View Source: AlwaysMountaScratchMonkey - Waikato Linux Users Group

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From the JargonFile:

> scratch monkey, ''n.''
>
>     As in "Before testing or reconfiguring, always mount a [scratch monkey | JargonFile: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 | JargonFile: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 | JargonFile: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 [droid | JargonFile:droid]s 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 [PDP11] and alleges that Mabel's demise occurred when [DEC] [PM | JargonFile:PM]ed 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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Last edited on Saturday, February 13, 2010 1:17:03 pm by AristotlePagaltzis

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