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Neil Stone wrote: > > > all American munitions run ibm (cruise missiles run on embeded os2) > > Could you imagine if a nuke GPF'd on its way down Hmmm, a lot of military systems just learn to cope with failure. At least one story (probably apocryphal) of a helicopter system that was crashing many times a second, but appropriate crash recovery meant that no one noticed this during early test flights. Some nukes detonate on impact which is a nice old fashioned way of setting off bombs, although not terribly appropriate for most nuclear weapons. Most of the weapons systems I've seen reference to have little resembling general purpose operating systems on them. The assertion that all American munitions run IBM, or that Cruise missiles run OS2 looks very suspect to me - can we have a reference. As does the previous assertion that the US Navy have abandoned Windows NT for critical function (Much as this worries me). The only computer malfunction on US Navy systems on NT I've heard of was the USS Yorktown (See comp.risks for discussion), whilst this failure was serious, it wasn't as serious as portrayed, still I would not like to rely on Windows NT navigating me out of a battlefield situation. Raytheon seem to own most of the fancy stuff. Cruise Missiles existed before OS/2. And Patriots use to use VAX stuff (But I think that's been replaced). The stories I read before seemed to suggest the VAX was strapped to the explosives, but looking at the Internet sites it seems the VAX stayed firmly on the ground.... Pity, the idea of blowing VAXes up like glorified fireworks always appealed to me. -- Are you using the Internet to best effect ? www.eighth-layer.com Tel: +44(0)1395 232769 ICQ: 116952768 Moderated discussion of teleworking at news:uk.business.telework -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG Mail majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxx with "unsubscribe list" in the message body to unsubscribe.