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Technology Stocks : 2000: Y2K Civilized Discussion -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Radiosport who wrote (447)	8/29/1999 7:58:00 AM
From: Jim	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 662

Of course you're right about the difference between the GPS roll-over date of Aug 21-22 and the Y2K design flaw. I had posted my belief that embedded chips could not have a Y2K problem if they are at the bottom of the ocean or encased in concrete because they must have some way to reset the date/year in case of a power failure. B.K. made the interesting point that some of these embedded chips were reset with the year continuously from the GPS system. We were waiting to see if ANY embedded chip problems surfaced with the GPS roll-over. He was right with regard to the Japanese car navigation problems. I still have a hard time understanding which chips / systems would care what year it is. I can understand decisions based on time, or days of the week - but why year? Jim

To: Radiosport who wrote (447)	8/29/1999 1:47:00 PM
From: B.K.Myers	Respond to of 662

John, Your points are indeed correct. However There's no connection between the two events. I believe that there is a connection between the two events. Not in a technical sense, but from a management perspective. The similarity between the GPS and embedded systems is that both contain software that is not generally maintained and usually not tracked by an organization. Once these systems are installed, they are usually out of sight and out of mind... until they fail. IF there were any serious GPS problems, then I would have come to the conclusion that since we couldn't handle the small GPS problem, then there was no way we would be able to handle the larger Y2K embedded systems problem. This should NOT imply that since we handled the GPS rollover then we should be able to handle the Y2K embedded systems problem. They are different. But how management addresses these problems is similar. Before the GPS rollover, I was most concerned about old, large, IT intensive organizations. Because of the problems that so many Japanese individuals had with the GPS rollover, I am now more concerned about the small and medium sized organizations than the large ones. But, I do have other reasons why I am slightly more optimistic. The number of reported Y2K embedded systems problems seems to be slowing down. I hope that this is do to the fact that most of the problems were properly identified early... and not to the fact that we have stopped looking. I am also glad to see that the false Y2K compliance statements are being caught. Bell South's finding that 50 percent of the Y2K compliance claims were false should be a wake-up call to all. Hopefully this will result in more testing by more organizations. I have also noticed that many of the remaining Y2K problems seem to be more related to the leap year recognition problem rather than the actual rollover. In my opinion, this is not as severe a problem as the actual rollover itself. So, overall, I do feel better about the Y2K embedded system problem, but I am still very apprehensive. B.K.