therac-25 - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

9 Sep 1999

Or look at http://www.calpoly.edu/~darkjedi/300/00.htm for a twisted view of
the incident.

Or, to quote my Mother, the people responsible for this disaster "should be
flogged with a maggoty cat"!

My 2 cents: relying on S/W for safety is like relying on timing for birth
control.
I've known of beatifully made Swiss molding machines with all sorts of
hydraulic and electrical interlocks still closing at 100 tons force an inch
...
 from someone's fingers. Give me a 2 inch
steel bar anyday.

Neil Morrison
Implementation
GTE Enterprise Solutions
ph: (604) 293-5710
email:morrison@t-iii.com

...
  -----Original Message-----
 From:	CLASSICCMP(a)trailing-edge.com [SMTP:CLASSICCMP@trailing-edge.com]
 Sent:	Thursday, September 09, 1999 1:59 PM
 To:	Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
 Subject:	RE: therac-25

 	I found myself in the mood for revisiting the
macabre side of
classic computing and decided to search for Therac stuff.  See:

http://www.dcs.ed.ac.uk/~adamd/essays/rts3.html

	Now it seems to me that the fellow who wrote this article was
pretty full of it.  If you can get past his overuse of passive voice and
continual nominalization, you may note that many of his points are far  too
 theoretical and not supported by direct
observation, knowledge, etc.  
 It's clear (to me, at least) that he's never directly worked with
 any of the Therac machines, nor did he even bother talking to the
 folks at AECL before writing his article.  It's entirely a bunch of
 opinions of his after he read Nancy Leveson's article on Therac.
  	.... clipped