At the outset I mentioned that we historically didn’t kill anyone with IT. Well, that wasn’t strictly true due to the brilliant idea of not using water to put out fires in communication/server rooms.

We can put out the fire and not damage the expensive equipment. However it kills people. The fire suppressant (Halon) would, and did, kill. Luckily the IT equipment was saved!

In order to enter one of these environments you had to have some specific training in the art of counting to thirty. If you got to thirty and you hadn’t exited the room, then that was it. That was the training course in a nutshell, and about as long and as detailed as the official training too!

So there is little old me entering the comms room to re-seat any locked up modems and look at an issue on one of the servers. Back in these days, you need to bear in mind that remote terminals weren’t a thing, at least not in the world of Windows. If you wanted to do something on a server, it was generally off to the comms room with you.

So with the modems all green and happy, now I turn to look at the issue on the server. I tap on the keyboard to wake up the (CRT) monitor and… nothing. Hmm. No lights, nothing. Odd. Fuse possibly, I guess? This would suggest something else wrong. Hmm what to do… Let’s be all human and lazy, swap the power lead out, there’s always spares somewhere.

After a brief search, I locate one and swap out. Still no joy. Hmm. This is annoying, I’m running out of time. Luckily during my power lead search, I also noted a selection of CRT monitors in the corner so I figure that I’ll just swap it out and crack on. What could go wrong?

Quick swap-out done and I switch on the new screen. Green light and a click. Click. Click, click. Click, click, click. Odd, never heard a monitor do that. Click, click, click, click. Click, click, click. Click, click, click. BANG! And a ball of smoke erupts from the back of the screen directly up towards the fanned vents at the top of the rack. Time for me to exit stage left, quickly and nonchalantly for I wish to have no blame! Non-alarmed emergency exits opening directly into the car park make for a perfect escape route without being seen, that’ll do me!

Luckily that seemed to be the full amount of fire/smoke generated that day and I can only assume it wasn’t enough to trigger the alarm/halon system. I suspect, looking back, that the four fans at the top of the rack did a rather effective job of dispersing the smoke away from the smoke sensor mounted directly above the rack. A slightly squeaky pants moment there. Never did like the idea of being trapped in a room full of halon.