Scratch monkey

Scratch monkey is a term used in hacker jargon, as in "Before testing or reconfiguring, always mount a scratch monkey", a proverb used to advise caution when dealing with irreplaceable data or devices.[1][2] It is used to refer to any temporary configuration changes to a computer during any risky operation, which include a replacement for some precious resource or data that might otherwise be destroyed.

The meaning is based upon the use in the 1970s of a scratch tape or other storage device, which was available for temporary use, to be loaded in place of other tapes whose valuable contents might be damaged by the operation to be performed. If a problem occurred, it would be the scratch tape that was damaged rather than the more valuable tape that had been removed.

The phrase "always mount a scratch monkey" originated from two tales by technicians about maintenance that was performed on computer equipment.[notes 1] The technicians were unaware that the computer was connected to five laboratory monkeys, and the routine maintenance procedures caused the death of three of the monkeys.[3][notes 2]

Notes
  1. One story reads that the University of Toronto had taught a monkey called Mabel to swim using a gas regulator to breathe underwater. A computer technician from the hardware supplier DEC adjusted settings on the regulator that altered the gas mixture and asphyxiated Mabel.
  2. In 1979 or 1980, five monkeys at the University of Toronto in the medicine department were hooked up to brainwave sensors using custom hardware. Part of the interface was a diskdrive located in a different part of the building whose read-only button was activated and taped down with a warning not to remove the adhesive tape. Drive read operations operate at a much lower current than write operations. A maintenance technician from outside the university servicing a fault removed the tape, enabled write mode and performed a drive diagnostic test. The resulting electrical current sent through the sensors stunned two monkeys and killed the other three.
gollark: Quite a lot of browser APIs are weirdly inconsistent, because they only came up with the whole "asynchronous" thing after a lot had already been done, and then a while after that the idea of promises, but they're still sticking with events a lot for some reason.
gollark: JS is what you get if you put 100 language designers in a room, remove the language designers and add a bunch of monkeys with typewriters and DVORAK keyboards, and then bring the actual language designers back but force them to stick with what the monkeys wrote and only make small changes and tack on extra features after the fact, and also the language designers don't agree with each other most of the time.
gollark: Using TS means many of the errors JS wouldn't really catch except at runtime are much easier to deal with.
gollark: I like JS from an ease of development perspective, if not really a language design one.
gollark: The main thing with web is that you don't need to install anything or compile for different platforms, it just runs in a convenient browser sandbox and on basically anything modern.

References
  1. Raymond, Eric S. (October 11, 1996). The New Hacker's Dictionary (3rd ed.). MIT Press. p. 398. ISBN 0-262-68092-0.
  2. "The Jargon File - scratch monkey". Retrieved December 26, 2017.
  3. "Scratch Monkey Story".


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