Why computers stop working

Todd Troxel pointed us to an 80s-era article entitled Why Do Computers Stop and What Can Be Done About It?, which makes some nice reading, especially when comparing it to the state of the art as it is today. Quote:

To give an example, modern discs are  rated for  an MTBF  above 10,000
hours -- a hard failure once a year.

If anything, it would appear that the state of the art has decreased in that area. Oh well.

It's funny to compare how the state of the art in editing text changed, too. I suspect the article (which can only be downloaded in PDF form) was printed using a daisy wheel printer.