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Boudica

A "bug" In The New Ecu?

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Honda has discovered a bug in the software of the MECU. When three buttons on the steering wheel are pushed in a certain sequence the mapping of the MECU is altered to a very aggressive mode which would make up for the ban of launch control and thus allowes very fast starts to be made. Whether or not McLaren knows about this (not unlikely) and whether there are more of these bugs is unknown. The FIA is said to start an investigation. Trulli seems to have been right.

http://www.racingworld.it/f1/notizia.php?i...tralina-mclaren

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Would those three buttons be labelled Ctrl + Alt + Del, by any chance?

:lol::lol:

Well, at least they haven't got, "Windows has encountered a problem and needs to shut down".

So, how will the FIA differentiate between an 'agressive start' and launch-control-fiddling? Surely, whatever can be achieved with the ECU is legal, even if it means there's a fault/work around with it.....

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Wouldn't it be funny if bugs were found and fixed and all of a sudden McLaren weren't so quick....

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:icon2_yuk:

uhhhhhh... something smells so bad...

something like...like...microsoft...

and mclaren...

:sick22:

sorry...suddenly I feel sick.

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:icon2_yuk:

uhhhhhh... something smells so bad...

something like...like...microsoft...

and mclaren...

:sick22:

sorry...suddenly I feel sick.

Indeed.......................................

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:lol: Awesome! This was surely so predictable. McLaren will simply have to make the code a little more complicated. This is where all the ingenuity in F1 is. If we want innovation, this is a great example.

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This is a perfect example of the open source vs proprietary argument.

When you have a closed source system with only one company working on it (like Windows), you have a limited set of "eyes" that can check for "bugs", and such bugs are easily snuck into the code.

When you have an open source system, everyone is free to examine the code (like Linux), and "bugs" are much easier to find and fix, because you have many more sets of "eyes" looking things over.

Now the question is, will this "bug" be removed, or will it just be hidden better? :eusa_think:

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:lol: Awesome! This was surely so predictable. McLaren will simply have to make the code a little more complicated. This is where all the ingenuity in F1 is. If we want innovation, this is a great example.

They can't make it too complicated if it has to be used by a guy who can't tell the "drink" from the "launch" button :P

Sorry...couldn't resist!

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If Honda reported it, then I don't understand why.

Their cars for the last few years have been a bucket of errors, they should be glad they finally found a positive one.

Maybe Honda and Microsoft are similar, heap of errors and bugs that need to be resolved, but by the time they figure the bugs out they release a new car (operating system) which turns out to be worse than the previous one.

Nick Fry must be the annoying Microsoft Office Assistant.

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This is a perfect example of the open source vs proprietary argument.

When you have a closed source system with only one company working on it (like Windows), you have a limited set of "eyes" that can check for "bugs", and such bugs are easily snuck into the code.

When you have an open source system, everyone is free to examine the code (like Linux), and "bugs" are much easier to find and fix, because you have many more sets of "eyes" looking things over.

Now the question is, will this "bug" be removed, or will it just be hidden better? :eusa_think:

Yes, I wonder why they don't make it open-source? Presumably the code is checked by the FIA (though that will never be enough to understand it fully). If you're going to have standardised components, I don't see the need for them to be confidential, or indeed absolutely state of the art, which arguably would require confidentiality in this case (unlike with Linux, where there's popular demand).

They can't make it too complicated if it has to be used by a guy who can't tell the "drink" from the "launch" button :P

Sorry...couldn't resist!

:lol: No no no. It was all sabotage from Alonso. The British press proved it! Look, Alonso filled Lewis's drink bottle with energy-drink-flavoured Cava. What with his athletically low blood pressure, the poor guy was drunk before the start of the race. Then after having his "drink", he wanted to wash it all down with some "lunch". Perfectly logical.

Their cars for the last few years have been a bucket of errors, they should be glad they finally found a positive one.

:lol: Yes - they should ask McLaren for some tips on how to make the right kind of mistakes. On the other hand, Honda probably are well trained in spotting mistakes with all that practice...

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If Honda reported it, then I don't understand why.

Their cars for the last few years have been a bucket of errors, they should be glad they finally found a positive one.

