On Tue, May 16, 2006 at 10:49:10AM +0100, Dieter wrote:
> In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Jack Carroll writes:
> > Traversal is aiming at embedded systems as an important cash earner,
> > and safety-critical products are an important subset of embedded systems.
>
> medical
> aviation
> communications
> military
> probably most/all power plants, not just steam
> chemical plants
> food, suppliment, and drug processing
> CAD systems that design anything safety critical
>
> and areas that are not safety critical, but are still important
>
> voting
Vote recording is safety-critical, because the safety of the
republic depends on it. Deciding an election incorrectly can have severe
consequences. Vote counting can be made non-critical, if there is a
reliable and affordable method of detecting errors so that the ballots can
be re-counted.
> financial
>
> I doubt that either list is anywhere near complete.
>
> I tend to think of this the other way around. What systems can be
> allowed to have errors? The only thing that comes to mind is
> items used only for pure entertainment.
Most desktop computing is not safety-critical. If a failure or
error occurs, work is lost, but it can be done over. So a failure costs
money, but that can be budgeted for or insured against. Failures and errors
in financial systems are not safety-critical, because accounting and banking
have long-standing error-checking procedures to detect these events.
Design systems, in general, are not safety-critical, even if they're
used to design safety-critical devices. Failure costs only time and money,
not lives. They must not produce an undetected incorrect result, but they
can be allowed to crash or break.
One of the characteristics of safety-critical systems is there is a
hard limit on the time available to produce a correct result, after which it
becomes useless. Safety-critical systems can be classified into those in
which a safe shutdown is possible in case of hardware failure, such as a
burner safety interlock; and those in which any interruption of service is
dangerous to life, such as an airplane's flight controls.
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