From: "John Levine" <johnl@taugh.com>
To: tuhs@tuhs.org
Subject: [TUHS] Re: magic, was pseudo tty history
Date: 16 Aug 2025 21:56:31 -0400 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20250817015631.D31A1D7FEA41@ary.qy> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20250817010529.GB805@mcvoy.com>
It appears that Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com> said:
>On Sat, Aug 16, 2025 at 08:21:30PM -0400, Aron Insinga wrote:
>> The PDP-6 had a sign on it that said something like "This machine
>> is old and flaky so don't touch it unless you know what you are doing."
PDP-6's were flaky even when they were new, due to large circuit cards
with unreliable connectors. I gather a standard diagnostic technique
was to tap all the cards with a rubber mallet to reseat them. The KA-10
used much smaller and more reliable Flip Chip cards.
>Wasn't there a PDP-<something> at MIT, I think, that had a switch labeled
>"magic" and "more magic" that had wires that went nowhere but it only
>worked when set to "more magic"? I'm sure I have the details wrong but
>I have a pretty strong memory of that. Anyone able to confirm?
Probably this one:
https://boingboing.net/2022/08/11/a-story-about-a-weird-magic-switch-at-mit.html
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2025-08-17 1:56 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 25+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2025-08-15 22:28 [TUHS] pseudo tty history ron minnich
2025-08-15 22:33 ` [TUHS] " Bakul Shah via TUHS
2025-08-15 22:56 ` Ron Natalie
2025-08-15 23:00 ` ron minnich
2025-08-15 23:15 ` Warner Losh
2025-08-15 23:19 ` Tom Lyon
2025-08-16 0:53 ` Jonathan Gray
2025-08-16 1:49 ` ron minnich
2025-08-16 2:48 ` Ron Natalie
2025-08-16 3:23 ` Bakul Shah via TUHS
2025-08-16 3:35 ` Clem Cole
2025-08-16 3:50 ` Aron Insinga
2025-08-16 14:57 ` Clem Cole
2025-08-17 0:21 ` Aron Insinga
2025-08-17 1:05 ` Larry McVoy
2025-08-17 1:13 ` Al Kossow
2025-08-17 1:16 ` Al Kossow
2025-08-17 1:25 ` Al Kossow
2025-08-17 2:02 ` Larry McVoy
2025-08-17 1:25 ` Lawrence Stewart
2025-08-17 1:56 ` John Levine [this message]
2025-08-18 3:07 ` [TUHS] Re: magic, was " Aron Insinga
2025-08-16 3:20 ` [TUHS] " Clem Cole
2025-08-16 3:19 ` Clem Cole
2025-08-16 1:19 ` Jeremy C. Reed
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