29 Forced Termination. From Papa Wonderful 1999
29 Forced Termination
When using a computer, sometimes the forced shutdown message appears, which can be a hassle. It is usually possible to avoid this, but sometimes the computer will not accept any operations. When this happens, you have no choice but to force-shut down the computer, and the screen will go blank and return to the original screen. At first, Tadokoro also had to quickly press the keys to make the screen go blank many times.
In Tadokoro's case, the forced termination message appears when he is using a word processor, and the circumstances under which it appears are almost always the same. Word processor keystrokes are not particularly fast, but depending on the finger technique, they can be fairly fast, and in certain cases (not all cases) when the two fingers press keys almost simultaneously, the forced termination message appears. I think this is because when commands are sent to the computer almost simultaneously by simultaneous keystrokes, the computer's brain becomes confused as to which task it should select and perform.
Even so, software such as word processors run on top of an operating system such as Windows, so even if there is a genuine mistake in finger movements, it does not directly affect the OS, and although it should be quite safe, a kind of malfunction avoidance message such as forced termination is displayed. It cannot be said that the computer itself is to blame. There is probably also a problem with the software. It works normally if you restart it. However, it is true that there are many times when a computer becomes confused about its own judgment. So Tadokoro-san has learned from personal experience that computer-like systems can become quite imperfect under certain conditions.
In the mid-1980s, Tadokoro used an 8-bit computer, more than half of which were experimental. The operating system was PC/M from Digital Equipment Corporation. It was probably an excellent operating system for the time. He would insert thin 5-inch floppy disks, which are no longer in use, into the computer, but the floppy disk drive would sometimes go out of control. It would keep spinning for an eternity. He would then have no choice but to turn off the main switch and shut down the drive. This happened many times. Incidentally, even though he used the same floppy disk drive, when the software was BASIC, he never experienced such a runaway. PC/M was a much more complex operating system, so perhaps the 8-bit machine he was using at the time had difficulty processing the functions. Tadokoro's knowledge did not allow him to understand the true cause of such runaways, but he has always held onto the important experience that computers have a fair number of malfunctions.
So even now, when we hear on TV or in newspapers that the safety of advanced scientific application systems is being questioned, and we hear public relations personnel from the relevant departments declare that the systems are extremely safe, we cannot help but feel that the statements themselves are extremely unscientific. So, if an accident occurs with the system, the personnel in charge always respond in exactly the same way, saying that it was an incident that the system was completely beyond their control. If that person is involved in science, in other words, if they know the stability and instability of such systems, I think this is nothing but a complete deception to deceive people.
There is no way that a scientific system can be perfect. There is always a low probability of accidents. There is always a certain probability of "completely impossible events." A floppy disk drive in a computer once ran out of control for an unknown reason, and even now word processing software suddenly terminates. Since it is a flow of electrical signals, we cannot eliminate the possibility that it will occur in the future. This is because signals themselves are always in flux. Everything is a flow of electrons. The modern world, where computers are involved in most of the system infrastructure, exists on something extremely unstable from that point of view. A huge amount of data can be completely wiped from this world with just a few keystrokes on a computer. If it were manuscript paper, for example, it would be enough material to make a bonfire in the garden all day.
In the computer society, therefore, we need a fail-safe facility that always saves us from failure. A system has been devised to prevent the blanking of word processor manuscripts due to the forced termination mentioned earlier. It is called an automatic backup utility. Using this, unstable data on the screen is automatically stored in a highly secure hard disk every few minutes. This is also an electronic system, so it cannot be said to be perfect. Therefore, if necessary, another backup method will be prepared. By doing this, it will be possible to prevent almost all exceptional accidents. However, there is still a risk of data being destroyed all at once. For example, it is impossible to say that an extremely powerful signal, such as a virus, will not instantly enter all the machines and alter data. After all, it is an electrical signal that goes around the earth several times per second.
The floppy disk system's rampage continues to teach Tadokoro-san many things. When people working in the science field say things that are too unscientific, it makes me think that it is none other than the people themselves who need the fail-safe the most. To be more precise, it is the organizations and systems that include those people that need the fail-safe the most. Or perhaps we should first correct the following unscientific logic that is still widely used today:
"The system is perfect, so there's no need for a way to prevent it."
"It was completely unexpected that an incident would occur with this complete system."
"It was completely unexpected and we take no responsibility for it."
Sekinan Library
Tokyo
12 July 2024
