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From: gnome@oliveb.UUCP (Gary)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Parity on Apple memories
Message-ID: <7118@oliveb.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 15-Oct-87 21:54:36 EDT
Article-I.D.: oliveb.7118
Posted: Thu Oct 15 21:54:36 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 17-Oct-87 16:30:22 EDT
References: <15260@clyde.ATT.COM>
Organization: Olivetti ATC; Cupertino, Ca
Lines: 25

>  .... I would hate to trust these beasts with
> tens of thousands of dollars worth of data with no indication that it was
> corrupted (other than La Bomba :-).
> 
> Opinions?  Anybody know if "no parity" holds true for the Mac II?
> 	Steve Falco   moss!saf   saf@moss.ATT.COM

Parity is pretty useless in the IBM-PC marketplace,  where it exists
more as a data-sheet compatibility issue than a technical one.
After all, when the system detects a parity error, it just halts.
(Wow, how useful -- it doesn't close files, or in the case of UNIX
on the PC, a SYNC)

So, if you want a system that is super-reliable, design-in ECC and
software that verifies bus/IO transactions.

There are a bunch of hardware/software safeguards that can be
designed into medical/financial computers, but each additional
feature increases the price a little and is not very high on most
users priorities.

It wouldn't be hard to make a "secure Mac" -- but then, how do you
guard against bad code?

Gary