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Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!mcvax!ukc!warwick!rlvd!nbc
From: nbc@rlvd.UUCP (Neil Calton)
Newsgroups: talk.bizarre,comp.misc
Subject: Re: What the world needs now
Message-ID: <408@rlvd.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 27-May-87 11:09:23 EDT
Article-I.D.: rlvd.408
Posted: Wed May 27 11:09:23 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 6-Jun-87 10:26:24 EDT
References: <12067@topaz.rutgers.edu>
Reply-To: nbc@rlvd.UUCP (Neil Calton)
Organization: Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Didcot, United Kingdom
Lines: 24
Keywords: Paranoid computers
Summary: Anything can happen in the movies
Xref: mnetor talk.bizarre:1946 comp.misc:636

In article <12067@topaz.rutgers.edu> trudel@topaz.rutgers.edu (Jonathan D.) writes:

>
>... is a piece of software that actually makes a computer blow up just
>like in the movies.  This is long overdue.  "Lay" people are extremely
>disappointed when a program or system grinds/wheezes to a halt with some wimpy
>message like "B037X: USER ERROR IN GAPX TABLE" or "CATASTROPHIC SYSTEM FAILURE:
>BUFFER OVERFLOW INDICATOR OVERFLOW" or "Bus error - core dumped".  They want
>to see explosions!  

Of course this computer should also be impossible to turn off, so that when
it 'decides' to launch a missile attack or 'instructs' all the robots in a
factory to turn homicidal, everyone just stands around goggled-eyed, panics
or tries to sound convincing when they have to explain exactly why they
cannot hit the off-switch. Then it really would be like in the movies.
-- 
Neil Calton                                  UUCP:   ..!mcvax!ukc!rlvd!nbc
Rutherford Appleton Laboratory,              ARPA: @ucl-cs.arpa:nbc@vd.rl.ac.uk
Chilton, Didcot, Oxon  OX11 0QX             JANET:         nbc@uk.ac.rl.vd
England                                     or    N.B.M.CALTON@uk.ac.rl
Tel: (0235) 21900   ext 5740

                   "How can you lie there and think of England
                    When you don't even know who's in the team"