Yee, Yehriel V.

1430071

Computer Fundamentals
TTh 10:30am 1:30pm

Assignment no. 1
1.

How many keys are on a standard keyboard?

101 keys.

2.

List 5 tragic accidents caused by computers.

The Mars Climate Orbiter crashed in September 1999 because of wrong units
in a program. The failure board's first report identifies eight contributing
factors that led directly or indirectly to the loss of the spacecraft. These
contributing causes include inadequate consideration of the entire mission
and its post-launch operation as a total system, inconsistent communications
and training within the project, and lack of complete end-to-end verification
of navigation software and related computer models.
Several 1985-7 deaths of cancer patients were due to overdoses of radiation
resulting from a race condition between concurrent tasks in the Therac-25
software.
The British destroyer H.M.S. Sheffield was sunk in the Falkland Islands war.
According to one report, the ship's radar warning systems were programmed
to identify the Exocet missile as "friendly" because the British arsenal
includes the Exocet's homing device and allowed the missile to reach its
target, namely the Sheffield.
An Air New Zealand airliner crashed into an Antarctic mountain; its crew had
not been told that the input data to its navigational computer, which
described its flight plan, had been changed.
An Iraqi Scud missile hit Dhahran barracks, leaving 28 dead and 98
wounded. The incoming missile was not detected by the Patriot defenses,
whose clock had drifted .36 seconds during the 4-day continuous siege, the
error increasing with elapsed time since the system was turned on. This
software flaw prevented real-time tracking. The specifications called for
aircraft speeds, not Mach 6 missiles, for 14-hour continuous performance,
not 100. Patched software arrived via air one day later.