CLARIFICATION @ 9:34 a.m. April 6: The computer-controlled chimes that ring from the Old Main bell tower are digitally pre-recorded sounds, but they’re not computer-generated. Penn State Professor Dan Armstrong played and recorded the ‘Westminster Quarters’ for use at Old Main. The computer-run system replaced the former Old Main clock-chime set-up in the mid-1990s, when the latter had become unreliable, according to the university.
The earlier report is posted below.
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Earlier report, posted @ 6:06 p.m. April 5:
Penn State, the bells toll for thee.
And on Tuesday morning, they tolled a lot.
The electronic — but authentic-sounding — chimes that ring from the Old Main bell tower went haywire about 10 a.m., ringing for a good seven minutes straight, University Park observers said.
‘I hope they don’t ring it once for every dollar that is being cut from the budget,’ Penn State alum Todd Dietrich quipped on Twitter.
As it turns out, the ringing spree stemmed from a computer glitch, university spokeswoman Jill Shockey said Tuesday afternoon.
She said the electronic chimes are synchronized to work with the giant clock atop Old Main.
But for some reason, Shockey said, the chimes weren’t communicating normally with the clock on Tuesday morning.
She said an error message in a centralized computer system alerted technicians to the clock problem. When they reset the clock from a remote location, Shockey explained, they didn’t realize the chimes were going bonkers, too.
The chimes can be reset only on site, at Old Main, she said.
In short, the set-up appears to have lost its synchronization, however briefly.
‘They’re not entirely sure why it happened,’ Shockey said of the situation. ‘It does happen very occasionally.’
She said workers were continuing to look into the exact cause Tuesday. The chimes and the clock seemed to be working in harmony again later in the day.
Their meltdown wasn’t all bad, though.
‘Maybe enough rings will shift Happy Valley’s climate,’ student Dennis Siller wrote on Twitter, ‘and we can finally get more than one sunny day a week.’
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