[top-posting damage repaired manually -dM] The same could be said of the computer in a modern car, controlling such things as timing, fuel injection, and dashboard. Or the fly-by-wire computers on airliners. This actually is a reason to make sure everything fails in the correct direction, and there are "too dumb to fail" overrides in some cases (eg, non-computer-controlled parallel thermostats to keep the heating and cooling clipped to, say, 5? and 35?, with never both of them on at once). It's also a reason to add hardware watchdogs and suchlike, and to make sure that everything can be overridden manually in non-computer ways at need. Nothing is perfect, of course. But for a lot of people, the additional comfort and convenience are worth the risk. (I'm one of them, or would be if I had the round tuits to rewire my place suitably.) If everything controlled by it is electrically powered, there's no point trying to keep the computer up during a power-out. If it were *my* house, I'd sure rather trust the job to a Z80 than the latest Wintel trash! /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B