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<title>The Foolish Things We Do With Our Computers LG #100</title>
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<p id="fun">...making Linux just a little more fun!</p>
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<h1>The Foolish Things We Do With Our Computers</h1>
<p id="by"><b>By <A HREF="../authors/okopnik.html">Ben Okopnik</A></b></p>
<p>
<h3>The Old Shell Game, Revisited</a></h3>
<p id="by"><b>from <A HREF="tux@penguinmail.com">Raspal</A></b></p>
<p>
Many years ago (1996-97), I was learning computer hardware, had just
learned basic electronics, and had hardly started with computer
hardware when I got a 486 DX4 assembled by an assembler-friend of mine.
He put Win95 in it and a lot of software that I had asked for. I learned
Win95 by playing with it.
<p>
Well, after a month or two, I had lots of theoretical and a little bit of
practical knowledge about assembling a computer. So, equipped with this
knowledge, I opened up my computer's case one night to get some "practice".
I removed the motherboard completely, then removed the processor along with
its fan to check what it was really like, taking care not to touch the
pins. Before removing it from it's socket, I tried to see pin 1 of the
processor, but failed since it was covered by the heatsink and the fan.
It wasn't visible from below either unless the fan and the heatsink were
removed. But I had to remove the fan and remember to put it back the same
way. So, I carefully marked one end of the fan which was near the socket
"clip", with a marker, then removed the CPU from its socket, confident
that I would now be able to put it back the same way without any problems.
<p>
With the processor out of socket, pin 1 still wasn't visible, and since I
also wanted to check if the processor was really an AMD DX4 100MHz, I
removed the fan and heatsink carefully and checked that it really was. Then
I put the heatsink and the fan back over the CPU. Now seeing the marked
side of the fan, I inserted the CPU back in its socket, locked it and put
the motherboard back in to the case, covered it and tightened the screws.
Then I sat and switched it on. Booooom! it went and there was lot of smoke
from the SMPS at the back. I panicked and quickly powered it off but it
was too late.
<p>
What had happened was that I had put the heatsink and the fan attached to
it the other way round on the processor, and since the mark on the fan was
now also backwards, put the CPU backwards into the socket. Later I
discovered that the motherboard was fried, but the CPU had survived. Since
it was in warranty though, I got a new motherboard. But after this
incident, I have always been extremely careful how I insert a CPU. Now
Pentium processors can't be inserted the wrong way I think, but it was
possible in the case of 486 sockets.
<hr>
<h3>Your data, sir: shaken, stirred, and vaporized</a></h3>
<p id="by"><b>from <A HREF="ben@callahans.org">Ben Okopnik</A></b></p>
A number of years ago, when I was teaching PC hardware repair classes, I
had a student who was in the process of switching from mainframes to the
"little machines". He was a very interesting guy to talk to, with lots of
stories of "The Old Days" and how much more manual things used to be than
what we're used to now. The day that I was teaching the data recovery
module, I saw a certain gleam in his eye (which made me think "oh-oh, he's
up to something..."), which got progressively more evil as the day went on,
particularly when I said things like "...this shows that you can get your
data off the hard drive in most situations, even when it seems hopeless."
<p>
When he came in the next day, he was carrying a platter that was about
<b>two feet</b> across, with deep circular grooves cut into it. He gave me
an innocent look and said "can you help me recover <b>this</b> data?" After
we all had a good laugh, he explained that in the drives his company used
years before (boxes the size of washing machines), the read/write heads
were actually mounted on a carrier that rode on a pair of rails, with the
driver motor also mounted on the carrier. The rails extended from the edge
of the platter toward its center. The problem with these drives was that
the screws holding the inner end of the rails (over the hub of the platter)
would vibrate loose - and the whole assembly, a pound or so of metal, would
come crashing down onto the spinning platter... I told him that if he
<i>really</i> wanted his data, he could probably vacuum it up from the
bottom of the drive casing; the zeroes and the ones should be almost large
enough to see.
<p>
<hr>
<i>[ If you have a story about something foolish or ingenious you did to your
computer, send it to <a href="articles@linuxgazette.net">articles@linuxgazette.net</a>. -Ben ]</i>
</p>
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<P>
<P> Ben is the Technical Editor for Linux Gazette and a member of
The Answer Gang.
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<em>
Ben was born in Moscow, Russia in 1962. He became interested in
electricity at age six--promptly demonstrating it by sticking a fork into
a socket and starting a fire--and has been falling down technological mineshafts
ever since. He has been working with computers since the Elder Days, when
they had to be built by soldering parts onto printed circuit boards and
programs had to fit into 4k of memory. He would gladly pay good money to any
psychologist who can cure him of the resulting nightmares.
<p>Ben's subsequent experiences include creating software in nearly a dozen
languages, network and database maintenance during the approach of a hurricane,
and writing articles for publications ranging from sailing magazines to
technological journals. Having recently completed a seven-year
Atlantic/Caribbean cruise under sail, he is currently anchored in St. Augustine, FL,
where he works as a consultant and a technical instructor for Sun Microsystems.
<p>Ben has been working with Linux since 1997, and credits it with his complete
loss of interest in waging nuclear warfare on parts of the Pacific Northwest.
</em>
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Copyright © 2004, Ben Okopnik. Copying license
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<p>
Published in Issue 100 of Linux Gazette, March 2004
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