3-phase supply - lots of stories during my working life around mistakes with power supply.
1999/2000 the SQA were merging their administration School Qualifications and FE College Qualifications - prior to this the 2 lots of qualifications were separate bodies.
The new system was to be up & running for the start of the academic year(it wasn't) and all courses were to regraded & recoded (they weren't).
Chaos reigned and in roughly February they still could not enrol students for exams in May and zero chance of results in August. Daily Express broke the story and all hell let loose. They ended up with a rooms full of PCs - each PC had a few schools and a spreadsheet for each school. BIG errors made but most kids got their certificates - many were denied access to their University courses that year as errors could not be corrected in time for the new University year in September..
SQA called in big guns to dig them out - IBM got the contract and they started from scratch - a few months later they were enrolling new students having bought 2 x fairly large & expensive IBM Unix boxes.
2 Unix boxes? The first Unix box was delivered and the SQA plugged it in themselves in the "computer room" Instead of using the 3 pin /13 amp plug supplied they connected it to a 3-phase 400Volts+/- . Their old hardware, in the room, was the size several of today's US Style Fridge Freezers and was fed with 3-phase.
The final bill for the IT fiasco, phased over about 2 years, was some £39 million! The annual cost of running the SQA in "normal years" was around £60m per year.
|
M.2 SSD prices have been falling like a b.. 