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Medical Equipment Crashes During Heart Procedure Because Of Antivirus Scan (softpedia.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Softpedia: The device in question is Merge Hemo, a complex medical equipment used to supervise heart catheterization procedures, during which doctors insert a catheter inside blood veins and arteries in order to diagnose various types of heart diseases. According to one such report filed by Merge Healthcare in February, Merge Hemo suffered a mysterious crash right in the middle of a heart procedure when the screen went black and doctors had to reboot their computer. Merge investigated the issue and later reported to the FDA that the problem occurred because of the antivirus software running on the doctors' computer. The antivirus was configured to scan for viruses every hour, and the scan started right in the middle of the procedure. Merge says the antivirus froze access to crucial data acquired during the heart catheterization. Unable to access real-time data, the app crashed spectacularly.
I've been using QNX for the past 2 years. I'm hoping I never have to use it again and that it will die off. If you look at the forums you'll see it's pretty much dying of thirst in the desert as the tumbleweed rolls by anyway. The concept of the micro-kernel and its safety is undermined by the fact they had to use a synchronous message passing system to regain performance. It only takes one software mistake to forget to respond to a message and the whole system locks up. Reboot required and hopefully the patient didn't die on the operating table.
If you want an OS that's as bad as the virus scanner then go ahead, QNX all the way!!
And if you want a longer list of why QNX sucks the big one then I can go into all sorts of other aspects where its completely brain damaged in other ways.
P.S. Their documentation is utter tripe.