Oops

Posted by William M. Connolley on June 1, 2009
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Oops.

I think I may have kicked it a bit too hard this time.

[Update: best comment so far has to be the ref to http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/science-%26-technology/windows-7-to-include-punch%11screen-technology-200903271670/, but http://www.computerhistory.org/VirtualVisibleStorage/popup_image.php?base_name=X1040.90 is a good second-best.

Another update: I was quoted ~£150 to fix the screen. So I bought a reconditioned machine off ebay for £100 + postage. Such is the internet.

Meanwhile: remember this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqyc37aOqT0&feature=related -W]

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Comments

  1. #1 Chad
    2009/06/01

    Happens to the best of us.

  2. #2 MPG
    2009/06/01

    Ouchers. Luckily that’s the kind of thing even a modestly confident user can fix – it’s not difficult to take off the bezel and get the smashed panel out, then just search for the part number on eBay and save yourself anything up to three quarters of what it would cost to send it away for repair.

  3. #3 Luna_the_cat
    2009/06/01

    It’ll do for modern art.

  4. #4 John S. Wilkins
    2009/06/01

    I did that to a laptop when it bounced out of my motorcycle gearsack. Pretty, and useless…

  5. #5 Eli Rabett
    2009/06/01

    Post it on Ebay in the art section and see what you can get.

  6. #6 John Mashey
    2009/06/02

    Watch that anger, but it could be worse.

    This is a picture of the WISC, first computer designed by Gene Amdahl (IBM S/360 architect), sitting in the Computer History Museum. If you look carefully at the dark panel at left, towards the top you will see little circles that look like bullet holes.

    They really *are* bullet holes.

    [:-) I wish they would post a larger version of that pic... but google images comes to the rescue: http://ed-thelen.org/comp-hist/Shustek/ShustekTour-02.html -W]

  8. #8 John Mashey
    2009/06/02

    re: Gene Amdahl’s WISC

    Yes, for years people pointed at WISC as the first known computer angering a user enough to suffer to be shot, a rare form of “computer execution”.

    The *real* story and how we found out:

    My wife Angela’s mother Kathleen was over from UK visiting a few years ago, not long after Museum opened. I was busy elsewhere, but Angela suggested they go visit the Museum. Kathleen (very nontechie) at first demurred, but then suggested that if there a larger group, she might. Maybe those nice Amdahl people, who she’d once met here?

    Kathleen had *no* idea of Gene’s role in computing, but Angela called Gene&Marian and off they all went. As they went around the Museum, Gene had lots of stories. Someone asked about the bullet holes:

    When the WISC was decommissioned at UW, someone took it home, used it for consulting for a while, and later it just sat in his basement. His teenage son needed something to hold targets for shooting practice, and he occasionally missed low…

    [Thats a shame. I had assumed Amdahl shot it in rage -W]