I've probably told this story before, but anyway, gold is an excellent conductor, and back in the days when computers were built from discrete logic chips soldered to printed the circuit boards (PCBs) that plugged into a backplane, the pins of PCBs were usually coated with gold so that they made optimum electrical contact.
Digital Equipment Corporation's (DEC) printed circuit board repair operation was located in Building 1 along side the Mill Pond. If a circuit board came back from the field too many times or proved too difficult to repair then out a window it went, right into the Mill Pond.
In 1978 DEC was cited by the EPA for pollution of the Assabet River. The pollutant? Gold.
--Percy
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