The therac-25 incidents , a brief history lesson

Alright, so picture this: it's the '90s, and we've got the Therac-25, which is like the high-tech superhero of the medical world. This machine was like something straight out of a sci-fi flick, and it had one job - zapping away bad stuff inside your body with precise beams of radiation, like a real-life laser gun.

But here's the catch - it had a bit of a bug problem. Like your old dial-up internet connection, it sometimes got its wires crossed. Instead of delivering just the right amount of radiation, it went all "Oops! Did I do that?" Steve Urkel style and gave patients way too much. It's like if your favourite '90s video game suddenly started glitching, but with way scarier consequences… lets dig into the details, shall we?

Back in the ’90s, the Therac-25 was hailed as a cutting-edge medical marvel. It was designed to zap away cancerous cells with precision, using beams of radiation. Think of it as the ’90s version of a high-tech laser gun in the hands of medical professionals.

Now, here’s where things went a bit haywire. There was this widely-held belief, almost like gospel, that computer programs, once they worked, would never, ever bug out. It was like saying your Tamagotchi pet would live forever if you kept it well-fed! So, they built the Therac-25 with this mindset, assuming that once the software was good to go, there was no need to worry.

To make things even more ‘90s-crazy, they had this “one-man programming team” thing going on. Imagine it as if one member of a boy band was responsible for writing all the songs, choreography, and costume designs – a one-man show. That’s how they handled the Therac-25’s software. One programmer, one super important job.

But, like a plot twist in a ’90s sitcom, it all went wrong. The software had a bug, a nasty one. Instead of precisely targeting the cancer, it sometimes delivered a massive overdose of radiation, which was like expecting a gentle breeze and getting hit by a hurricane.

This led to 6 deaths, and it was a wake-up call. The medical world realized that the “once it works, it won’t bug out” belief was as outdated as beepers. They revamped their approach, improved the software, and made sure there were more eyes on the code, just like forming a boy band with backup dancers and backup singers.

So, the Therac-25 saga was a ’90s lesson in tech hubris. It showed us that even the coolest gadgets could have flaws, and sometimes, it took a team effort to fix them – just like when your ’90s friends rallied to save the day on Saturday morning cartoons.