Ariane 5 Flight 501

[RayRay]

An interesting article from Wikipedia I found about Arithmetic Overflow in 1996.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_5_Flight_501

Apparently their processor was duplicated from Ariane 4. The problem was the processing numbers was converted from 64 bits, where the maximum signed number is around 9 million trillions, into 16 bits, where the maximum signed number is 32,767. Overflow occurred, and there was no protection against it so the software crashed which made the plane self-destruct.

No one was in the plane. However, damage was worth more than $370 million.

[Jake]

And THAT is why I stick to video game programming.

[Scotty]

And THAT is why I stick to video game programming.

Now if only you could accidentally have an overflow that causes little annoying kiddy's monitors to explode during games of Modern Warfare, causing internal combustion with a magnitude of 8.badass and shrapnel to take flight at a velocity of 95 Mutilations Per Hour with a trajectory set for the equidistant center between the whites of their eyes.

You got work to do Jake!