History's worst software bugs exposed

Filed under: News

History's worst software bugs exposed

by Marc Perton Nov 8th 2005

You might think the worst software bug in history is the one that caused you to lose a week's worth of work, but the folks at Wired beg to differ. They've compiled a list of what they call History's Worst Software Bugs, and most of them are real disasters. The list is headed up by a bug in the software for the Mariner 1 rocket, which deviated from course and had to be blown up over the Atlantic Ocean in 1962. The cause of the bug? A formula written on paper wasn't transcribed correctly when it was converted to code.

Featured Time Waster

Civiballs is a beautiful, soothing physics puzzle Time Waster

I have an absolute weakness for physics games, and while Civiballs isn't the strongest physics-based game, what it lacks in the physics department it makes up for a few times over in style and fun.

In Civiballs, you are presented with a few colored balls, and your goal is to get those balls into the same-colored urn on the level. The "civi" part of Civiballs is that there are 3 sets of levels to play, each representing a different civilization. While the civilization doesn't affect gameplay, the artwork for each level is beautifully themed to it's appropriate era.

To play the game, you are given only one tool - a sword with which to cut the chains that are holding the balls. The puzzle part of the game is in figuring out what order, and with what timing to cut each chain. Do it right, and all the right balls end up in the right urns, with no stray balls entering an urn (a no-no). Do it wrong, and you get to start over again.

Civiballs is not terribly deep on gameplay; the entire game can be completed in about 15 minutes. But if you enjoy this type of game, it will be a very enjoyable 15 minutes.

View more Time Wasters