Thanks, I should have thought to query that about a stove. Though we had no stove in the tape room :) But srsly, yeah, it proves that you COULD have one in an office in terms of the heat at least. I don't think dust would be a problem--we sure didn't do anything about it (and had line printers in the same room at one point, with no special filtering or anything).
My point about the holes is that they opened a "secret" passage between the floors, behind a door (both were in closets), with no ventilation. I guess that could pass code, but I'd sorta hope not--seems like a great way for a minor fire to cross between floors quietly and then burst out in multiple places. This was an old and, um, interesting building anyway. There was an attached parking garage, and one day an entire wall of that garage fell off in a windstorm, never to be replaced. That meant the parking garage was more transparent, making it easier to look out our third-floor window and watch the drug deals going down in the McDonald's parking lot next door. Then there was the time the cops found a body on the roof of the parking garage: we're watching the news one night, and the hed is "BODY FOUND IN SOUTH ARLINGTON". We look at each other (by then I was married, having met my wife at that job) and say "Hey, we work in South Arlington!" and then the camera pans across the front of our building, narrowly missing the company logo we'd proudly had installed a month or so before. Since we both worked there, we sometimes drove together, sometimes separately, and often left the beater car there overnight--typically parked on that garage top floor, which might have gotten us a late-night visit from the police! Fortunately it wasn't there that evening. -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Jon Perryman Sent: Wednesday, June 25, 2025 2:04 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: 3420 environmentals? On Wed, 25 Jun 2025 13:01:08 -0400, Phil Smith III <[email protected]> wrote: >Back in the 80s, we had 3420s in a room that had some sort of cooling >but was not a data center per se. The cables ran through a 6" hole in >the floor down two stories to the real data center; the controller was >downstairs as well. I asked Gemini https://gemini.google.com/app/e8831fb12d60109e and the answer was that your stove top produces more heat than a 3420. stovetop 2,000 to 10,000 BTU, 3420 300 BTU, a typical server you might find in a closet 1,500 BTU, 370/158 system 30,000 to 50,000 BTU. There are other considerations such as humidity and dust. >And I'm also 100% sure those holes in the floor were in violation of >code :) Actually, holes in the floor are allowed by building code but requirements vary by city, county, state and fed. More important, it varies by inspector interpretation. > I've occasionally driven by the building (35+ years later) but never had time > to stop and see if the holes were still there. The only reason to seal the hole is for cosmetics unless building code requires it. For the fire code, some go by burn time. E.g. code may specify that if the fire won't leap into another area for a specified time. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
