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From: bass@dmsd.UUCP (John Bass)
Newsgroups: net.micro.mac
Subject: Re: Delphi Mac Digest V2 #36
Message-ID: <266@dmsd.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 13-Aug-86 13:37:06 EDT
Article-I.D.: dmsd.266
Posted: Wed Aug 13 13:37:06 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 14-Aug-86 22:21:24 EDT
References: <3034@caip.RUTGERS.EDU>
Organization: DMS Design, San Luis Obispo Office, CA
Lines: 34
Keywords: Delphi
Summary: Please - No Mac's in critical medical service

> 
> From: PUGDOG (11554)
> Subject: Medical Uses of a MAC
> Date: 10-AUG 14:16 SIG Business

>  
> BUT, lately, due to availability at work, I have been playing with the MAC
> a little, and realize it does have some nice features.  I am still not
> convinced it is a legitimate machine for anything but graphics, ESPECIALLY
> FOR USE IN MEDICINE -- I AM NOT CONVINCED!
>  
> In fact, no one has been able to convince me.  I haven't found one legitimate
> application -- enven "manufacturers" of "rumored" products have not sent
> the information they have promised.

Mac memory run's without parity and certain ESD events, AC line faults, and
other powersupply problems can leave bits corrupted in memory without detection.
Furthermore the error detection on Mac floppies is very poor.

Using computers without parity protection in critical medical service is a
timebomb -- the resulting missinformation may kill someone.

I would say than any use of a mac to maintain charts, medication, or provide
advisory AI services should be avoided ... use an IBM computer or some
UNIX machine with parity memory and much better disk channel error detection.

Non-parity machines make nice toys, but I hope they stay out of medicine and
other critical applications (fire, police, military, CIA, FBI, etc) where
peoples lives are at stake.
-- 

John Bass (DBA:DMS Design)
DMS Design (System Design, Performance and Arch Consultants)
{dual,fortune,polyslo,hpda}!dmsd!bass     (805) 541-1575