Dependability -- Quotable quotes

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"Speed thrills, but crashes kill. Time to focus on quality code and never-say-die computing."
"I'm hard-pressed to think of any other piece of hardware you can buy for $3000 that's as failure-prone as a PC"

Schlack, M., "Reliability Counts," Byte, May 1998, pg. 14.


"I am also fearful that we have unlearned several important lessons in reliability, maintainability, testability, diagnosis, and overall integrity of a commercial processor design. As our user base becomes increasingly sophisticated, I believe that it will be important to relearn the lessons of the past decade. But do we have to relearn them from scratch?"

Flynn, M., "Computer Engineering 30 Years After the IBM Model 91," IEEE Computer, April 1998, pp. 27-31.


102:38:26 Armstrong: (With the slightest touch of urgency) "Program Alarm."

Neil Armstrong, July 20, 1969, as his on-board computer reboots during powered descent to the moon. They actually had three such events, a pair of 1202 alarms and a 1201 alarm.


koopman@cmu.edu