&gt; In that scenario, your surgeon would see the program suddenly freeze.<p>Only if the programmer or his management were incompetent.  The display routine should be running on a separate thread than the processing code.  No whole program freeze should occur.<p>As for displaying random data, why would the programmer want to do this?  Either display nothing or the last readings WITH a message that it&#x27;s not real time.<p>It&#x27;s not the same as a crash!  A crash requires 5 minutes minimum guaranteed.  Restarting instantly after telemetry returns can happen under a second in the best case which can be the difference between a live and dead patient.<p>&gt; If your environment fails, there&#x27;s nothing you can do to recover. Planes aren&#x27;t designed to survive the loss of a wing. Why is this case any different?<p>There are different kinds of failure.  Permanent and transient.  Following the permanent procedure for a transient case can be fatal.<p>Take your airplane example.  Loss of a wing is permanent.  That would be like the CPU failing or an external cable being cut.<p>But your engines shutting down can be permanent or transient.  Just like disk I&#x2F;O failing.  You&#x27;d use the transient procedure in this case.  Keep trying to restart the engines.  If they restart, great!  You&#x27;ve just saved the plane.<p>Same with the disk I&#x2F;O.  The programmer should keep trying to restart the I&#x2F;O.  If it comes back, great!  You&#x27;ve just saved the patient.