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From: town@hpspkla.spk.hp.com (Brian R. Town)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: Re: Memory Parity. Is It Really Needed
Message-ID: <6040014@hpspkla.spk.hp.com>
Date: 4 Apr 91 21:11:21 GMT
References: <steveh.669386099@tasman>
Organization: Hewlett Packard Company, Spokane, Wa.
Lines: 17

berggren@eecs.cs.pdx.edu (Eric Berggren) writes:

>   The part about memory parity I don't understand is that I am told one
> wants memory parity checking done to "prevent loss of important data". Well
> everytime I got a memory parity error, I lost important data because it
> brought the whole system to a halt. What next? Helicopters with emergency
> ejector seats? wierd...

Yes you lost important data, but only what you were working on at the time.  I
would guess that the parity error kept your application from writing the
corrupt information to disk, didn't it??  The 'important data' that you were
saved from loosing is the data on the disk that the parity checking kept the 
program from trashing.  Just consider what shape any data files that your
program writes would have been in if you would have used the program for a few
days without knowing that there was a problem.

Brian