IP: Re: Hong Kong Airport "bugs"

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

Date: Sat, 22 Aug 1998 19:11:12 -0700 
From: wulf <wulf () cerf net>


Dear Dave: 


As one of the team who built the Hong Kong Airport's network backbone, I was just slightly annoyed with your statement: 
"Now that the bugs are out of the computer system, it is a pleasure to fly in to it." 




 Although I had left before the opening, I understand from reliable sources that the network backbone was rock solid 
and remains rock solid, and, indeed, most of the HK Airport Authority's major systems worked fine. My sources also 
inform me that most of the problems were with training (I gather the staff never had a chance to really learn the new 
systems before the opening of the Airport -- and some of the applications were radically different from the ones they 
used at Kai Tak).  As for computer problems, I gather there were serious difficulties with the card readers (and still 
are). And I understand the company that has the contract to handle the air freight wasn't ready to tie their computer 
system into the Airport's network. So your statement that there were bugs wasn't necessarily incorrect, it just tarred 
a couple of hundred distinct systems and networks built by a wide variety of contractors with the same brush.