GENWiki

Subj: Just extracted this from the WAR_STORIES notefile. Long but amusing.

         VAXen, my children, just don't belong some places. In
         my business, I am frequently called by small sites
         and startups having VAX problems. So when a friend of
         mine in an Extremely Large Financial Institution
         (ELFI) called me one day to ask for help, I was
         intrigued because this outfit is a really major VAX
         user - they have several large herds of VAXen - and
         plenty of sharp VAXherds to take care of them.

So I went to see what sort of an ELFI mess they had

         gotten into.  It seems they had shoved a small 750
         with two RA60's running a single application, PC
         style, into a data center with two IBM 3090's and
         just about all the rest of the disk drives in the
         world. The computer room was so big it had three
         street addresses. The operators had only IBM
         experience and, to quote my friend,  they were having
         "a little trouble adjusting to the VAX", were a bit
         hostile towards it and probably needed some help with
         system management. Hmmm, Hostility... Sigh.

Well, I thought it was pretty ridiculous for an

         outfit with all that VAX muscle elsewhere to isolate
         a dinky old 750 in their Big Blue Country, and said
         so bluntly. But my friend patiently explained that
         although small, it was an "extremely sensitive and
         confidential application."  It seems that the 750 had
         originally been properly clustered with the rest of a
         herd and in the care of one of their best VAXherds.
         But the trouble started when the Chief User went to
         visit his computer and its VAXherd.

He came away visibly disturbed and immediately

         complained to the ELFI's Director of Data Processing
         that, "There are some very strange people in there
         with the computers." Now since this user person was
         the Comptroller of this Extremely Large Financial
         Institution, the 750 had been promptly hustled over
         to the IBM data center which the Comptroller said,
         "was a more suitable place."  The people there wore
         shirts and ties and didn't wear head bands or cowboy
         hats.

So my friend introduced me to the Comptroller, who

         turned out to be five feet tall, 85 and a former
         gnome of Zurich.  He had a young apprentice gnome who
         was about 65. The two gnomes interviewed me in
         whispers for about an hour before they decided my
         modes of dress and speech were suitable for managing
         their system and I got the assignment.

There was some confusion, understandably, when I

         explained that I would immediately establish a
         procedure for nightly backups. The senior gnome
         seemed to think I was going to put the computer in
         reverse, but the apprentice's son had an IBM PC and
         he quickly whispered that "backup" meant making a
         copy of a program borrowed from a friend and why was
         I doing that? Sigh.

I was shortly introduced to the manager of the IBM

         data center, who greeted me with joy and anything but
         hostility. And the operators really weren't hostile -
         it just seemed that way.  It's like the driver of a
         Mack 18 wheeler, with a condo behind the cab, who was
         doing 75 when he ran over a moped doing it's best to
         get away at 45.  He explained sadly, "I really warn't
         mad at mopeds but to keep from runnin' over that'n,
         I'da had to slow down or change lanes!"

Now the only operation they had figured out how to do

         on the 750 was reboot it.  This was their universal
         cure for any and all problems.  After all it works on
         a PC, why not a VAX?  Was there a difference?  Sigh.

But I smiled and said, "No sweat, I'll train you.

         The first command you learn is HELP" and proceeded to
         type it in on the console terminal.  So the data
         center manager, the shift supervisor and the eight
         day operators watched the LA100 buzz out the usual
         introductory text.  When it finished they turned to
         me with expectant faces and I said in an avuncular
         manner, "This is your most important command!"

The shift supervisor stepped forward and studied the

         text for about a minute. He then turned with a very
         puzzled expression on his face and asked, "What do
         you use it for?" Sigh.

Well, I tried everything. I trained and I put the

         doc set on shelves by the 750 and I wrote a special
         40 page doc set and then a four page doc set. I
         designed all kinds of command files to make complex
         operations into simple foreign commands and I taped a
         list of these simplified commands to the top of the
         VAX. The most successful move was adding my home
         phone number.

The cheat sheets taped on the top of the CPU cabinet

         needed continual maintenance, however. It seems the
         VAX was in the quietest part of the data center, over
         behind the scratch tape racks. The operators ate
         lunch on the CPU cabinet and the sheets quickly
         became coated with pizza drippings, etc.

But still the most used solution to hangups was a

         reboot and I gradually got things organized so that
         during the day when the gnomes were using the system,
         the operators didn't have to touch it. This smoothed
         things out a lot.

Meanwhile, the data center was getting new TV

         security cameras, a halon gas fire extinguisher
         system and an immortal power source. The data center
         manager apologized because the VAX had not been
         foreseen in the plan and so could not be connected to
         immortal power.  The VAX and I felt a little rejected
         but I made sure that booting on power recovery was
         working right.  At least it would get going again
         quickly when power came back.

Anyway, as a consolation prize, the data center

         manager said he would have one of the security
         cameras adjusted to cover the VAX.  I thought to
         myself, "Great, now we can have 24 hour video tapes
         of the operators eating Chinese takeout on the CPU."
         I resolved to get a piece of plastic to cover the
         cheat sheets.

