low@melair.UUCP (Rick Low) (08/03/89)
About a month ago, I think in comp.risks, there was discussion about a British government standard for safety-critical software. The discussion talked about what was and was not allowed according to this standard (e.g. no multitasking, only a periodic clock interrupt, etc.). As usual, I now need such information and didn't save the postings. Would someone please point me to this document or any other papers etc. that deal with this subject? (I will never again pound my keyboard and yell when someone asks for information that was just posted.) humbly, -- Rick Low MEL Defence Systems Limited, Ottawa, Canada +1 613 836 6860 mitel!melair!low@uunet.UU.NET
shimeall@cs.nps.navy.mil (Tim Shimeall x2509) (08/05/89)
Nancy Leveson has done quite a lot in this field. One reasonable starting paper would be her "Software Safety: What, Why and How", ACM Computing Surveys, June 1986 (Vol. 18, No. 2), pp. 125-164. If you are interested in this area, there are two conferences you may want to get back proceedings of or attend: COMPASS (sponsored by IEEE) and SAFECOMP (sponsored by IFAC). There is also a summary of recommendations for construction of safety critical systems in the book _Dependability_of_Critical_Computer_Systems_-_1_ Edited by Felix J. Redmill, ISBN 1-85166-203-0, published by Elsevier Applied Science ($75.50 US). This book is a collection of safety guidelines prepared by the European Workshop on Industrial Computer Systems, Technical Committee No. 7 (Safety and Reliability), the group that puts together SAFECOMP. Tim P.S. Obligatory footnote: I'm a former student of Nancy Leveson.
montnaro@sprite.crd.ge.com (Skip Montanaro) (08/07/89)
In article <8908041948.AA28422@cs.nps.navy.mil> shimeall@cs.nps.navy.mil (Tim Shimeall x2509) writes:
Nancy Leveson has done quite a lot in this field. One reasonable
starting paper would be her "Software Safety: What, Why and How",
ACM Computing Surveys, June 1986 (Vol. 18, No. 2), pp. 125-164.
You might also want to check out recent RISKS digests (comp.risks under
Usenet). Nancy Leveson and David Parnas had a bit of a go 'round on embedded
systems.
--
Skip Montanaro (montanaro@sprite.crd.ge.com)cyrus@hpmcaa.mcm.hp.com (Judy Cyrus) (08/19/89)
The document you are looking for is the UK Ministry of Defense Standard MoD-Std-0055. It requires the use of formal methods and mathematical verification on all safety-critical software. It bans the use of assembly language, limits high-level languages like Ada to "safe" subsets, bans concurrent processes, interrupts (except for fixed interval timer), floating-point arithmetic, and recursion. cyrus@hpmcaa