Brownouts, shorts, explosions and the unix pc.

[Thad P Floryan]

wouk at alumni.colorado.edu (Arthur Wouk) in <1991Jan6.050124.6838 at csn.org> asks:

	on the other hand, my 3b1 (and my vcr) both went crasy during a very
	cold period during which i wore a lot of synthetics and generated a
	lot of static electricity. i got kernel parity errors just from
	brushing the keyboard (and my vcr clock stopped several times just
	from touching the case.)

	is this common in dry climates (near 0% humidity.)

Yes.  And also during the winter months in buildings with forced-air heating.

In my office computer center we even have a controlled-humidifier to maintain
approx. 55% RH.  If the RH drops below 30%, one gets static shocks off the
computers' chassis.

Static is NO GOOD for computers, and can destroy sensitive parts.

And for those electronics hobbiests amongst you, don't play with Tesla coils
within 400m (1/4 mile) of computers ... you WILL zap CMOS ICs.  This is NOT
a joke.  Considering that you can "light" 120VAC lamps 20 feet away from a
Tesla coil, think what broadcast electricity (so to speak) does to ICs; the
disaster occurs within the first milliSecond of firing up the coil, and the
present thinking is the effect is similar to the EMP (Electro-Magnetic Pulse)
during a nuclear blast.

I know I'm probably going to get "flamed" for mentioning that aspect of
Tesla coils (re: computer terrorism), but I feel the message must go out.

Thad Floryan [ thad at cup.portal.com (OR) ..!sun!portal!cup.portal.com!thad ]