Talk:0xDEADBEEF

Untitled
I don't think it is metasyntactic as much as the 'memory test pattern' for motorola, ex: here. Srl 04:34, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Fixed the article. -- Beland 05:24, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Content looks accurate to me. Is there something specific in here that needs fixing, or has it been fixed already? Can we remove the notice? --ssd 01:55, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

redundant
Isn't this content redundant to mosst of what is at magic number (programming)? -- Mikeblas 23:01, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

It's older than RS/6000
--71.210.15.112 20:55, 6 August 2006 (UTC)Chuck

In fact, use of this is older than microprocessors!

In the 1970's, Control Data Corporation introduced a vector supercomputer called the STAR-100. Basically a 64-bit pipelined vector box with virtual memory, system critical crashes under STAR-OS (written mostly by the programmers at Lawrence Livermore Laboratories, but mainted by Control Data) were recorded in memory as "DEAD" codes. DEADBEEF was the code for a fatal paging error (i.e. system code referencing a non-existent page).

There were many other DEAD codes, not all as memorable. DEADCACA, DEADDADA, etc.

I think this may be the first known use of this crash code.

For a bit more on the CDC STAR:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_Data#The_STAR_and_the_Cyber

Opinion or fact?
I think some of the text should be rephrased. "Most numbers, when displayed in hexadecimal, are uninteresting and not eyecatching" depicts someone's opinion, not a fact. It's fine on a blog, but IMHO it's out of place in an encyclopedia.

Another text might need some refinement: "Since it is unlikely that 32-bits integers take this specific value". That's only true given a certain chance distribution of the possible values. On average, just looking at the amount of data stored, every other 8 GB DVD has 0xDEADBEEF stored in one of its 32-bit words.

merge
I think this article should be merged to Hexspeak. The content about magic numbers can be merged to Magic number (programming), which Hexspeak already links to. —Quarl (talk) 2006-12-16 08:20Z