21 Mar
2006
21 Mar
'06
4:32 p.m.
All,
On 3/21/06, Glen Slick <glen.slick at gmail.com> wrote:
Patients have been killed by PDP-11 controlled medical
devices:
http://sunnyday.mit.edu/papers/therac.pdf
(On topic too, this happened 20 years ago)
Not quite on topic. I work for a company that manufactures
pharmaceutical drugs. A lot of the equipment now has a Windows HMI
(touch screen). All Windows does it print pretty pictures on the
screen and pass values to a PLC. The PLC does all the real work.
And yes, we Ido a lot of testing to show that the equipment does work.
Simon
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Well, an engineer is not concerned with the truth; that is left to
philosophers and theologians: the prime concern of an engineer is
the utility of the final product."
Lectures on the Electrical Properties of Materials, L.Solymar, D.Walsh