12,346 Calls between 7:31 AM and 5:26 PM.
That was a normal number of calls.
Serial Numbers Verified. The Data Base had to double check that the serial number was a real one, issued to a legitimate owner.
712 Bad Disks
Her department sent out replacement disks to verified owners who had a damaged disk. A little higher than the average of 509, but not significant enough unless the trend continues.
FLAG!!
4,576 Computational Errors
Eileen's attention immediately focussed in on the FLAG!! message.
The Computational Error figures were normally '0' or '1' a week.
Now, 5,000 in one day?
She had the computer sort the 4,576 CE's into the serial number distribution. The Service Department was able to act as a quali- ty control monitor for engineering and production. If something was wrong - once a few hundred thousand copies hit the field - the error would show up by the number of calls. But CE's were normally operator error. Not the computer's.
There was no correlation to serial numbers. Old Version 1.0's through Version 3.0 and 3.1 were affected as were the current versions. By all reports, Lotus 1-2-3 could no longer add, subtract, divide, multiply or compute accurately. Mass computa- tional errors. The bell curve across serial numbers was flat enough to obviate the need for a statistical analysis. This was clearly not an engineering design error. Nor was it a production error, or a run of bad disks. Something had changed.
* * * * *