Ok, now this tale comes from a lecture I attended at Swansea University in about 1975. Truth is, I don't know if it was made up by the lecturer, whose name I forget, or whether it's a fact.   Googling comes up with nothing.   Anyhow, here it is.   The subject was "How much does an error cost to fix?". The lecturer wrote a single line of FORTRAN code on the board:   DO 10 I = 1,3   "Now when the programmer took this down to be punch-carded onto Hollerith cards the typist made a mistake. They entered:   DO 10 I = 1.3   How much to fix the change from a full-stop to a comma?"   A long discussion followed - nothing if the programmer had spotted the mistake by checking the card immediately, more if it was found during testing and finally a lot if the project had already been delivered.   He gave us the answer:   "$50,000,000. It was in the aerial alignment code of NASA's Pioneer spacecraft. It should loop 3 times to line " 10 CONTINUE " in an a...
 
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