{
  "id": 3977844,
  "title": "Word 97's ghost in the machine: The crash that vanished the moment anyone looked at it",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/28/word-97s-ghost-in-the-machine-the-crash-that-vanished-the-moment-3977844",
  "topic": "tech",
  "section": "Tech",
  "published": "2026-08-28T13:34:00.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "The Register",
    "slug": "the-register",
    "url": "https://www.theregister.com/software/2026/08/28/word-97s-ghost-in-the-machine-the-crash-that-vanished-the-moment-anyone-looked-at-it/5293263"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Veteran Microsoft engineer Raymond Chen recounted a haunting tale from the Word 97 release cycle: a bug that eluded detection. The issue surfaced in the test labs but vanished as soon as engineers attempted to use a debugger. The team was frantic, for a glitch that appears sporadically in the lab could wreak havoc in the real world. Chen confessed, \"The development team was very anxious, because a bug that appears only sporadically in the lab is going to occur regularly in the wild. But how do you debug a problem that resists debugging?\" The bug's refusal to cooperate fueled discussions about an ICE, a device that could mimic the CPU and enable breakpoints. To most developers, ICEs were mythical, so the prospect of acquiring one sparked excitement. After pinpointing the fault to a specific manufacturer and a CPU erratum, the developers discovered a solution: inserting a \"nop\" into the offending code sequence. This binary patch averted potential chaos, ensuring Word 97 remained stable.",
  "summary": "Microsoft veteran recalls how a CPU errata, a mythical ICE, and a single sneaky NOP saved Clippy's big debut",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 2,
    "also_reported_by": [
      {
        "outlet": "The Register Software",
        "title": "Word 97's ghost in the machine: The crash that vanished the moment anyone looked at it",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/28/word-97s-ghost-in-the-machine-the-crash-that-vanished-the-moment",
        "published": "2026-08-28T13:34:00.000Z"
      }
    ]
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}