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Jeffrey Race wrote:
> On Mon, 15 Nov 2004 16:18:16 PST8, Mark D. Overholser wrote:
>
>
>>Remember, this is Windows (TM), the OS that requires reboots for things
>>that "other" OS's just do by running a little "script".
>
>
> Now that I have you all on the line, I am curious about an article
> appearing in the latest IEEE Spectrum, just here, about a Harris Corp.
> system installed for the FAA which crashed causing LA control towers
> to be unable to reach any planes . . . then the backup system also
> failed. Fortunately there were no crashes because of some automated
> system built into new planes ("Pull up . . . ! Pull up . . . !).
> Anyway the postmortem discovered that the SOP to reboot the system
> every 30 days had not been followed, since it was designed to
> crash every 49 days due to some timer sequence termination.
> Could this be some W(%&*& behavior? If so why would anyone design
> a system in this way? And does OS/2 suffer a similar vulnerability?
> What to do? Gory details please.
>
> Jeffrey Race
>
My memory is somewhat foggy, but the 49 day figure seems to ring a bell.
ISTR that is the time it takes for the real-time clock to overflow, at
least in OS/2. Probably so in Windoze, too. If the clock driver doesn't
handle it correctly, it could screw up the timekeeping for the system
and thus many other things as well. Think of the time functions required
to keep aircraft a "safe" distance apart, estimate ETAs, etc.
Someone else may come up with a better explanation.
--
Tom Brown
thombrown at san dot rr dot com
Member SCOUG, V.O.I.C.E. & SDAA
running eComStation GA + FP 3
eCS system uptime is 0 days 00:42 hours
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