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

To: John Mansfield who wrote (605)	12/5/1997 12:15:00 PM
From: John Mansfield	Respond to of 9818

Dates, dates, dates. From SIM Y2K forum From: year2000.unt.edu ; Topic 11 (Infrastructure, PCs, & embedded systems); conversation 2 (you have to log in; but it is free. Very interesting info on Y2K in embedded software). ------- 37. Author: David C. Hall ( dhall ) Date: Oct. 14 2:19 PM 1997 The January 1, 2000 date is not the only danger for embedded systems and netwroks. The UK Institue of Electrical Engineers has identified a series of dates to watch for over the next 40 years: 1. 1998 - 98 used in older programs/code to indicate a break in a file or sequence; 2) 22 August 1999 - GPS week count rollover; 3) December 1999 - period of maximum solar activity which will affect communincations systems and uitlity systems; 4) 1999 - 99 used in older systems as an end-of-file indicator; 5) 9 September 1999 - a date (as 9999) often used as an end-of-file indicator; 6) 12:1999 - an end-of-file indicator used in older systems; 7) 31 December 1999 - date used in older systems as end-of-file indicator; 8) 28 Feb - 1 March 2000 - leap year problem; 9) 2030 - breakpoint used by Microsoft in several of its products and 30 will imply 1930; 10) 18 January 2038 - overflow problem at 03:14:08 on Tuesday 19 January 2038 as the seconds counter used for date/time information in UNIX, C, and C++ reaches overload. To which I will add a couple more - 1) 2009 - 2030 - the various pivot dates when various Microsoft and other software using windowing to be Yr2K compliant. This will be by application and version; 2) 99 - used as keep forever file indicator; 3) 29 Feb 2001 - invalid leap year date, system should note error and refuse to input/use date (MS Access 97 does not!).

To: John Mansfield who wrote (605)	12/10/1997 12:11:00 PM
From: John Mansfield	Respond to of 9818

BEST OF C.S.Y2K: Time Dilation update by Jace Crouch - This is a very good posting of Jace. If you are doing any Y2K tests with PC's; read his warnings and precautions below! - Also, what firms would be doing these investigation? Interesting to speculate about! - 286, 386 are also present on the factory floor. John --------------- Hi folks, Some thoughts, cautions, and an update. On Mon, 8 Dec 1997, Catherine Carey wrote: > I've experienced something similar to Jace's loss of a serial port on my 486 at home, with some interesting differences, and I'm curious to know if anyone has seen the same or has a code-level explanation for this: THOUGHTS: It is turning out that the phenomenon we have been calling Time Dilation is much more complex than we originally believed. Catherine's report may indicate TD, or it may indicate a virus, or it may indicate trying to access the HD during the wrong phase of the moon (like the HD that came with the old AT-339). I will say that people researching TD have encountered very similar phenomena on very similar machines, including my original 286 (which we're now calling Zoom). CAUTIONS: It has become evident that these "time travelling" tests on PC's is extremely dangerous to your data. We have not seen a 486 fail yet, but there have been catastrophic system failures on 286 and 386sx machines. These failures have not been numerous, perhaps 1% of the machines tested so far, and there may be other mitigating circumstances that caused the systems to fail, BUT: 1. Back up your data 2. If you are testing a 286 or 386, you may kill it 3. Although there has not been a complete failure of a 486 sx or 486dx machine, yours could be the first 4. So be cautious with the time travelling UPDATE: I will not speak for my colleagues as regards recent technical developments, but I will assure folks here that there are multiple teams throughout the computer and business communities that are working intensely on this strange phenomenon that we are calling Time Dilation. Some of these teams exist entirely within major computer firms, some exist within broader-based y2k organizations, and some are cross-corporate (and trans-national) groups that involve computer and software professionals, business and professional people who have a great deal of experience with computer and software issues, and several hard-headed skeptics who are constantly spurring us on to consider all possible options. My old 286 motherboard, the machine where this phenomenon first got noticed, has been given to the head of the y2k research team at a major computer design and manufacturing firm. Now affectionately renamed Zoom, it is being tested exhaustively in their TD research facility. Detailed results will be made public in the very near future, but I will say at this point that the phenomenon is real, whatever it is. As of this morning we are still trying to work out non-disclosure and proprietary issues as regards making the information public. The corporation in question is being extremely public-spirited about this issue, and I am confident in their willingness to share information. That is why I gave them the old 286 motherboard. We are also trying to develop as complete an understanding of this phenomenon as we can before we post here. We are working on a FAQ that will be posted here from time to time as well as be posted on wesites. We will post soon, but we will post carefully and clearly. It is turning out that this problem is more pervasive than we originally believed, and that is not good news at all. Some of our earlier posts were us thinking out loud, and occasionally we posted some rash thoughts. We will make as much information public as we can. Mentioning specific brand names will remain a problem, and none of us knows how to deal with that issue yet. Our concerns have to do almost exclusively with identifying this problem as specifically as possible, refining a program or programs that will test for this problem, finding a solution that can be implemented freely or extremely inexpensively, and perhaps making y2k just a little less troublesome for all of us. In the meantime, you can check out my y2k website at nethawk.com Which has links to an "archive" of the time dilation thread on this newsgroup from the beginning to the present (160K+ text file), complete with all of our rash comments from the early days. See also Mike Echlin's site: intranet.ca And Dave Eastabrook's site: elmbronze.demon.co.uk Again, there will be some very informative and detailed posts on this newsgroup and elsewhere in a brief while. There are many dedicated people working on this problem, and there are major corporations that have research teams that are working on this problem. What we learn, we will share. Peace & Preparedness, Jace Crouch ----------------------jcrouch@gmi.edu---------------------- Ethics is using free will to choose good over evil. nethawk.com