[TUHS] Date madness

[Dave Horsfall]

On Fri, 15 Dec 2017, Paul Winalski wrote:

> After the 11/730 came out, Dick Hustvedt (lead VMS architect and
> engineer) and Stan Rabinowitz put together an elaborate April fool's
> hack.  On April 1, the 11/730 in the VMS group's machine room had next
> to it a pedestal with a sundial on it and a ribbon cable leading into
> the 11/730, with sales brochures placed next to it.  The sales
> brochures announced the SD730 Fixed Head Solar Horologue, a sundial
> with a photocell for detecting noon that could be used to
> automatically set the 11/730's time-of-day clock.  The thing actually
> worked--it was connected via a UNIBUS real-time device controller, and
> Hustvedt had written a VMS device driver for it.

Cripes; I remember that story!  Wasn't there a GIF of the brochure somewhere?

Ah, here's a reference:

     https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=76256&cid=6805264

along with the dreaded microfortnights...

(Sad what happened to Dick.)

-- 
Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU)  "Those who don't understand security will suffer."