> Earlier this year, an overflow of a 32-bit counter in Windows shut down air > traffic control over southern California for 3 hours: > > Microsoft server crash nearly causes 800-plane pile-up > http://www.techworld.com/opsys/news/index.cfm?NewsID=2275 > > This problem occurred because of a known design flaw in older versions of > Windows: > > http://tinyurl.com/5n9gc Not quite true. Although an old version of Win98 had an overflow, this overflow was in the application, not the OS. http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY/resource/nov04/1104nair.html ..."But it's a software glitch that makes the reboot procedure necessary in the first place, says Riggs. And that glitch resides in an auxiliary system-the VSCS Control Subsystem Upgrade (VCSU)." "Inside the control system unit is a countdown timer that ticks off time in milliseconds. The VCSU uses the timer as a pulse to send out periodic queries to the VSCS. "
