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On the other hand any physical system in motion is also loosing energy constantly to friction, air resistance, and other factors. Because of that and because the winding/unwinding description seemed implausible I strongly suspect the story is apocryphal.

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Sorry to nitpick, but I think this is a good thing to know. Apocryphal means "of doubtful authenticity", not mythical or false, which is the how you seem to be using it. The story is clearly apocryphal.

No need to be sorry, I'll know to use it correctly in the future. :)

I think you're underestimating how mechanical old hardware really was.

There's the classic story of "Walking Drives" from esr/jargonfile:

http://dictionary.die.net/walking%20drives

Or search for "washing" here for the story about huge DEC drives being ripped apart: http://www.rinkworks.com/stupid/cs_drives.shtml

Old hardware employed a lot of force, so "bad things" (TM) really could happen.

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