Dancing Indian maintanence

I have it on good authority, from the guy who did the dancing (Skip Bollinger by name) and another eyewitness, that this happened at least once. There was a large newspaper site, that was automating. Part of the change involved an 11-70, that arrived and just would not run. Local guys couldn't get it going, so Skip was called in. He was upper level hardware support for the piece of DEC that did typesetting and graphic arts. Skip arrived and did a quick inspection, and noticed a breaker off (or was it a cable unplugged - I forget the exact detail) in the back of the cabinet where it was hard to see. He fixed that while no one was watching, and then produced a rubber chicken from his tool kit. In front of DEC sales folk, Field Service managers, and newspaper executives (they were there anxiously watching because the 11-70 being down was threatening a critical switch-over deadline), he proceeded to dance back and forth in front of the 11-70, chanting gibberish and waving the rubber chicken. He paused in front of the power switch, turned it on and hit boot...and it took off running. The DEC managers almost croaked...but the customers were so glad it was working they didn't care (plus, back then, newspaper folks were a wild bunch, and usually had a great sense of humor). So it sounds a lot like your story, except there was no Indian costume...it was more like pure rubber chicken thaumaturgy rather than being based on the rituals of Native Americans.

The DEC folks wanted Skip to be in trouble, but the customers were so glad, it just wouldn't stick. On the strength of this and other less showy customer saving miracles, a contract for a big sale for another system specified his name as the installation guy, or the deal was off...I once got to work with Skip on an 11-70 integration with some other manufacturer's typesetting gear, and the guy was indeed a genius at troubleshooting, with an encyclopedic knowledge of the 11-70 hardware. I wonder where he's at now? haven't heard anything about him since the early '80s.

Lee K. Gleason N5ZMR Control-G Consultants