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The Big Technical Mistakes of History
An anonymous reader tips a PC Authority review of some of the biggest technical goofs of all time. "As any computer programmer will tell you, some of the most confusing and complex issues can stem from the simplest of errors. This article looking back at history's big technical mistakes includes some interesting trivia, such as NASA's failure to convert measurements to metric, resulting in the Mars Climate Orbiter being torn apart by the Martian atmosphere. Then there is the infamous Intel Pentium floating point fiasco, which cost the company $450m in direct costs, a battering on the world's stock exchanges, and a huge black mark on its reputation. Also on the list is Iridium, the global satellite phone network that promised to make phones work anywhere on the planet, but required 77 satellites to be launched into space."
You wound ME.
Always going forward, 'cause we can't find reverse.
Now, if only they had sales to match the business plan, they'd be billionaires.
They had a great sales plan. Make your primary customer the US Military, build a massive satellite network, declare bankruptcy after it's built, reform Iridium LLC, and continue operations through today offering satellite phone service at a price comparable to US international roaming prices.
Satellite will always have limitations until we can get congress to raise the speed on light (stupid greenies worried about photon pollution), can get rid of the line-of-sight issue, and can build the very strong radios required into a normal-sized handset; but Iridium is still the best sat phone network out there and can hardly be called a failure.
BTW, they knew exactly how many satellites they'd need from day one - take a look at the atomic number of Iridium and figure out how many orbiting electrons it should have in a non-ionic form.
This isn't deserving of a Troll, I think. Windows ME edged out AN EXPLODING OIL PIPELINE.
I still have one of the Pentium 90 chips with the math flaw. The bidding starts at $1.
Come on Node 3, refute this guy's anti-apple rhetoric!
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
When I tried to work it out it came out as $449.9999867' million.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
At one time I owned a Hyundai Elantra (2000), Honda Civic (2004) AND Nissan Versa (2009) ALL had bad FPRs...
Is it just my observation, or is eldavojohn an idiot?
Had it been reasonably cheap, I'm sure there woulb've been plenty of uses (if only for enabling people in isolate places, adventurers, ship & oil platform crew etc. to communicate).
Most adventurers I know buy one sword once, and then get all of their equipment updates from loot and drops. I guess the people in isolate places would have to buy double to replace the phones adventurers took, though, so maybe it balances out.
I'm guessing "Iain Thomson" is not a day over 25, not very versed on the history of the Internet, and too busy to look up the meaning of "BBS". Am I right?
Like any self-respecting 25-year-old geek would have to look up "be back soon". Duh.
But they were mobile.
By the definition, mobile is something with one carry handle, semi-mobile has got two handles.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Actually it only took 66 satellites due to changes in orbit configuration that increased coverage. They didn't bother to change the name to Dysprosium.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
But latency through multi-hop LEO is potentially as bad as geostationary. Absolute distance may be less, but add per-hop packet store-and-forward times.
In my (admittedly limited) first-hand experience, the US military tends to use Iridium for data comm. Stuff which, 20 years ago, would have been landlines with modems. Except you can't really string landline to some mountain in Upickastan, can you?
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
Hell yeah. The 8086 and the MSDOS legacy made more 680x0 fanboys that Motorola marketing ever could have.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
That's not my XPerience. At least 95 - 98% of the time.
I think thou DOS protest too much.
Some of what I say is fact, some is conjecture, the rest I'm just blowing out my ass...you guess.
No, he doesN'T.
All these bad puns are making me WinCE.