: "I'm querying the new NetManager, now, Captain." Sulu: "Captain! All dialup ports frozen solid!" Captain: "Mr. Scott! Whats happening down there?" Scott: "I dunna ae tellee burra syncing ona e disks, forsooth?" Captain: "Huh???" Chekov: "Sir, I believe he said, "I dunna ae tellee burra syncing ona e disks, forsooth?"" Captain: "Say what?" Spock: "Sir, I believe he said the disks are full, and backfeeding bits onto the BI bus. I've got the NetManager query response coming in now." Admiral: (smiling) "Mr. Chekov, may I remind you that baiting an officer is a dangerous game?" Sulu: (whispered) "It's better than no game at all." NetManager: "VAX01 : %SYS-F-NODISKSPACE" (pause) "VAX02 : %SYS-F-NODISKSPACE" (pause) "VAX03 : %SYS-F-NODISKSPACE" (pause) "VAX04 : %SYS-F-NODISKSPACE" (pause) Captain: "Spock! What could have happened?" Spock: "Insufficient data, Captain, but the ship's disk log seems to indicate that the F: drive has broken out of the UNIX isolation ward and grown to an incredible size. It must have eaten all of our spare disk to do this." Sulu: "Captain, we've got inbound WATS customers on TTYs 1, 5, and 7. All of them say their respective Commtasks are dying, and they have gone to Condition Red. LANfleet command is on the LA120 with an urgent message to help them." Captain: "Spock?" Spock: "Not without more resources, Ron." Captain: "Mr. Scott!!! I need more disk! Giga factor 2!" Scott: "Huh???" Spock: "Allow me, Captain. Mr. Scott, thah captain sesd heanz seasd na ha mure spece onha deesk ana hea musthef 2 gig or mure." Captain: (head in hands, quietly) "Why did I ever leave the Equifax?" Scott: "I canna dewit! We hefna thah moolah allocayhted theys fiscahlyeer!" Captain: "Huh???" Chekov: "I believe he said..." Captain: "Myester Sulooh shuhht hyim oop! Iya ken heeyear tha noiz mahself!" Spock: "Sir, I believe he said we can't afford it." Captain: "Beam me to finance, Mr. Scott." Spock: "Wait, captain. Not yet. Dr. McCoy and Lt. Anderson have been training a new F: drive expert over in PD. Corporal Lyle, I think. Maybe he can help." NetManager: "...VAX318 : %SYS-F-NODISKSPACE" (pause) "VAX319 : %SYS-F-NODISKSPACE" (pause) "VAX320 : %SYS-F-NODISKSPACE" (pause) Captain: "Mr. Spock! Can you shut that thing..." Spock: "Wait!" NetManager: "STIATL - urgent msg for lyle: F: drive full" Spock: "Fascinating. Here's the trouble. The STIATL drive filled up, and a virtual F:olator kicked in, allowing the other drives on the net to consume themselves. Even the Warp drive is full. All the dilithium crystals got archived to tape to make room for DOS programs." Captain: "DOS!!! I thought we pawned those off on the Klingons. We did! I remember. The MS plague wiped them out!" Spock: "Yes, sir, but DOS are like tribbles, but MUCH less friendly, and MUCH more dangerous." Captain: "This is the Captain! Prepare to abandon ship! Mr. Spock, activate self-destruct sequence..." The recorded conversation is followed by a noise suspiciosly similar to that made by a mongo EMP applied to the recorder circuits of a Starship's log. The investigation is proceeding apace. Disclaimer: You know how it goes, I'm sure.