mOOkie
July 21st, 2002, 01:51 AM
Gemini V splashed down off-course by 100 miles because of a programmer's misguided short-cut. The intended calculation was to compute the earth reference point relative to the sun as a fixed point, using the elapsed time since launch. The programmer forgot that the earth does not come back to the same point relative to the sun 24 hours later, so that the error cumulatively increased each day.
An F-16 program bug caused the plane to flip over whenever it crossed the equator, as the result of a missing minus sign to indicate south latitude.
A man's auto insurance rate tripled when he turned 101. He was the computer program's first driver over 100, and his age was interpreted as 1. This fit the program's definition of a teenager -- namely, someone under 20.
A cement factory had a state-of-the-art process control system controlling the conveyors and the rock crusher used in making cement. Apparently defective RAM chips tended to drop bits. On this occasion, this caused the second of a series of three conveyors to switch off, which in turn stacked up a large pile of 6-8 foot diameter boulders at the top of the conveyor. Eventually, the boulders fell some 80 feet from the conveyor, crushing several cars in the parking lot and damaging a building.
An F-16 program bug caused the plane to flip over whenever it crossed the equator, as the result of a missing minus sign to indicate south latitude.
A man's auto insurance rate tripled when he turned 101. He was the computer program's first driver over 100, and his age was interpreted as 1. This fit the program's definition of a teenager -- namely, someone under 20.
A cement factory had a state-of-the-art process control system controlling the conveyors and the rock crusher used in making cement. Apparently defective RAM chips tended to drop bits. On this occasion, this caused the second of a series of three conveyors to switch off, which in turn stacked up a large pile of 6-8 foot diameter boulders at the top of the conveyor. Eventually, the boulders fell some 80 feet from the conveyor, crushing several cars in the parking lot and damaging a building.