Maybe Honda and Microsoft are similar, heap of errors and bugs that need to be resolved, but by the time they figure the bugs out they release a new car (operating system) which turns out to be worse than the previous one.

Nick Fry must be the annoying Microsoft Office Assistant.

I would think that their fuel tank saga and recent event has made His Fryness paranoid Kay! But I bet the other teams that knew are crying in their soup :huh:

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I'll go ahead and claim this is just a 100% made up report.

One might imagine McLaren having a reason to do this, but Microsoft? I think not, they have nothing to gain and everything to lose.

*Files this story under the heading of pre-season boredom*

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I'll go ahead and claim this is just a 100% made up report.

One might imagine McLaren having a reason to do this, but Microsoft? I think not, they have nothing to gain and everything to lose.

*Files this story under the heading of pre-season boredom*

Let me be the first to second that.

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I'll go ahead and claim this is just a 100% made up report.

One might imagine McLaren having a reason to do this, but Microsoft?

The only reason for Microsoft to make buggy software is because they have to continue with the tradition...hey its Microsoft! the Kings of Software Bugs!!!!!

2267518342_f0dea4a3f4_o.jpg

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In this case this is not bug, it is feature. In gaming world usually called cheat code. :)

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I'll go ahead and claim this is just a 100% made up report.

One might imagine McLaren having a reason to do this, but Microsoft? I think not, they have nothing to gain and everything to lose.

*Files this story under the heading of pre-season boredom*

Out of the Mclaren and Microsoft bashing, this post makes the most sense....

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Honda has discovered a bug in the software of the MECU. When three buttons on the steering wheel are pushed in a certain sequence the mapping of the MECU is altered to a very aggressive mode which would make up for the ban of launch control and thus allowes very fast starts to be made. Whether or not McLaren knows about this (not unlikely) and whether there are more of these bugs is unknown. The FIA is said to start an investigation. Trulli seems to have been right.

http://www.racingworld.it/f1/notizia.php?i...tralina-mclaren

If it is true, it is not a bug... those around here that know anything about programming can tell you how unlikely that would be. There is simply no relation between a fortuitous key combination and the code that is necessary to carry out an operation, more so if it involves a "mapping". Chances that this is not intended (if true) are next to zero. The "speedup code" (if it exists) must have been designed, implemented, and delibertately hidding for the thing to work at all.

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If it is true, it is not a bug... those around here that know anything about programming can tell you how unlikely that would be. There is simply no relation between a fortuitous key combination and the code that is necessary to carry out an operation, more so if it involves a "mapping". Chances that this is not intended (if true) are next to zero. The "speedup code" (if it exists) must have been designed, implemented, and delibertately hidding for the thing to work at all.

Really depends exactly what it is that happens to determine if it's a bug or a hidden feature.

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No key combination magically generates code. Bugs, by definition, disrupt operation.

The only possibility is that the system is faster than intended and there is code to slow it down (and the key combo walked around the slow-down code). This is quite quite quite unlikely...

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Bugs by definition just do something different then expected by the coder. I think it is intentional too based on what I know, but I wouldn't put my house on it just yet.

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Bugs by definition just do something different then expected by the coder. I think it is intentional too based on what I know, but I wouldn't put my house on it just yet.

Nope. By definition, a "bug" is an error or a failure... which, true, are unexpected... or not, depending on the programmer.

I don't know if this case has to do with the unlocking of hidden features because I don't even know if it is true. Further, who designed the software? How was it delivered? I mean, it is unlikely that the source code was left for the teams to compile by themselves because of the potential for tampering. Thus, it must have been distributed in binary form. If so, only extensive reverse engineering could detect the hidden feature and that is immensely expensive on large sophisticated systems where you may not know where to look and where some/all elements in the code could be encrypted or even use morphing to protect proprietary algorithms (or worse).

This could become, if true, a huge mess.....

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This could become, if true, a huge mess.....

Indeed, its a mess that Mclaren already knew how to solve...while the other teams had to figure it out to work around...

cheaters

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Indeed, its a mess that Mclaren already knew how to solve...while the other teams had to figure it out to work around...

cheaters

Now, now. It is unlikely this "key sequency" thingy is true. Even if McLaren wanted to hide code to get an unfair advantage, this would not be the way to do it. Let us not forget that what applies to one engine, may not apply to another.

We'll see.

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