>
> ::> > I have heard of Airbuses crashing because the controls were poorly
> ::> > designed. I've never heard of a 777 crashing. I've also never heard of any
> ::> > medical machines failing, though this would tend to be underpublicized.
>
> ::Actually, the THERAC-25 radiation therapy machine is a good example of
> ::poor hardware AND software design which killed a number of people by
> ::giving them too high a dose of radiation, either for too long or
> ::without the proper screen in place.
>
> !?!
>
> Has this been documented anywhere? Where did you find this out from?
>
I read an article about it several years ago, but I don't remember
what magazine it was it... One of the IEEE or ACM periodicals, I think.
A quick Alta-Vista search on "therac" turns up 476 matches, but a lot
of them are CS student papers.
Take a look at
http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~cs3604/lib/Therac_25/Therac_1.html
This is a reprint from IEEE Computer (might even be the original article
I saw :)
clint
Received on Tue Apr 06 1999 - 14:54:54 BST