Re: Ariane 5 Explosion Revisited

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<< 
worden@uts.cc.utexas.edu (Sue J. Worden):
   This morning, while reading a report about the newly-discovered flaws in
 the Intel Pentium Pro and Pentium II FPU's, I learned that the Ariane 5
 explosion last June was caused by a similar flaw -- improperly handled
 floating point to integer conversion overflow.
>>

In the May, 1997 issue of Discover Magazine, the article 'Europe's Dream'
attributes the explosion of the Ariane 5 to software carried over from the
Ariane 4 program.  A software quirk that was benign to the Ariane 4 was
catastrophic for the Ariane 5 booster.

Discover Magazine:
http://www.enews.com/magazines/discover

--
John P. Kavanagh
KavanaghNY@aol.com
Buffalo, NY

Stellar Link Online
http://stellarlink.home.ml.org

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