ABSTRACT
For short, unimportant, messages this level of immunity from errors is fine, but it isn't good enough for other situations. For example, consider a computer which has to load (read) a 200 kbyte (1·6 million bits) wordprocessing program from a disc. A 0·01% error rate would mean the loaded program would contain around 160 mistakes! This would almost certainly cause the program to crash the computer. By the way, note that the term 'error rate' doesn't mean the errors appear at regular inte:rvals. If it did, we could simply count our way along the pattern to find and correct the errors! The errors will be randomly placed. The rate simply indicates what fraction of the bits are likely to be wrong, not where they are. The term, 'error rate' is therefore potentially misleading, although it is commonly used.
