Northern exposure
Picture this: early 1980s, Alaska. Consultant pilot fish is ahead of the curve when it comes to networking PCs, and he and his colleagues keeping pretty busy with that. But given the climate (very low humidity during very long winters), static electricity is a big problem. They spend a lot of time giving instructions on how to avoid problems with static electricity, and most clients get static mats to alleviate them.
Still, a lot of calls are about this one issue, and fish and his colleagues have gotten quite good at tracking down the staticky culprit when a keyboard suddenly starts blanking screens, rebooting the computers, and causing other strange things to happen. With a static electricity meter, it’s usually pretty easy to spot the chair, the wool sweater or even the hair that’s causing the problem.