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Technology Stocks : Y2K (Year 2000) Stocks: An Investment Discussion -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jeffrey S. Mitchell who wrote (7059)	10/23/1997 3:01:00 PM
From: TEDennis	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13949

Jeff: Hey, not a bad description ... and even in non-techno-babble. Maybe you and I should go into business together. Maybe form a consulting organization. Yeah ... You know, of course, that we probably confused people because you talked in ASCII (PC data) and I talked in EBCDIC (mainframe data). No big deal. What's a few extra bits among friends? Oh yeah ... before I forget ... what happens to the data being passed between computers. Like to VISA, for instance. What if a VISA client uses the Bigits, but VISA doesn't have the now-famous Bigit technology? Well, never mind ... it's not important. Just a little detail. TED

To: Jeffrey S. Mitchell who wrote (7059)	10/23/1997 4:26:00 PM
From: Steven Hsu	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 13949

It's been a long time, but I recall that IBM doesn't use ASCII encoding. Their encoding is something like EBIDEC (extended binary encoded ...). It is an 8-bit encoding, but as I recall it has some strange properties, like not encoding A-Z consecutively. I'll leave it to TED to explain if there is an interest.

To: Jeffrey S. Mitchell who wrote (7059)	10/23/1997 4:45:00 PM
From: Kathy Riley	Respond to of 13949

We still are left with the original premise that he can indeed identify a date in the first place. ________________________________________________ Good point, Jeff. I am not a programmer, but understand enough to know that the big issue is finding and correcting the dates. A large number of companies have various solutions what to do when you find the dates, but it is the accurate finding of the dates that is the big problem. Secondly, it sounds to me like the code would have to be incredibly clean to take advantage of what he is proposing to do. I agree that tool vendors will have their runs. I can not believe where we are NOT in this process of getting compliant in the U.S. and the world. Scary. Kathy

To: Jeffrey S. Mitchell who wrote (7059)	10/23/1997 10:24:00 PM
From: P. Ramamoorthy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13949

Jeff - Nice post. Question? Why "9" shows up in binary code "00110009"? Is it supposed to be a binary code? 00110101 >>For whatever reason, the numbers 0-9 were assigned an ASCII code of 48-57. If we translate those numbers into binary, we get from 0011000-00110009. Now, notice that the first four characters, "0011", remain constant. >> Ram

To: Jeffrey S. Mitchell who wrote (7059)	10/23/1997 11:13:00 PM
From: Hardware Heister	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 13949

'Lastly, let's assume for sake of argument that Bemer can convince IBM to modify its compilers, linkers, runtime systems, fonts etc to form to his specifications. We still are left with the original premise that he can indeed identify a date in the first place. Considering the major Y2K tool vendors are still uncovering new convoluted schemes to manipulate dates, that's a pretty tall order, IMO. And time keeps ticking away...' Jeff: I have never read that Mr. Bemer's solution involves the compiler or linker, or altering either one, but of course, I could have missed something. I believe IBM is working on such a solution, as are a couple of people in Encino, CA (I forget their names.) Do you have some concrete reason that you are saying this is the way he is doing it, or are you just speculating?

To: Jeffrey S. Mitchell who wrote (7059)	10/24/1997 2:34:00 PM
From: J. Stone	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13949

>>Re: Vertex 2000 and Bigits (explained?)<< Jeff: This is a really good post! (You know, a trait of true genii is the ability to succinctly explain, in simple terms, otherwise complex problems. Not that this applies to you....<g>) One mistake I noted, however: "the numbers 0-9 were assigned an ASCII code of 48-57. If we translate those numbers into binary, we get from 0011000-00110009." This isn't a "migit" (ie, "Mitchell digit"), is it? regards, JS