Re: CPU recommendations from an Ada perspective?

[bobplested@attglobal.net]

Ted Dennison wrote:

> In article <1e0ymjc.1fjcxni1os2v7cN@[192.168.0.5]>,
>   swelter@mus.ch (Sascha Welter) wrote:
> > Ted Dennison <dennison@telepath.com> wrote:
> >
> > > I know of at least
> > > one engine controller that was done for the navy using PC-based
> > > hardware
>
> > Please tell me that it wasn't the thing that did a divison-by-zero
> > error and they had to haul the ship to the port to get it fixed... it
> > could not believe this to happen if it was programmed in Ada.
>
> Happily. It was not that system. That was done in C (Visual C++ I'd
> wager) by our competitors. The demo I saw had it running on Win95,
> but I don't know which OS they used on the ship. The mandate was in
> force at the time, but they got around it by doing the development under
> a R&D contract. I won't mention their name, but their initials are CAE.
> :-)
>
> Frankly I'm suprised their system lasted as long as it did. Our system
> by contract had to pass rigorous shock and vibe tests, and they still
> didn't trust it without a traditional backup system and a manual
> workaround. I don't believe CAE had to do any of that.
>
> When I first joined that group I was told about the seriousness of
> causing a ship to need a tow. Apparently its a rather humiliating
> experience for its captain. So in this group there was nothing (and I
> mean NOTHING) more serious than a software problem that causes the ship
> to go "dead in the water". Well, you can imagine the cruel glee around
> our offices when that ship had to be towed. :-)

I was talking with a friend about salvage rights in international waters. He
indicated that your ship may be considered salvage even if you're still
aboard and willingly accept a tow. That would be an expensive software
error.

bob