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RE: Memory card checksum errors (was: 2000 November Election)



From: owner-support@gesn.com [mailto:owner-support@gesn.com]On Behalf Of Talbot Iredale
Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2001 3:31 PM
 
Given that we transfer data in ascii form not binary and given the way the data was 'invalid' the error could not have occured during transmission. Therefore the error could only occur in one of four ways:
 
(2) Invalid read from good memory card. This is unlikely since the candidates results for the race are not all read at the same time and the corruption was limited to a single race.  There is a possiblilty that a section of the memory card was bad but since I do not know anything more about the 'second' memory card I cannot validate this. 
 
Not necessarily.  We grab a pointer to the head of the candidate counters for a race and then keep that pointer as the base for the current race.  If that base was bogus (pointing at code say) because of some hardware glitch, then we would just happily walk the race looking at garbage.  Next race the pointer base is changed and everything is okay.  Now, this is still all "unlikely", but then again this has never happened before.
(4) Invalid memory card (i.e. one that should not have been uploaded).  There is always the possiblity that the 'second memory card' or 'second upload' came from an un-authorised source. 
 
 If this problem is to be properly answered we need to determine where the 'second' memory card is or whether it even exists.

Heh.  Second shooter theory.  All we need now is a grassy knoll.
 
Ken