Re: Remember "Bit-Slice" Chips ?

On 12/15/24 5:51 AM, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

On 15/12/2024 04:57, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:

"seems close enough"
   is NOT good enough. Planes, spacecraft, bridges, huge
   buildings, medical implants - GOTTA refine with the
   hard-core/hard-math tools.

 I think you would be aghast at how "seems good enough" guides most engineering design.
 No-one accurately measures every single component that goes into a design.
 At best they do a full test on the final product.

   This is kind of in line with what I've both known and heard.
   But it SUCKS when applied to 'critical structures'.
   Alas, I guess profit/loss comes into the picture ...

There is always room for the black swan unit where all the tolerances were exactly the wrong way.
 In general it is cheaper to simply scrap that one, or if it escapes into the wild, give the customer a replacement.
 The development algorithm of the racing Cosworth V8 was "remove metal till it breaks, then put that bit back again".
 And we can only calculate what we thought of. Some failure modes are completely unexpected.
 Some of the most durable civil engineering was done by Victorian engineers who were not able to do the calculations. Their conservative over-enginering resulted in structures that stand good even to day.
 Admittedly their failures are long gone :-( (Tay bridge, any one?)

   Very true that they "over-built" in the 1800s. Fails
   were usually due to some unrealized design fault, not
   the overall-average strength of the structure. Building
   on old swamp-land was a common error.
   PRE-1800s they also over-built ... but relied too much
   on gravity to hold structures together. Most of those
   old castles are now piles of rubble. ROMAN stuff - those
   tended to be rather good engineering and materials and
   a surprising amount - not destroyed intentionally -
   still survives.
   Note - Incan and some "Cyclopean" Euro constructions were
   exceptionally well-engineered - and largely quake resistant.
   The TV program idiots claim 'alien' design, which is a huge
   insult to our predecessors. When you see them collapsed it
   is almost always due to military action, not natural forces.
     "When I first came here, this was all swamp. Everyone said
     I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built in
     all the same, just to show them. It sank into the swamp.
     So I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So I
     built a third. That burned down, fell over, then sank
     into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up. And that's
     what you're going to get, Lad, the strongest castle
     in all of England."