Fault-Tolerant Computing: An Introduction and a Viewpoint

AFTER approximately 20 years of obscurity, the field of fault-tolerant computing was revived by the formation of the IEEE Technical Committee on Fault-Tolerant Computing, by a series of articles in COMPUTER for January/ February 1971, by the 1971 International Symposium on Fault-Tolerant Computing in Pasadena, Calif., and by an IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON COMPUTERS Special Issue on Fault-Tolerant Computing in November 1971. Interest and activity continued apace, and the 1972 International Symposium on Fault-Tolerant Computing was held in Newton, Mass. Most of the excellent papers in this second IEEE TRANSACTIONS Special Issue on Fault-Tolerant Computing were presented at that symposium. As an introduction to these papers, consideration of the ultimate goals of this discipline and the universe in which our work is being done is most appropriate.