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Technology Stocks : Year 2000 (Y2K) Embedded Systems & Infrastructure Problem -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Mansfield who wrote (11)	1/25/1998 6:37:00 AM
From: John Mansfield	Respond to of 618

The Guardian: 'The developing world is in danger from equipment donated in health aid programmes' 'Killing with kindness The developing world is in danger from equipment donated in health aid programmes, writes Dan Jellinek' The Guardian Thu, Jan 22 1998 guide-p.infoseek.com Patients in hospitals and clinics across Eastern Europe and the developing world will be injured or killed when their outdated medical technology malfunctions in 2000, according to a report commissioned by the Romanian Association of Nursing. The report, due to be completed this week by Chris Dowd, senior lecturer in multimedia at the University of Sheffield, claims that much of this equipment contains embedded, date-sensitive chips and was sent to the poorest parts of the world as health aid. 'Awareness of these problems is low even in the developed world, but it will be a lot worse in poorer countries. There is little hope they will even know how the equipment works,' he says. 'Another problem is the difficulty of tracking what aid has gone where.' It may be possible to trace aid donated by larger bodies such as the International Red Cross, but equipment from independent philanthropic donors is more difficult to find. 'When the crisis broke in Romania 10 years ago, there were appeals on the news and people just filled up lorries with equipment and went,' says Dowd. <snip>

To: John Mansfield who wrote (11)	1/31/1998 2:05:00 PM
From: John Mansfield	Read Replies (10) \| Respond to of 618

