{"id":48907,"date":"2014-06-24T10:36:03","date_gmt":"2014-06-24T14:36:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/?p=48907"},"modified":"2014-06-23T17:45:56","modified_gmt":"2014-06-23T21:45:56","slug":"torontos-great-dead-monkey-project-mabel-swimming-wonder-monkey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2014\/06\/24\/torontos-great-dead-monkey-project-mabel-swimming-wonder-monkey\/","title":{"rendered":"Toronto’s Great Dead Monkey Project \u2014 or, Mabel the Swimming Wonder Monkey"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"feature-torontodreams\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The details of the story vary wildly from one source to another. In fact, there are two completely different versions of the tale: \u201cThe Great Dead Monkey Project\u201d and \u201cMabel The Swimming Wonder Monkey.\u201d So it may very well be nothing more than an urban legend. But both versions involve a terrible accident during an experiment at the University of Toronto.<\/p>\n

They say Mabel was a monkey \u2014 or maybe a chimpanzee \u2014 who had been trained by scientists at the university during the late 1970s. They called her Mabel The Swimming Wonder Monkey because she knew how to swim underwater; she could breathe with the help of a customized scuba system. During their experiments, the researchers pumped various gasses into her breathing apparatus to determine the effects they had on her body.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The whole system was controlled by an early computer: the DEC VAX-11\/780. It was a brand new, state of the art machine, which back in the 1970s meant that it took up most of a room, cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and came with up to 2 MB of memory. The unit the scientists were using had developed a fault, so one day a technician came in to fix it. While the repairs were being carried out, the part of the machine that regulated Mabel\u2019s air was removed. Mabel was in the pool at the time. Her supply of oxygen was cut off completely. The Swimming Wonder Monkey drowned.<\/p>\n

The other version of the story seems to have originated<\/a> with someone who claims to have interviewed the woman who programmed the computer. According to her, the experiment had nothing to do with swimming underwater, but involved five monkeys who were hooked up to the computer so that it could read their brain waves. In this version of the story, the DEC VAX-11\/780 crashed. And while it was being fixed, part of the machine that regulated the sensors was removed. Without it, the computer accidentally sent electrical signals directly into the monkeys’ brains. It killed three and stunned the other two.<\/p>\n

The death of the monkeys \u2014 whether it Mabel or the others \u2014 is reported to be the origin of a popular term in computer geek slang: “scratch monkey<\/a>“, an extra drive used to back-up data while troubleshooting. It’s a common proverb for safety-conscious hackers: \u201cBefore testing or reconfiguring, always mount a scratch monkey.\u201d If the technician at the University of Toronto had thought to do the same, the life of a monkey \u2014\u00a0or three \u2014\u00a0would have been saved.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Photo: the DEC VAX-11\/780
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

A version of this post originally appeared on the The Toronto Dreams Project Historical Ephemera Blog<\/a>. You can find more sources, links and related stories there.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The details of the story vary wildly from one source to another. In fact, there are two completely different versions of the tale: \u201cThe Great Dead Monkey Project\u201d and \u201cMabel The Swimming Wonder Monkey.\u201d So it may very well be nothing more than an urban legend. But both versions involve a terrible accident during anContinue reading “Toronto’s Great Dead Monkey Project \u2014 or, Mabel the Swimming Wonder Monkey”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4124,"featured_media":48908,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nToronto's Great Dead Monkey Project \u2014 or, Mabel the Swimming Wonder Monkey - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2014\/06\/24\/torontos-great-dead-monkey-project-mabel-swimming-wonder-monkey\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Toronto's Great Dead Monkey Project \u2014 or, Mabel the Swimming Wonder Monkey - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The details of the story vary wildly from one source to another. 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