scratch monkey

scratch monkey n.  As in "Before testing or reconfiguring,
   always mount a {scratch monkey}", a proverb used to advise
   caution when dealing with irreplaceable data or devices.  Used to
   refer to any scratch volume hooked to a computer during any risky
   operation as a replacement for some precious resource or data that
   might otherwise get trashed.

   This term preserves the memory of Mabel, the Swimming Wonder
   Monkey, star of a biological research program at the University of
   Toronto.  Mabel was not (so the legend goes) your ordinary monkey;
   the university had spent years teaching her how to swim, breathing
   through a regulator, in order to study the effects of different gas
   mixtures on her physiology.  Mabel suffered an untimely demise one
   day when a DEC engineer troubleshooting a crash on the program's
   VAX inadvertently interfered with some custom hardware that was
   wired to Mabel.

   It is reported that, after calming down an understandably irate
   customer sufficiently to ascertain the facts of the matter, a DEC
   troubleshooter called up the {field circus} manager responsible
   and asked him sweetly, "Can you swim?"

   Not all the consequences to humans were so amusing; the sysop of
   the machine in question was nearly thrown in jail at the behest of
   certain clueless droids at the local `humane' society.  The moral
   is clear: When in doubt, always mount a scratch monkey.

   [The actual incident occured in 1979 or 1980. There is a version of
   this story, complete with reported dialogue between one of the
   project people and DEC field service, that has been circulating on
   Internet since 1986.  It is hilarious and mythic, but gets some
   facts wrong.  For example, it reports the machine as a PDP-11 and
   alleges that Mabel's demise occurred when DEC {PM}ed the
   machine.  Earlier versions of this entry were based on that story;
   this one has been corrected from an interview with the hapless
   sysop. -- ESR]