INDEX-EMBEDDED - long post - Index to embedded software articles ...that I found interesting. John _____________________________________ PRESS CLIPPINGS / AWARENESS UNILEVER Costs soar - particularly because of embedded software sunday-times.co.uk. exchange2000.com 'Anderson said the costs of tackling the bug were soaring because of the scale of the problem, particularly concerning so-called "embedded" chips' UK unites to beat bug:': Greater focus on embedded systems' computerweekly.co.uk exchange2000.com Organisations represented at the first national infrastructure meeting: Action 2000; BBC; BT; Department of Social Security; Electricity Association; Local Government Management Board; Marks & Spencer; Metropolitan Police; NHS Executive; Nuclear Electric; Post Office; Railtrack; Shell Oil; Southern Water; Transco Gas. ' Safety systems face millennium shutdown computerweekly.co.uk exchange2000.com US lagging UK in awareness on Y2K in embedded software The arguments below apply even more to Y2K/embedded software co's; as the awareness/action/budgets lag 'normal y2k. This will change the coming months, however. Just look at UK co's; such as Unilever, British Railtrack etc. exchange2000.com Y2K-EMBEDDED interesting discussion on C.S.Y2K exchange2000.com This is indeed a classic problem in manufacturing plants, and is one of the main reasons why companies are (or are considering) adjusting the dates held by the embedded systems, and then compensating for this in the "next level up" supervisory (i.e. control/monitor) systems. Y2K-EMBEDDED '...but the big difference is the culture...' exchange2000.com Federal Reserve: increased attention on embedded systems bog.frb.fed.us exchange2000.com Rumour on super-large crude carriers exchange2000.com Y2K-EMBEDDED - C.S.Y2K "Building Death" exchange2000.com Interesting and very detailed description of embedded systems in buildings, and possible y2k problems in them. Thanks to Harlan Smith, Blake Allan. The '1972 fix' is not a viable solution for the vast majority of embedded systems. From: year2000.unt.edu ; exchange2000.com EPRI Research Questionnaire: will there be electrical power? epri.com exchange2000.com Niall Fitzgerald of Unilever: 'Wake up to y2k, Blair' exchange2000.com _____________________________________ IEE IEE : '"SMEs" - smaller companies which may not have the expertise to examine or modify their system' iee.org.uk IEE guide online!: 'The Millennium Problem in Embedded Systems' iee.org.uk I like this one! 'œ16,606.25 Estimated saving œ 4.0 M' iee.org.uk exchange2000.com 'The following item is given as a cautionary tale Planning Liaison Unit for Navel Development and General Engineering Transcript of Defect Analysis Meeting held on: 05/01/2000' US lagging UK in awareness on Y2K in embedded software - II fei.org.uk 'The Federation of the Electronics Industry (FEI) is the lead UK Trade Association for companies in the Information Technology, Communications and Electronics Industries, in Defence and Civil Electronics and in Office Equipment and Furniture. ' fei.org.uk _____________________________________ UK RAILTRACK UK: Rail industry bands together to beat millennium bug railtrack.co.uk 19 November 1997 Senior rail chiefs have voted overwhelmingly to create a cross-industry body to solve potential problems caused by the millennium bug. exchange2000.com IEE and British Railtrack training program: 'accredited by both the IEE...' railtrack.co.uk This gives some idea of the status of the IEE. exchange2000.com _____________________________________ CONFERENCES Y2K-EMBEDDED - GIGA Conference - embedded software is often forgotten exchange2000.com SPG's YEAR 2000 CONFERENCE & EXPO: also on embedded software problems exchange2000.com _____________________________________ EMBEDDED SOFTWARE COMPANIES Some embedded software co's - all participating in y2k discussions control.com exchange2000.com _____________________________________ HEALTH AND SAFETY UK Health and Safety Executive (HSE) hsebooks.co.uk exchange2000.com HSE will issue guidance on this topic in March 1998. This guidance will be free and available from the Internet (address http:/www.open.gov.uk/hse/hsehome.htm) and as a leaflet. _____________________________________ UTILITIES From Rick Cowles well known site on utilities: 'the proposed GL is much stronger than the industry anticipated' exchange2000.com 'the industry needs to understand the intense pressure that the NRC is feeling on the issue' EPRI Electrical Power Research Institute Y2K site - long post epriweb.com exchange2000.com '...one electric company that's got the guts to publicly recognize that Y2K's an issue for them' Rick Cowles, 16/10/1997 on C.S.Y2K exchange2000.com Questions to be asked to your local electric company exchange2000.com Y2K-EMBEDDED - the local General Electric plant in Salem, Va had to shut down for an extra week' exchange2000.com Utility Y2K project in SW of GB exchange2000.com swebuk.com exchange2000.com EPRI Research Questionnaire: will there be electrical power? epri.com exchange2000.com _____________________________________ LINKS manufacturing.net: magazines on manufacturing; lots of links relevant for manufacturing exchange2000.com LINKS to y2k embedded software - from G. Girod's site From: pw1.netcom.com ================================================= AFTER THIS LINE : TECHNICAL STUFF - only trespass this line when having technical background !!! ;-)) TIME DILATION Mike Echlin: 'History of "Time Dilation", or what the hell is this.' Mike Echlin's site! : intranet.ca BEST OF C.S.Y2K: Time Dilation update by Jace Crouch exchange2000.com _____________________________________ TESTING Reprint of Roleigh Martin's article on embedded software testing ourworld.compuserve.com Focusses on testing, utilities, urgency to act now; mentions a recent conference helt by the EPRI for the utilities. Y2K-TESTING - Excellent document on testing embedded systems aieg.org exchange2000.com Y2K testing at Schneider Automation modicon.com go to 'year 2000' exchange2000.com IEE guide: 5.4.3 Identifying embedded systems with potential time-related problems ' iee.org.uk exchange2000.com Y2K-TESTING - Excellent document on testing embedded systems aieg.org exchange2000.com _____________________________________ SCADA SCADA - Everything you wanted to know about SCADA, but were afraid to ask ;-) exchange2000.com UK SCADA firm I like this statement of a UK SCADA firm: '...has set up a specialist division that offers a full vulnerability analysis'. From: boward.com Found thru the Girod link site. exchange2000.com 'SCADA Sources on the WWW': iinet.net.au Try this!! ===>>>> 'SCADA Year 2000 sites' <<<==== You will find a lot of links to co's with statements about y2k in embedded systems: exchange2000.com _____________________________________ TECH DISCUSSIONS ON-LINE FAA - 'Now try to debug something like that!' Found on C.S.Y2K, thank to Jim Cobbs. Sample of production code containing some stuff coded without assembler. 'The problem is that the date functions are not in programming languages, like Fortran or Cobol, but in machine language -- strings of ones and zeros more basic to the computer than even the operating system' exchange2000.com