From: dgrev (dgrev@iinet.net.au)
Date: Mon Apr 11 2005 - 19:30:02 PDT
Patrick & Sean
> Much to my horror, is it not true that many of the automatic radar
> controlled guns on battleships are now controlled by windows NT?
>> I can see it now... As seen on the primary display screen of your
>> Microsoft MBT in the middle of an engagement:
>>
>> "We're sorry, Microsoft Windows for Warfare has encountered a problem
>> and must shut down. Please reboot your control computer to continue."
>>
>> "Gunner, REBOOT!"
WHAT? You people are really starting to get scary now.
What next? Airliner computers running on Win 95?
The "Blue Screen of Death" would take on a whole new
meaning then.
Or how about that old fall back that scares the *&^% out of little
old ladies that have just bought their first computer - "illegal
operation".
I have tried multiple times to get Win XP to run on this computer
and it craps itself after about 15 mins EVERY time. The only way it
will work is if I don't load anything other than XP ie no word
processor, no internet, no email, no games - nothing.
If they can't make an operating system that will run their own
software, would you trust them to write software for life
critical uses? Not me. Have a look at the history of Airbus and
the computer issues behind some of their crashes, especially that
one that wiped out a whole heap of journalists in a forest.
The pilot said up and the software said down. The software won
as in Airbuses there is no direct physical link between the controls
and the mechanical bits. What's more, Boeing is doing the same now.
Also, I have heard that the British ChallengerTank software does
a self test at start up. If the self test fails, the driver is
not able to start the engine, this can be because the engine has
thrown a con rod or for something trivial. One would hope there is a
"battle override" switch for the times when you don't care what happens
to the engine, you just want it to go NOW.
This message came to you from Win 98R2 via Netscape Mail. At least
that will work most of the time.
Regards
Doug
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat May 07 2005 - 20:42:54 PDT