OT: Microsoft in the medical field was Re: OT: video signal question

[Simon Fryer]

All,

On 3/21/06, Glen Slick <glen.slick at gmail.com> wrote:
> Patients have been killed by PDP-11 controlled medical devices:
>
> http://sunnyday.mit.edu/papers/therac.pdf
>
> (On topic too, this happened 20 years ago)

Not quite on topic. I  work for a company that manufactures
pharmaceutical drugs. A lot of the equipment now has a Windows HMI
(touch screen). All Windows does it print pretty pictures on the
screen and pass values to a PLC. The PLC does all the real work.

And yes, we Ido a lot of testing to show that the equipment does work.

Simon

--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Well, an engineer is not concerned with the truth; that is left to
philosophers and theologians: the prime concern of an engineer is
the utility of the final product."
Lectures on the Electrical Properties of Materials, L.Solymar, D.Walsh