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My favourite was troubleshooting an already ancient original IBM XT in 1992... The operator was complaining about the screen giving her headaches. Sure enough

My favourite was troubleshooting an already ancient original IBM XT in 1992... The operator was complaining about the screen giving her headaches. Sure enough - when I went onsite to assist, that "green" CRT was so incredibly wavy, I could not understand how she could do her job at all. First thing I tried was moving it away from the wall, in-case I had to unplug it to replace. It stopped shimmering and shifting immediately. Moved it back - it started again. That's when we realised that her desk was against a wall hiding major electrical connectivity to the regional Bell Canada switching data-centre on the floors above her. I asked politely if she could have her desk moved - but no... that was not an option... ... So - I built my first (but not last) solution using some tin-foil and a cardboard box that covered the back and sides of her monitor - allowing for airflow... It was ugly - but it worked, we never heard from her again. My 2nd favourite was with GSM mobile devices - and my car radio - inevitably immediately before getting a call, or TXT message (or email on my Blackberry), if I was in my car and had the radio going, I would get a little "dit-dit-dit" preamble and know that something was incoming... (hahahaha - I read this and realise that this is the new "old man story", and see what the next 20-30 years of my life will be, boring the younglings with ancient tales of tech uselessness...)

glhaynes 2y ago
My 2nd favourite was with GSM mobile devices - and my car radio - inevitably immediately before getting a call, or TXT message (or email on my Blackberry), if I was in my car and had the radio going, I would get a little "dit-dit-dit" preamble and know that something was incoming... I remember this happening all the time in meetings. Every few minutes, the conversation would stop because a phone call was coming in and all the conference room phones started buzzing. One of those things that just fades away so you don't notice it coming to an end.
- mrandish 2y ago
  At a certain large tech company, at the peak of GSM data-capable phones (eg Palm Treo, Blackberry) it was accepted practice for everyone turn off data or leave their phone on a side table due to conference speaker phones on the tables amplifying the data. Also, during this era I was on a flight and the pilot came over the PA right before pushing from the gate saying exasperatedly "Please turn your damn phones off!" (I assumed the same RF noise was leaking into his then-unsheilded headset).
- MBCook 2y ago
  The “GSM chirp”. I never got to hear it much because my family happened to use CDMA phones in that era, but I do remember hearing it a few times. I know it was well known. I haven’t thought about that in a long time.
mikewarot 2y ago
I had an IBM in a Electrical Generating Station that had a HUGE 480 volt 3 phase feed not far from the monitor in the next room. The display would swirl about 1/2 of an inch at quite a clip. The solution I picked was to put the machine in Text/Graphics mode (instead of normal character rom text mode, this was back in the MS-DOS days), so the vertical sync rate then matched up with the swirling EM fields, and there was almost zero apparent motion.

glhaynes 2y ago

My 2nd favourite was with GSM mobile devices - and my car radio - inevitably immediately before getting a call, or TXT message (or email on my Blackberry), if I was in my car and had the radio going, I would get a little "dit-dit-dit" preamble and know that something was incoming... I remember this happening all the time in meetings. Every few minutes, the conversation would stop because a phone call was coming in and all the conference room phones started buzzing. One of those things that just fades away so you don't notice it coming to an end.

mrandish 2y ago
At a certain large tech company, at the peak of GSM data-capable phones (eg Palm Treo, Blackberry) it was accepted practice for everyone turn off data or leave their phone on a side table due to conference speaker phones on the tables amplifying the data. Also, during this era I was on a flight and the pilot came over the PA right before pushing from the gate saying exasperatedly "Please turn your damn phones off!" (I assumed the same RF noise was leaking into his then-unsheilded headset).
MBCook 2y ago
The “GSM chirp”. I never got to hear it much because my family happened to use CDMA phones in that era, but I do remember hearing it a few times. I know it was well known. I haven’t thought about that in a long time.

mikewarot 2y ago

I had an IBM in a Electrical Generating Station that had a HUGE 480 volt 3 phase feed not far from the monitor in the next room. The display would swirl about 1/2 of an inch at quite a clip. The solution I picked was to put the machine in Text/Graphics mode (instead of normal character rom text mode, this was back in the MS-DOS days), so the vertical sync rate then matched up with the swirling EM fields, and there was almost zero apparent motion.