Re: gnome-software and release upgrade?

On 2026-07-08 02:46, Tim wrote:
> On Tue, 2026-07-07 at 11:09 -0400, Frank Bures wrote:
>> In early 70-ties I worked as an electronics engineer in the design of a CNC
>> system.  A prototype was being tested at a machine tool factory on a 6-axis
>> large milling center.  As we made the system work for the first time,
>> feeling great about ourselves, a guy from the factory appeared and started
>> to madly press random keys.  Suddenly the system moved, broke off a 25mm
>> milling bit that went flying, fortunately not hitting anyone, until it
>> stopped at the end point switch. "HA!", said the guy, "now explain why the
>> system moved when it should not".
>>
>> Try to troubleshoot that, friends.
> 
> Yes, that's a hard case to work on.  Software should check its inputted
> data for sanity before carrying on.  If more software did that, we'd
> have far less exploits (work on acceptable data, completely and safely
> discard anything else).  But some random things could potentially be
> acceptable inputs.  Though that particular case of commanding the mill
> to move past it's possible travel limits should have produced a "don't
> do anything until corrected" error response, beforehand.
> 
> It reminds me of a story of how many people got burnt by an X-ray
> machine that had been operated incorrectly in an unexpected way.
> 

Absolutely.

However, bear in mind that this happened in early 70's in Eastern European 
socialist country.  CNC systems then were nothing more than interpreters, 
reading G-language (something like a relatively primitive assembler) from a 
punch tape (or keyboard in case of manual step-by-step operation). There 
was no memory to speak of, no logs, nothing that we take for granted today. 
  What's more, we were under embargo (very effective, not like the current 
sanctions against Russia) so almost no western parts were available.  We 
actually became sort of a legend when we created an Intel 8008 emulator 
from discreet components on two Euro-sized cards, that actually ran the 
system.  The only info we had was a stolen Intel programming and 
application manual. When the 8008 actually became available through some 
Middle-Eastern country, they could simply scrap the two cards and wire the 
8008 in.  I was somewhere else by then.

Cheers
Frank

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