31 lines
4.1 KiB
HTML
31 lines
4.1 KiB
HTML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" standalone="no"?>
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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><title>scratch monkey</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="../../jargon.css" type="text/css"/><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.61.0"/><link rel="home" href="../index.html" title="The Jargon File"/><link rel="up" href="../S.html" title="S"/><link rel="previous" href="scratch.html" title="scratch"/><link rel="next" href="scream-and-die.html" title="scream and die"/></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">scratch monkey</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="scratch.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center">S</th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="scream-and-die.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr/></div><dt><a id="scratch-monkey"/><dt xmlns="" id="scratch-monkey"><b>scratch monkey</b>: <span xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="grammar">n.</span></dt></dt><dd><p> As in “<span class="quote">Before testing or reconfiguring, always mount a
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<a href="scratch-monkey.html"><i class="glossterm">scratch monkey</i></a></span>”, a proverb used to advise
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caution when dealing with irreplaceable data or devices. Used to refer to
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any scratch volume hooked to a computer during any risky operation as a
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replacement for some precious resource or data that might otherwise get
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trashed.</p><p>This term preserves the memory of Mabel, the Swimming Wonder Monkey,
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star of a biological research program at the University of Toronto. Mabel
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was not (so the legend goes) your ordinary monkey; the university had spent
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years teaching her how to swim, breathing through a regulator, in order to
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study the effects of different gas mixtures on her physiology. Mabel
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suffered an untimely demise one day when a <a href="../D/DEC.html"><i class="glossterm">DEC</i></a>
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<a href="../F/field-circus.html"><i class="glossterm">field circus</i></a> engineer troubleshooting a crash on the
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program's <a href="../V/VAX.html"><i class="glossterm">VAX</i></a> inadvertently interfered with some
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custom hardware that was wired to Mabel.</p><p>It is reported that, after calming down an understandably irate
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customer sufficiently to ascertain the facts of the matter, a DEC
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troubleshooter called up the <a href="../F/field-circus.html"><i class="glossterm">field circus</i></a> manager
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responsible and asked him sweetly, “<span class="quote">Can you swim?</span>” Not all the
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consequences to humans were so amusing; the sysop of the machine in
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question was nearly thrown in jail at the behest of certain clueless
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<a href="../D/droid.html"><i class="glossterm">droid</i></a>s at the local ‘humane’ society.
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The moral is clear: When in doubt, always mount a scratch monkey. [The
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actual incident occured in 1979 or 1980. There is a version of this story,
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complete with reported dialogue between one of the project people and DEC
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field service, that has been circulating on Internet since 1986. It is
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hilarious and mythic, but gets some facts wrong. For example, it reports
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the machine as a <a href="../P/PDP-11.html"><i class="glossterm">PDP-11</i></a> and alleges that Mabel's demise occurred when DEC
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<a href="../P/PM.html"><i class="glossterm">PM</i></a>ed the machine. Earlier versions of this entry
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were based on that story; this one has been corrected from an interview
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with the hapless sysop. —ESR]</p></dd><div class="navfooter"><hr/><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="scratch.html">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="../S.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="scream-and-die.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">scratch </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="../index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> scream and die</td></tr></table></div></body></html>
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