I think you're underestimating how mechanical old hardware really was. There's the classic story of "Walking Drives" from esr/jargonfile: http://dictionary.di

I think you're underestimating how mechanical old hardware really was. There's the classic story of "Walking Drives" from esr/jargonfile: http://dictionary.die.net/walking%20drives http://dictionary.die.net/walking%20drives Or search for "washing" here for the story about huge DEC drives being ripped apart: http://www.rinkworks.com/stupid/cs_drives.shtml http://www.rinkworks.com/stupid/cs_drives.shtml Old hardware employed a lot of force, so "bad things" (TM) really could happen.