[who_would_fardels_bear]

In the "good old days" it was important to save space. In many cases software was written to save space, i.e. if a number wasn't expected to go above 32,768 then force it into 16 bits.

I'm well aware that you can count to infinity with even a single bit, but if the software was written assuming the need for just 16-bits for a particular intermediate result, and that result overflowed the 16-bits then errors will occur.

That typical air traffic flies around 30,000 feet and the U2 was at 60,000 just seemed to be an interesting coincidence to me with regard to binary numbers.

[Izzy Dunne]

That typical air traffic flies around 30,000 feet and the U2 was at 60,000 just seemed to be an interesting coincidence to me with regard to binary numbers.

I understand your thinking, but it seems to me that airliners routinely go to 35000 feet, so such a problem would have been uncovered a long time ago.

[DuncanWaring]

Civil air traffic has been able to fly above 40,000 ft for decades.