Subject: Re: "Always mount a scratch Harry"
From: [email-masked] (Eric Postpischil)
Date: 7 Sep 1994 18:20:56 GMT
Newsgroups: alt.fan.dave_barry,alt.folklore.computers

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked]
(gordon hlavenka) writes:

>This seems like a good time for someone to tell the "Scratch Monkey"
>story.  I know it, but I'm sure somebody else could tell it better
>than I could.  Any volunteers?

            <<< NOVA::NOTES_DISK:[NOTES$LIBRARY]WAR_STORY.NOTE;1 >>>
                          -<  Computer War Stories  >-
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Note 47.18                       Scratch Monkeys                       
18 of 21
RUSURE::EDP "Always mount a scratch monkey."         61 lines 
11-FEB-1993 14:14
                    -< Authenticated Scratch Monkey Story >-
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---------
    This morning, I spoke for an hour with Laura Creighton, who wrote
the
    device driver for the equipment between the monkeys and the
computer.

    This incident happened at the University of Toronto in late November of
    1979 or 1980.  The zoology department had used digital-to-analog and
    analog-to-digital converters in a large number of experiments,
    including attempting to synthesize pheromones to reduce breeding of
    beetles that fed on tobacco crops, some rat neurological experiments,
    and some cricket behavior/population studies.  The rat experiments
    involved implanting electrodes in the rats' brains, and the rats
    experienced some pain.  The Humane Society learned of this and raised
    complaints, resulting in the shutting down of the zoology department
    for a day while the experiment was stopped.  The University of Toronto
    has the third or fourth most respected zoology department in the world
    and wanted to maintain that prestige, so there was lots of screaming to
    avoid having such a thing happening again.

    The various data from the experiments was collected by PDP-11/05 front
    ends and sent to an 11/44.  Laura Creighton had written the software
    for this, fixing a problem they had previously with the 11/44 not being
    fast enough to collect the data by itself.  This was being done for 16
    to 18 experiments.

    The folks in the physiology section of the Department of Medicine
    (separate from Science, which contained the zoology department) had
    bought their first VAX, an 11/780, and wanted a similar set-up.  So
    Laura Creighton and the zoology department agreed to set up their
    software for this.  The physiology people decided not to use 11/05s in
    between, since the VAX was fast enough to handle the data.  So five
    monkeys were fitted with caps intended to sense brain waves, and the
    caps were attached to various A-to-D and D-to-A converters (which were
    US Army surplus from 1956) which were in turn connected to the VAX. 
    This connection was piggybacked on a disk drive (pre-RL02), which
    contained a disk and was mounted read-only -- the read-only button was
    pressed and taped over with a warning not to remove it.  In normal
    operation, software would read data from that drive and write it to a
    regular disk.  The room containing the monkeys was several stories
    removed from the computer room.

    After some time, the VAX crashed.  It was on a service contract, and
    Digital was called.  Laura Creighton was not called although she was on
    the short list of people who were supposed to be called in case of
    problem.  The Digital Field Service engineer came in, removed the disk
    from the drive, figured it was then okay to remove the tape and make
    the drive writable, and proceeded to run diagnostics which wrote to
    that drive.

    Two of the monkeys were stunned, and three died.  The Digital engineer
    needed to be calmed down; he was going to call the Humane Society. 
    This became known as the Great Dead Monkey Project, and it leads of
    course to the aphorism I use as my motto:  "Always mount a scratch
    monkey."

    Laura Creighton points out that although this is told as a gruesomely
    amusing story, three monkeys did lose their lives, and there are
    lessons to be learned in treatment of animals and risk management. 
    Particularly, the sign on the disk drive should have explained why the
    drive should never have been enabled for write access.

    				-- edp
---------------------------------------------------------

                                -- edp (Eric Postpischil)
                                "Always mount a scratch monkey."
                                [email-masked]

Disclaimer:  The opinions of Digital Equipment Corporation do not reflect mine.

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