资料来源 : Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing

scratch monkey
     
        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.
     
        [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]
     
        [{Jargon File}]
     
        (1994-12-15)