"The isolated grounds was what I thought it was while reading the story.
I bet when this was installed, there was a problem with the sound buzzing. Isolating the grounds would make it go away, like magic. But reconnecting the grounds while the computer was on would create a sudden ground change that might crash the computer, more magic."
Being the curious type, I don't think I would have let such an interesting switch sit idly by for a year like this guy did. Why didn't he investigate it further after first making the discovery?
Hilarious story. And Gerry Sussman swears it's completely true.
edit: GLS = Gerry Sussman, creator of Scheme, co-author of SICP, and MIT professor.
Hand in your geek black belt when you leave.
This GLS is Guy L. Steele (also a creator of Scheme). Gery Sussman is Gerald J. Sussman.
You may keep the geek card.
Oh, shoot. Too true. Gerry definitely recounted this story to me, although I can't recall now whether he claimed he was involved or not.
I am Aston's total lack of geektitude.
"Gerry definitely recounted this story to me"
- so your geek card is lifetime membership eh ?? ;)
From mccoyn's Reddit comment:
"The isolated grounds was what I thought it was while reading the story.
I bet when this was installed, there was a problem with the sound buzzing. Isolating the grounds would make it go away, like magic. But reconnecting the grounds while the computer was on would create a sudden ground change that might crash the computer, more magic."
Being the curious type, I don't think I would have let such an interesting switch sit idly by for a year like this guy did. Why didn't he investigate it further after first making the discovery?
Such a great story though.
Triage (though I bet it kept popping into his head at inopportune times).
At first glance i thought this was about VIM magic...
http://www.vim.org/htmldoc/pattern.html#/magic