To: John Rowe who wrote (10434 ) 2/5/1998 12:26:00 PM From: C.K. Houston Read Replies (3) | Respond to
John,A note, regardless of what happens to flight data and interfaces, the radar systems should continue to operate, though air traffic would slow down due to loss of automated information exchange. In summary, it could slow down considerably, but it will function. >attis.com THEN THERE'S THE DEAL WITH THE 3083's. Only 2 retired IBM guys know the micro-code.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. The 3083 models were once common in business and industry but few remain in service, experts say. IBM stopped shipping them about 10 years ago, but some of the software on the FAA models is even older, dating from the early 1970s .The computers are called the "hosts," and are used to receive data from radar scattered across thousands of square miles and integrate the images into a mosaic. Then the hosts divide that picture into sectors, the subdivisions that controllers use, and pass the data on to other computers that drive the screens at the controllers' work stations. The 3083's also receive signals from each plane stating its identity, type of equipment, altitude and destination and helps tag each radar blip with the appropriate data. 3083 is the only one that IBM says CAN'T be debugged before 2000 "IBM remains convinced that the appropriate skills and tools do NOT exist to conduct a complete Year 2000 test assessment" of the 3083 computers. "Who knows, it could do anything," said Michael Fanfalone, the president of the Professional Airways System Specialists, the union that represents FAA technicians. There might be no problem, he said, but "no one knows until it's up and running and there is no way you can take that kind of risk." Message 3153561 Mike Winn: Instead of riding the hot air balloon, how about I buy you a plane ticket for January 2000?