One day, the apprentice gnome called to whisper that

         the senior was going to give an extremely important
         demonstration. Now I must explain that what the 750
         was really doing was holding our National Debt.  The
         Reagan administration had decided to privatize it and
         had quietly put it out for bid. My Extreme Large
         Financial Institution had won the bid for it and was,
         as ELFI's are wont to do, making an absolute bundle
         on the float.

On Monday the Comptroller was going to demonstrate to

         the board of directors how he could move a trillion
         dollars from Switzerland to the Bahamas.  The
         apprentice whispered, "Would you please look in on
         our computer? I'm sure everything will be fine, sir,
         but we will feel better if you are present.  I'm sure
         you understand?"  I did.

Monday morning, I got there about five hours before

         the scheduled demo to check things over. Everything
         was cool. I was chatting with the shift supervisor
         and about to go upstairs to the Comptroller's office.
         Suddenly there was a power failure.

The emergency lighting came on and the immortal power

         system took over the load of the IBM 3090's.  They
         continued smoothly, but of course the VAX, still on
         city power, died. Everyone smiled and the dead 750
         was no big deal because it was 7 AM and gnomes don't
         work before 10 AM. I began worrying about whether I
         could beg some immortal power from the data center
         manager in case this was a long outage.

Immortal power in this system comes from storage

         batteries for the first five minutes of an outage.
         Promptly at one minute into the outage we hear the
         gas turbine powered generator in the sub-basement
         under us automatically start up getting ready to take
         the load on the fifth minute.  We all beam at each
         other.

At two minutes into the outage we hear the whine of

         the backup gas turbine generator starting. The 3090's
         and all those disk drives are doing just fine.
         Business as usual. The VAX is dead as a door nail but
         what the hell.

At precisely five minutes into the outage, just as

         the gas turbine is taking the load, city power comes
         back on and the immortal power source commits
         suicide.  Actually it was a double murder and suicide
         because it took both 3090's with it.

So now the whole data center was dead, sort of. The

         fire alarm system had it's own battery backup and was
         still alive. The lead acid storage batteries of the
         immortal power system had been discharging at a
         furious rate keeping all those big blue boxes running
         and there was a significant amount of sulfuric acid
         vapor. Nothing actually caught fire but the smoke
         detectors were convinced it had.

The fire alarm klaxon went off and the siren warning

         of imminent halon gas release was screaming.  We
         started to panic but the data center manager shouted
         over the din, "Don't worry, the halon system failed
         its acceptance test last week. It's disabled and
         nothing will happen."

He was half right, the primary halon system indeed

         failed to discharge. But the secondary halon system
         observed that the primary had conked and instantly
         did its duty, which was to deal with Dire Disasters.
         It had twice the capacity and six times the discharge
         rate.

Now the ear splitting gas discharge under the raised

         floor was so massive and fast, it blew about half of
         the floor tiles up out of their framework. It came up
         through the floor into a communications rack and blew
         the cover panels off, decking an operator. Looking
         out across that vast computer room, we could see the
         air shimmering as the halon mixed with it.

We stampeded for exits to the dying whine of 175 IBM

         disks.  As I was escaping I glanced back at the VAX,
         on city power, and noticed the usual flickering of
         the unit select light on its system disk indicating
         it was happily rebooting.

Twelve firemen with air tanks and axes invaded. There

         were frantic phone calls to the local IBM Field
         Service office because both the live and backup
         3090's were down. About twenty minutes later,
         seventeen IBM CEs arrived with dozens of boxes and,
         so help me, a barrel. It seems they knew what to
         expect when an immortal power source commits murder.

In the midst of absolute pandemonium, I crept off to

         the gnome office and logged on. After extensive
         checking it was clear that everything was just fine
         with the VAX and I began to calm down. I called the
         data center manager's office to tell him the good
         news. His secretary answered with, "He isn't expected
         to be available for some time.  May I take a
         message?"  I left a slightly smug note to the effect
         that, unlike some other computers, the VAX was intact
         and functioning normally.

Several hours later, the gnome was whispering his way

         into a demonstration of how to flick a trillion
         dollars from country 2 to country 5.  He was just
         coming to the tricky part, where the money had been
         withdrawn from Switzerland but not yet deposited in
         the Bahamas.  He was proceeding very slowly and the
         directors were spellbound. I decided I had better
         check up on the data center.

Most of the floor tiles were back in place. IBM had

         resurrected one of the 3090's and was running tests.
         What looked like a bucket brigade was working on the
         other one. The communication rack was still naked and
         a fireman was standing guard over the immortal power
         corpse. Life was returning to normal, but the Big
         Blue Country crew was still pretty shaky.

Smiling proudly, I headed back toward the triumphant

         VAX behind the tape racks where one of the operators
         was eating a plump jelly bun on the 750 CPU. He saw
         me coming, turned pale and screamed to the shift
         supervisor, "Oh my God, we forgot about the VAX!"
         Then, before I could open my mouth, he rebooted it.
         It was Monday, 19-Oct-1987.  VAXen, my children, just
         don't belong some places.

– Edited by Brad Templeton. MAIL, yes MAIL your jokes to funny@looking.UUCP Attribute the joke's source if at all possible. I will reply, mailers willing. I reply to all submissions, but about 30% of the replies bounce.