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scratch monkey
(foldoc) | scratch monkey
monkey, scratch
As in "Before testing or reconfiguring, always mount
a scratch monkey", a proverb used to advise caution when
dealing with irreplaceable data or devices. Used to refer to
any scratch volume hooked to a computer during any risky
operation as a replacement for some precious resource or data
that might otherwise get trashed.
This term preserves the memory of Mabel, the Swimming Wonder
Monkey, star of a biological research program at the
University of Toronto. Mabel was not (so the legend goes)
your ordinary monkey; the university had spent years teaching
her how to swim, breathing through a regulator, in order to
study the effects of different gas mixtures on her physiology.
Mabel suffered an untimely demise one day when a DEC engineer
troubleshooting a crash on the program's VAX inadvertently
interfered with some custom hardware that was wired to Mabel.
It is reported that, after calming down an understandably
irate customer sufficiently to ascertain the facts of the
matter, a DEC troubleshooter called up the field circus
manager responsible and asked him sweetly, "Can you swim?"
Not all the consequences to humans were so amusing; the sysop
of the machine in question was nearly thrown in jail at the
behest of certain clueless droids at the local "humane"
society. The moral is clear: When in doubt, always mount a
scratch monkey.
ESR notes: There is a version of this story, complete with
reported dialogue between one of the project people and DEC
field service, that has been circulating on Internet since
1986. It is hilarious and mythic, but gets some facts wrong.
For example, it reports the machine as a PDP-11 and alleges
that Mabel's demise occurred when DEC PMed the machine.
Earlier versions of this entry were based on that story; this
one has been corrected from an interview with the hapless
sysop.
A corespondent adds: The details you give are somewhat
consistent with the version I recall from the Digital "War
Stories" notesfile, but the name "Mabel" and the swimming bit
were not mentioned, IIRC. Also, there's {a very detailed
account (http://mv.com/ipusers/arcade/monkey.htm)} that
claims that three monkies died in the incident, not just one.
I believe Eric Postpischil wrote the original story at DEC, so
his coming back with a different version leads me to wonder
whether there ever was a real Scratch Monkey incident.
[Jargon File]
(2004-08-22)
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scratch monkey
(jargon) | scratch monkey
n.
As in “Before testing or reconfiguring, always mount a scratch monkey”, a
proverb used to advise caution when dealing with irreplaceable data or
devices. Used to refer to any scratch volume hooked to a computer during
any risky operation as a replacement for some precious resource or data
that might otherwise get trashed.
This term preserves the memory of Mabel, the Swimming Wonder Monkey, star
of a biological research program at the University of Toronto. Mabel was
not (so the legend goes) your ordinary monkey; the university had spent
years teaching her how to swim, breathing through a regulator, in order to
study the effects of different gas mixtures on her physiology. Mabel
suffered an untimely demise one day when a DEC field circus engineer
troubleshooting a crash on the program's VAX inadvertently interfered
with some custom hardware that was wired to Mabel.
It is reported that, after calming down an understandably irate customer
sufficiently to ascertain the facts of the matter, a DEC troubleshooter
called up the field circus manager responsible and asked him sweetly, “
Can you swim?” Not all the consequences to humans were so amusing; the
sysop of the machine in question was nearly thrown in jail at the behest of
certain clueless droids at the local ‘humane’ society. The moral is
clear: When in doubt, always mount a scratch monkey. [The actual incident
occured in 1979 or 1980. There is a version of this story, complete with
reported dialogue between one of the project people and DEC field service,
that has been circulating on Internet since 1986. It is hilarious and
mythic, but gets some facts wrong. For example, it reports the machine as a
PDP-11 and alleges that Mabel's demise occurred when DEC PMed the
machine. Earlier versions of this entry were based on that story; this one
has been corrected from an interview with the hapless sysop. —ESR]
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