Gunner Asch wrote:

On Sun, 15 Nov 2009 14:26:59 -0500, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote:


Winston wrote:

We're *all* learning. You'll eventually find that your fingers know what to do
even though *you* may not be entirely sure. Couple days ago, I was curious about
the contents of a ".ini" configuration file. My fingers had it up in the
'vi' editor before I had time to think. (OK, *That* was weird.)


I used to be able to answer the phone before it rang. It really
freaked out some people!


Ive known some other folks who had that knack. Does anything else
manifest now and then?


It was an old Strowger rotary exchange that could take several
seconds to connect to the ring generator. You could hear a click when
the exchange started to connect to the ring generator, so you could pick
it up before it rang. I knew Ed would have no clue as to how the phone
exchange worked, and it sucked in John 'Know it all' Carrol as well.


It was handy in the shop. It gave you time to stop what you were
doing and head for the nearest phone. A lot of people would hang up &
call back, thinking something was wrong with the line which was a common
problem with that 50 + year old 1920's hardware. ;-)

Now, let's see if they can figure out how I did it!



The knack I had was to tell off failing electronics, and give a
gentle rap on the relay rack. Then everything would start working.
It used to freak out my boss in the CATV business. He would walk into
the headend, and equipment would stop working. i would walk in and
either it started working, or I'd say 'I don't have time for this crap
right now' and pick the spot to tap. One day it was an entire rack of
C-band sat equipment. Alarm after alarm went off, and more were going
off as I ran into the room to find 'Ernie' standing there with a diddle
stick. One tap, and all the alarms quit, and everything cam back on
line. I told him to stay out of the headend from then on.


--
The movie 'Deliverance' isn't a documentary!