Once upon a time
I, and half a dozen other people, worked in a stuffy windowless basement which was where the prototype hardware we were developing ROM code for resided.
In vain we pleaded for aircon. The temeperatures were up to 27 degrees - even 30.
I was working the ICE - In circuit emulator to the initiated, A vast box of power hungry ECL (emitter coupled logic) and schottky TTL that on a fair day with a following wind could pretend to be an 8086 sufficiently convincingly to be of use debugging the firmware.
Except when it wasn't. One day code that had previously run well, stopped. Analysis of breakpoint audit trails showed nonsensical behaviour. Opcodes were simply not being executed....as they should.
I reported to my boss 'The ICE has gone west' .
"Why?"
"Dunno. It is getting pretty hot. "
And we grabbed the manual and leafed to the back
OPERATING TEMPERATURE.15C-27C AMBIENT
Now I came from a hardware background, and I knew as well as anyone that those chips had capabilities to go over 100C without popping, and the thing was fan cooled, so the only reason they would have the temperature rating so low was that it was on the bleeding edge built out of selected chips and the timings would not hold out beyond that.
The thermometer one of the permies had installed on the wall said 28C
"Leave it with me" said the Boss
The next Monday we arrived to find air conditioning had been installed.
Its always nice to know management values its ICE more than it does its coders