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From: fwb@siemens.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.arch
Subject: Re: Re: Speed is the one true performanc
Message-ID: <33500006@siemens.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 6-Nov-86 09:07:00 EST
Article-I.D.: siemens.33500006
Posted: Thu Nov  6 09:07:00 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 8-Nov-86 03:51:04 EST
References: <3576@utcsri.UUCP>
Lines: 18
Nf-ID: #R:utcsri:-357600:siemens:33500006:000:819
Nf-From: siemens!fwb    Nov  6 09:07:00 1986


> This is silly. Broken computers don't give wrong answers. They crash,
> or they log soft errors, or they act flaky. It is almost impossible to
> imagine a hardware fault that would have no visible effect other than
> to make the 'value' (whatever it may be) of the output wrong.

Cheap computers without memory parity checking could have a soft memory
error which would make a data value wrong without crashing the computer,
logging soft errors, or acting flaky.  Of course, nobody uses a computer
without error detection, do they?  Do you disable parity checking on the
plug-in memory boards for your PC?

-----------------------------------------------------
Frederic W. Brehm       (ihnp4!princeton!siemens!fwb)
Siemens Research and Technology Laboratories
105 College Road East
Princeton, NJ 08540
(609) 734-3336