[X4U] OT-Air Traffic Control crash because of MS!

[Crandon David]

I thought everyone would get a great kick out of this even though it's 
OT!

You all probably heard about how the radio communications of the Air 
Traffic Control System crashed on Tuesday bringing air flights to an 
almost standstill on the west coast. Well guess what! It's because of a 
bug in the Microsoft based OS they use that shuts down the system 
automatically every 49.7 days to prevent overload. Seems that they 
actually have to have a human reset the system when this happens and 
apparently, the guy just forgot!

Before a year ago when they "upgraded" to the MS system, it was built 
on UNIX (the same system the Mac is based on), and had been running 
crash free for many years! Here's a little blurb about it all:

>
>  As originally designed, the VSCS system used computers that ran on an 
> operating system known as Unix, said Ray Baggett, vice president for 
> the union's western region.
>
>  The VSCS system was built for the FAA by Harris Corp. of Melbourne, 
> Fla., at a cost of more than $1.5 billion.
>
>  When the system was upgraded about a year ago, the original computers 
> were replaced by Dell computers using Microsoft software. Baggett said 
> the Microsoft software contained an internal clock designed to shut 
> the system down after 49.7 days to prevent it from becoming overloaded 
> with data.
>
>  FAA officials said they had known for more than a year that a 
> software glitch could shut down radio communications and were in the 
> process of fixing it. In the meantime, they required manual resetting 
> of the communications system — a process they described as similar to 
> rebooting a personal computer.
>
>  The agency's radio system in Palmdale shut itself down Tuesday 
> afternoon because a technician failed to reset an internal clock

David Crandon
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