Haha, that's funny it still worked. Actually, I think the device I was thinking of was a little 5-port hub. Man did that thing smoke. It made the whole room reek for the entire day. o_o;
Also, my boss and I were sitting in one of the computer labs one day distributing the build image and all of the sudden a monitor 'exploded' behind us. We looked behind us and sure enough, there was a huge plume of smoke coming out of it. Haha, I found that thing at the beginning of this year and it STILL smelled.