Re: software failure question

["Phaedrus" <phaedrusalt@hotmail.com>]

I'm reminded of another famous software failure, that may or
may not be an urban legend:
According to the story, when programming a helicopter simulation
for the Australian military, someone noticed that they didn't have
any kangaroos.  Rather than write a whole bunch of new code to
simulate them, they just derived a new subclass from the class that
they used to simulate the ground troops.
When they flew the new version of the simulation, the kangaroos
scattered just as expected when the helicopter flew over the hill.
But imagine their surprise when the 'roos came back and started
firing at the chopper with surface-to-air missiles!

Phaedrus
<tmoran@acm.org> wrote in message
news:9Pxz6.992$ix4.198187@news1.rdc1.sfba.home.com...
> Anyone know where this came from?
> "In one infamous software error, a misplaced minus sign resulted in a
> fighter jet's control system flipping the aircraft on its back whenever
> it crossed the equator. "
> http://www.newscientist.com/dailynews/news.jsp?id=ns9999595