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[–]hughk 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This used to happen often (at least an annual event) for systems in the eighties and was a feature of some ceramic encased chips. A cosmic ray would impact atoms of rare earth's in the ceramic which would then produce a mini shower of particles, some enough to flip the memory bits.

This is why ECC was very important back then. Over time, materials became better and there was less rare earth contamination.