[net.misc] origin of Murphy"s Law

faunt (12/28/82)

Naval aircraft are supposed to be designed so that nothing can be
hooked up incorrectly, ie: two adjacent hydraulic lines have different
fittings, each and every instrument in the control-panel is supposed
to have a connector that is different in type, size, or keying form those
around it, etc.  This is called "Murphy-proofing".  It mostly works,
but two instances that I remember are that th F9 had the two hydraulic
lines to the hook reversable, and one of the F4 had a radar display, and
an attitude indicator connector that were switchable.  The kicker on that
one was that the self-test on the attitude indicator appeared to be functioning
correctly after the swap.