3.1202 Gort's revenge; HardCard, shaken not stirred (75)

Willard McCarty (MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca)
Thu, 22 Mar 90 19:55:13 EST

Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 3, No. 1202. Thursday, 22 Mar 1990.


(1) Date: Thu, 22 Mar 90 09:43:00 EST (11 lines)
From: Robert Kirsner (213) 825-3955 <IDT1RSK@OAC.UCLA.EDU>
Subject: Re: 3.1198 discomfortable questions (68)

(2) Date: Thu, 22 Mar 90 11:46:58 EST (6 lines)
From: amsler@flash.bellcore.com (Robert A Amsler)
Subject: Re: 3.1198 discomfortable questions (68)

(3) Date: 21 Mar 90 23:59:10 EST (31 lines)
From: James O'Donnell <JODONNEL@PENNSAS>
Subject: A Story with a Moral

(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 90 09:43:00 EST
From: Robert Kirsner (213) 825-3955 <IDT1RSK@OAC.UCLA.EDU>
Subject: Re: 3.1198 discomfortable questions (68)

There appears to be a subject heading error in this issue of HUMANIST.
The message that Mrs. Benson had to bring to Gort was "Klaatu baraDA
nikto." The command that Klaatu gave to Gort to have the space ship
either open or close its entrance was, variously, "Barenga" and
"Varenga". Next time you watch a science fiction classic, please do so
with the same attention you would bring to Dryden! Der liebe Gott, as
good ol' Al Einstein once remarked, liegt im Detail. We will be
watching.
(2) --------------------------------------------------------------16----
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 90 11:46:58 EST
From: amsler@flash.bellcore.com (Robert A Amsler)
Subject: Re: 3.1198 discomfortable questions (68)

I believe the electronic nightmare of which you speak was exactly
what happened to Oliver North....
(3) --------------------------------------------------------------36----
Date: 21 Mar 90 23:59:10 EST
From: James O'Donnell <JODONNEL@PENNSAS>
Subject: A Story with a Moral

From: Jim O'Donnell (Classics, Penn)

I have a Plus Hardcard 40 for archival storage and for some
space-consuming utilities, e.g., soft fonts. Conked out yesterday.
Just disappeared. Thought it might be the hard disk controller, but
when I pulled the hard card out of the machine and deleted the relevant
line from the config.sys file, everything worked fine, so it was clear
that it was the hardcard.

Now the moral of the story is not back up your files: no HUMANIST is fool
enough to need *that* moral. No, it is a story with two morals.

(1) If you have the same system, walk with care. Plus Systems reveals
that they have an unannounced extended warranty on some cards (mine was
bought July 1988): get this problem and have the right serial number and
your warranty was extended and you get a new card with a two-year
warranty. I have to call them back tomorrow to confirm that I've got a
winning number, but that looks good.

(2) If you ever have a hard card that's just got you so frustrated, you
want to shake it, go right ahead. For that, incredible as it may seem,
was the advice they gave me for data recovery. Take the card out, shake
it. If it doesn't work, take it out again, shake it harder. Shook it
like a jug of orange-juice-from-concentrate, hard enough to get a nice
fresh foam on top. Put it back in the machine and fired it up. The
sucker worked. Got all my files backed up on three boxes of high
density disks and the remaining space on the original C: drive. Escaped
with my skin. And shaking the hardcard was *very* satisfying.