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Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 16:36:22 +1300
From: "melandrob.searle" 
Subject: /Trivial/ Risks of Technical Arrogance

I am just about calmed down after a trying time with a christmas present for
a five-year old. The whole sorry episode is of course my fault, I merely
needed to read the minimum system requirements more thoroughly and remember
precisely the characteristics of the family machine.

The details :

The game - shall remain nameless to protect somebody.
The stated minimum system:
    Win 95 (OK I have XP which should be compatible and Google says the 
      game was released last year so I assume that the vendors/game 
      programmers mean or equivalent)
    Pentium 90 MHz or faster (Much faster)
    16 MB RAM (More than that)
    15 MB Hard Disk (No problem)
    Quad-speed CD-ROM (Yeah, yeah)
    Stereo sound card (Got a sound card, two speakers ----- Oops missed
      that one )

So, eager five-year old by my side, go through installation. Fool the
registration screen by lying about the location of Canterbury and the postal
code (already said the country is Other but the stupid screen will not
accept four digit post-codes or state/province abbreviations outside the
US). First technical arrogance.  Installation completed successfully

Locate the shortcut to the game and launch, wait, FATAL error no stereo
sound game over. Second technical arrogance and this one gets me steamed up
enough to write.

I have worked on system and product software for nearly eighteen years and
every year somebody decides that the behaviour under an error condition can
be specified by the programmers (only the expected normal behaviour is a
requirement). Handling of errors is ALWAYS a system issue. (My feelings on
the game are that it is a bit like causing a core meltdown in a nuclear
facility because the siren doesn't work).

Programmers in their techy way decide that the minimum hardware is a
critical environmental requirement and nobody told them that the PC on their
desk may be a bit better specified than the typically available.  Has nobody
heard of graceful degradation ?

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