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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 (71)	2/4/1998 12:09:00 PM
From: C.K. Houston	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 618

JANUARY 2000: HOW SOON AIR TRAVEL COULD RETURN TO NORMAL? ================================================================ A few YEARS, not months!! Airlines and FAA having MAJOR problems. This is where I've been focusing my research lately. WASHINGTON - The Federal Aviation Administration is so far behind in its efforts to fix the Year 2000 computer glitch that half the nation's air fleet may have to be grounded during the earliest days, weeks or months of the new millennium, congressional officials say. GPS (global positioning system) will fail August 21, 1999. Well before Jan 2000. All "receivers" will have to be changed out whenever they get the "fix" worked out. According to Senator Horne, at the rate Transportation Departments going, they should be fully compliant by 2015. Department of Energy is in the same boat. A set of crucial computers in the nation's air traffic control system should NOT be used beyond December 1999, because they may NOT operate reliably when the date rolls over to Jan. 1, 2000, and there is no way to predict the effect on air traffic, according to IBM, which built the computers. - *There's only two folks at IBM who know the micro-code, and they're both retired.* Message 3153561 The computers in question are at the 20 Air Route Traffic Control Centers, which handle all the high-altitude, long-distance traffic in the country. AIR TRANSPORT SUMMIT: Message 3312437 NY TIMES: Message 3336858 USA TODAY: usatoday.com <telecommuting and video-conferencing should benefit....> IF ... we have electricity. LOL - Utilities WAY behind. So are telecoms. There's already been discussion about not accepting calls from certain foreign countries, come 2000. Some utility companies who have actually been working on Y2K already admit that there will be PLANNED blackouts, brownouts and possiblity of surges. They also admit good possibility of unplanned ones because of inter-relationships with others on the power grid. Most utilities haven't done anything on embedded systems. Weren't even aware this could be a problem until a couple of months ago. If things are this bad in U.S. - how about foreign countries? Cheryl

To: John Mansfield who wrote (71)	2/4/1998 1:36:00 PM
From: John Mansfield	Respond to of 618

Peter de Jager's site: Implementing a Site Review Program - also on embedded software year2000.com 'Implementing a Site Review Program to Prepare Your Organization for Y2K and Other Risks By Kathleen Tudor - ktudor@kpmg.com, 415 951-7569 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Abstract The process of identifying threats and the risks they pose within your organization is a cost-effective way to eliminate the risk, or reduce its impact and frequency. For these reasons, the importance of performing this type of critical analysis cannot be overstated. In fact, the application of this activity should be elevated so that non-traditional threats and the risks they pose within your business operation are also identified and addressed before they adversely affect business as usual. <snip> Year 2000 Much has already been written about the implications of the upcoming millennium and the importance of ensuring that hardware and software will accommodate this important milestone. As a result, the focus for this topic is directed toward a somewhat more obscure area worth considering when engaged in Year 2000 planning. The key benefit of thinking the unthinkable is that angles not previously considered are brought into scrutiny so that ample time is available to plan for risks not previously known. One such example involves individuals addressing Year 2000 computer changes for a large financial institution. They wondered whether embedded chips would also be affected by the millennium's approach. Good thing they stopped to consider other non-traditional implications of the Year 2000. They discovered that the locking mechanism situated inside their primary safe would not allow access on January 1, 2000. Had they failed to evaluate other effects of the Year 2000 date change, they would have needed to break into their own safe. ' <snip>

To: John Mansfield who wrote (71)	2/5/1998 2:00:00 PM
From: John Mansfield	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 618

C.S.Y2K traffic lane info and video Subject: Re: Y2K and Emergency Services Date: Thu, 05 Feb 1998 06:11:28 GMT '>...... What if >there was a traffic control center like there is in Minneapolis where >humans can control metering and lane use signaling? Hah. Something I can actually respond to. The MnDot traffic control center is fed traffic lane info and video (from pole-mounted cameras) via _buried_ 386-based computer systems. The software was incredibly carefully written, because it couldn't crash -- there's no way, short of digging the damn things out of a concrete pylon, to reboot them or reset their clock. And they all have circa 1990 BIOS chips, which are very probably non-compliant. Damn. Another thing to worry about. -- Chip Aspnes'