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Technology Stocks : Discuss Year 2000 Issues -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Cheeky Kid who wrote (7499)	7/31/1999 4:33:00 PM
From: B.K.Myers	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9818

Cheeky, You bring up an interesting point Since these batteries don't last forever, even the rechargeable ones, why are we not seeing screwed up data problems due too failed batteries on older computers after power outages? I would image that some of these problems occurring. But at this time they would be isolated to only the computer with the dead battery. Obviously, not all batteries die at the same time. However, when their clocks roll over to Y2K, all computers that have not repaired this problem will boot with an incorrect date, whether the battery is dead or not. Since we are bound to have power failures after 12/31/1999 (Y2K related or not), many machines will reboot with the wrong date. I don't know what the full ramifications of this will be. I doubt that many companies have taken it into account. More than likely the effect will be small but probably difficult to identify. I am going to try and seek out the person responsible for one of these systems that I am aware of and ask them whether they have experienced this problem. That is, if I can identify who is responsible for the system. Thanks for that link. I am familiar with the drawbacks to the windowing technique, I had heard that satellites have a date problem but didn't realize that they have already included a pivot year in their software. Companies that opted for the windowing technique have used many different pivot years. I have seen 1920 ,1929, 1930, 1950 and 1970 used as pivot years. Sometime different pivot years have been used by different systems within the same company. Y2K is going to be with us for many years to come. B.K.