Long ago (long enough that communication with service machines was via punch files), a site had a similar SVM for executing privileged commands on behalf of suitably authorized users. Just for grins, when he needed to shut down the system, one of them did it via command to the SVM. Problem was, the system shut down before the punch file was purged. AND, the SVM was automatically started by Autolog1 with no time delay. So when the system was warm started, it found the command file waiting, and shut down. Wash, rinse, repeat. Cold start. (Hey, they were only developers and sales people.) Followed by adding a time delay to Autolog1 processing. And it wasn't me, that was before I joined the company.
Much longer ago, when Mitre was first installing VM (1972, VM/370, Release 1 PLC 9) I was working from home on a Silent 700 terminal. The second shift operator did something that annoyed me, so I shut down the system. Followed by, "Oops, we're in production now. There might be real users logged on". Phil Smith III reminisced: On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 10:46 AM, James A. Bohnsack<[email protected]> = wrote:
>I've accidentally shutdown the main production system "once", as has =
every systems programmer with whom I worked or who worked for me has = done. Only once tho. Indeed. A very, very long time ago, back at UofW, we had a machine = called PRIV, that had a table of users and commands. You could "SMSG = PRIV somecmd" and if you were enabled, it would do it. It was very = granular, down to the specific operands: This let us do things like let = a professor force his students, without giving him general FORCE privs = (I was going to write "force his admin", but that had the wrong = connotation!). Anyway, I was doing some maintenance to PRIV. I logged on and was in a = CP READ. Since I didn't want to take it down mid-command, I had the = brilliant idea of doing an "SMSG * SHUTDOWN" (it was single-threaded, of = course). And then I waited. And waited.=20 All of a sudden one of the operators comes running out of the Red Room = (the raised floor), yelling "SYSA just shut itself down!" Of course, I immediately realized what I'd done. Hey, they were only = students;-) -- Gabriel Goldberg, Computers and Publishing, Inc. (703) 204-0433 3401 Silver Maple Place, Falls Church, VA 22042 [email protected] LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/gabegold
