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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.
I still have one of the Pentium 90 chips with the math flaw. The bidding starts at $1.
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."
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.
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.
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.