From coding to coffee spills, the real question is: how do computers not get bugs? <\/p>
We say that software has a bug or it\u2019s \u2018buggy\u2019 because it is malfunctioning. It\u2019s not working the way it is designed to work. This is usually the fault of a programmer somewhere, who either made a mistake or was not able to anticipate all the possible ways the software might operate. If you\u2019re the programmer who accidentally made things go wrong, it can be stressful, and the results can be far-reaching.<\/p>\n
In 1962,\u00a0the rocket carrying the Marina 1<\/a> space probe veered dangerously out of control and had to be destroyed 290 seconds after launch. The cause? A tiny bug in the guidance software (a missing hyphen in the code) which prevented it from receiving signals. The cost?\u00a0$18m.<\/p>\n In 2008,\u00a0buggy software at the new Heathrow Terminal 5<\/a> resulted in thousands of bags being sent to the wrong locations and 500 flights cancelled at a cost of more than \u00a316m. And in the run-up to the year 2000, the so-called \u2018millennium bug<\/a>\u2019 resulted in costs of between $300bn and $500bn worldwide to prevent potential computer disasters. It was all because most software uses two digits rather than four to represent the year, so when the New Year arrived, the world\u2019s computers would suddenly think it was 1900 instead of 2000. That could have been a lot of timetables and schedules messed up.<\/p>\n It\u2019s the job of software testers to try and catch all the bugs, but when software is hugely complex and runs on thousands of different types of computer hardware in combination with millions of other pieces of software, it can be almost impossible to squash every last bug. All of this means that your unique computer setup with your specific software might just be that rare combination that makes the bug show itself \u2013 much to your frustration!<\/p>\n Read more:<\/strong><\/p>\n Asked by: Charlotte Lee, via email<\/strong><\/p>\n To submit your questions email us at questions@sciencefocus.com (don\u2019t forget to include your name and location)<\/em><\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n From coding to coffee spills, the real question is: how do computers not get bugs? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":25487,"template":"","categories":[30],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"2"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/03\/how-the-millennium-bug-cost-the-world-300bn-a-short-history-of-computer-glitch-disasters.png",1200,511,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/03\/how-the-millennium-bug-cost-the-world-300bn-a-short-history-of-computer-glitch-disasters-150x150.png",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/03\/how-the-millennium-bug-cost-the-world-300bn-a-short-history-of-computer-glitch-disasters-300x128.png",300,128,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/03\/how-the-millennium-bug-cost-the-world-300bn-a-short-history-of-computer-glitch-disasters-768x327.png",768,327,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/03\/how-the-millennium-bug-cost-the-world-300bn-a-short-history-of-computer-glitch-disasters-1024x436.png",800,341,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/03\/how-the-millennium-bug-cost-the-world-300bn-a-short-history-of-computer-glitch-disasters.png",1200,511,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/03\/how-the-millennium-bug-cost-the-world-300bn-a-short-history-of-computer-glitch-disasters.png",1200,511,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"From coding to coffee spills, the real question is: how do computers not get bugs?","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/25486"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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