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

To: John Mansfield who wrote (926)	1/19/1998 12:00:00 PM
From: John Mansfield	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 9818

FAA: '... FAA contracted with Unisys to re-start a production line of tube-based computers' Found on C.S.Y2K; thanks to Bud Hamilton. Hope we do not have tube-based computers here in Europe ;-) John ----- From: hamilton@knotuga.knotcc.knotuga.edu Newsgroups: comp.software.year-2000 Subject: Re: FAA Shuts Down ATC ? Date: Mon, 19 Jan 98 01:17:53 EST Here are the facts: FAA does not care much if small planes crash or not. They'll fly VFR and crash as often as they do now (which is pretty often in comparison to major airline/transport flight). FAA is very concerned, however, with major commercial traffic (given the negative publicity of a large crash). As I have said time and time again on this forum, planes will back up on the tarmac. Some folks on this ng say words to the effect of "100K planes fly without radar". Possible true. But, it is the major airline and transport traffic which will back up on the tarmac. Increased separation, raw radar, etc. Very few flights. Incredible impact on the economy. No pleasure flights unless you pay through the nose. I checked out my first post on this and it was about five months ago. The only difference is that FAA is starting to be forced to admit this. And for you "veteran" air traffic controllers, you never had to deal with Mode C in the Los Angeles Basin or in DFW. I personally talked to controllers in DFW in the 1989 who were frightened about the possibility of computer outages (whine all you want about the superiority of PATCO vs. NATCA controllers, that's the way it is). And we haven't even heard the worst of it. The Centers run 3083s - which are relatively new by FAA standards. FAA contracted with Unisys to re-start a production line of tube-based computers to replace/augment the computers in the TRACON because they believed that the TRACON software was too complicated to try to develop an emulation strategy. They would just wait for replacement by the Advanced Automation System - which of course failed. And other projects failed, and the most recent workaround project has been pushed back to 2002-3. For the uninitiated, TRACONs (Terminal Radar Approach Control) control traffic from (approximately) 30 miles out to a few miles from the tower. The Air Route Traffic Control Centers (ARTCC; "Center") controls traffic throughout most of the US, but much of that at high altitude. The TRACONs control traffic near the airports, and that gets pretty tricky at times especially in places like LA, Chicago and Dallas, and to some extent New York. While there may be a lot of planes flying 1/1/2000, very few of them will be named Delta, United, American, UPS or Federal Express. I expect that the insurers (see other post on Lloyds prohibition on non-y2k planes) will see to that. I'm Bud Hamilton.

To: John Mansfield who wrote (926)	1/20/1998 11:37:00 AM
From: John Mansfield	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 9818

C.S.Y2K 19/1/1998, 20/1/1998 Interesting on C.S.Y2K today: John ------ Newsgroups: comp.software.year-2000 From: kiyoinc@ibm.net (cory hamasaki) Subject: DC Y2K Weather Report (Pee Cee Tests, ALC7, my usual cluelessness) FAA remarks, other interesting stuff. ------- From: 102601.2506@compuserve.com Subject: Goldman Sachs: Au Revoir! Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 09:34:22 -0600 Message-ID: Some rumours on Goldman Sachs ------ From: Ed Yourdon Newsgroups: comp.software.year-2000 Subject: Re: A dose of y2k reality? Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 22:22:31 +0000 'What concerns me about the activities currently going on within the banking system, various branches of government, and other parts of the private sector, is that managers and many others are still under the illusion that the "powerful" can prevent the y2k crash by EDICT. Senior executives can command their programmers to work 24 hours a day, but they don't have the power to overcome Brooks' Law. One of the latest examples, which floated through various Internet newsgroups, was Union Pacific's wonderful statement that "we will DEMAND that our 16,000 suppliers by Y2K compliant!" Managers can command until they're blue in the face, but they can't scare all those little Y2K bugs buried in the code, and they can't control the behavior of 16,000 more-or-less independent suppliers, some of whom may go bankrupt whether Union Pacific likes it or not.'