Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site harvard.ARPA
Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!harvard!brownell
From: brownell@harvard.ARPA (Dave Brownell)
Newsgroups: net.micro
Subject: Re: Is parity *really* worth it?
Message-ID: <6@harvard.ARPA>
Date: Mon, 6-Aug-84 03:23:59 EDT
Article-I.D.: harvard.6
Posted: Mon Aug  6 03:23:59 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 8-Aug-84 00:18:10 EDT
References: <702@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Lines: 27

Two points:

    1)	Designs that only have hardware error detection (parity, ECC,
	or what-have-you) are SERIOUS COPOUTS.  Get that lazy programmer
	to write some code that invalidates that block of RAM, logs
	the error, kills the process using it, and then lets the
	rest of the system continue!!!

    2)	Apparently not many here are aware, but there are a large number
	of market projections that say that "fault tolerant" systems
	are the hottest growth area ($$$) in computers over the next
	decade.  NOT second to micros, note.  There are a lot of people
	with lots of money out there who want their computers to be
	reliable.  I wouldn't mind a single bit error adding $100K to
	my bank account, but the bank sure would.

In short, YES, parity is worth it.  But only as part of a whole system
design, cut these half-a**ed efforts before I get violent.  You have to
be able to recover from the errors, not just detect them.





Dave Brownell
Sequoia Systems Inc.
{allegra,floyd,ihnp4,seismo}!harvard!sequoia!brownell