miller@loral.UUCP (David P. Miller) (02/22/86)
5. What was the world's costliest program error ?.
A: A missing hyphen in the navigation
program for the first fly-by of the
planet venus caused the destruction
of an $ 18,000,000 rocket.
I believe that the mistake was not a missing hyphen, but a period which
should have been a comma. It was in the FORTRAN statement similar to:
DO 10 I=1.3 => should have been DO 10 I=1,3
John.
Question: Is John Van Zandt correct, or is GAMEBRAINS tm. right ?.
BIG DAVE.
--
David P. Miller - Loral Instrumentation. / USUAL \
sdcsvax!sdcc3!loral!miller \ DISCLAIMER /
********************************************************************************
"Sticks and stones may hurt my bones but words ......................."kenyon@nmtvax.UUCP (Rob Kenyon -A stranger in a stranger land) (02/24/86)
In article <> miller@loral.UUCP (David P. Miller) writes: > > 5. What was the world's costliest program error ?. > > I believe that the mistake was not a missing hyphen, but a period which >should have been a comma. It was in the FORTRAN statement similar to: > > DO 10 I=1.3 => should have been DO 10 I=1,3 >John. > >Question: Is John Van Zandt correct, or is GAMEBRAINS tm. right ?. > I have heard from multiple sources that it was the old "period for a comma" trick. Too bad $18M was lost because someone fell for it. -- Robert Kenyon p / ...ucbvax!unmvax!nmtvax!kenyon / kenyon@nmt / g You know how that rabbit feels, going under your speeding wheels...