Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: John Mansfield who wrote (102)	2/19/1998 1:18:00 PM
From: John Mansfield	Respond to of 618

DCY2K 17/2 meeting : 'this metric has been confirmed across the utility industry. ' Some more on this meeting from C.S.Y2K. Thanks to Jim Cobbs John ------ 'cory hamasaki wrote in message <34ea7e1a.0@news3.ibm.net>... > DRAFT >I will expand and repost this as part of the next WRP. > >Summary of DC Y2K User's group meeting - Embeddeds. Attended the same meeting(my first DCY2K). As an aside: I must say Cory is right -- the food is great; but he didn't say there were so many attractive geekettes at these soires (still not enough). The salient points I took away (I'm an IT type not an embedded type) from all the presentations are these: 1. Embedded chips are a lot tougher to find and test than it appears to an outsider. The dates they fail on may well not be 1/1/2000. For example a potentially critical date may be 10/10/2000. 2. One presenter with "20 years experience" in the power industry said (his personal opinion, not his company's position) was that there was NO nuke in the US whose chief engineer would certify to be 2000 compliant by mid 1999, which means that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission wouldn't allow any of them to operate on 1/1/2000. Dumm-dee-dumm-dumm. 3. Cory quotes the presenter who stated that, in the utility his company was working with, they found 15% of all embedded systems were date sensitive. The resulatant failures would range from the trivial to the catastropic. Additionally the presenter indicated that this metric has been confirmed across the utility industry. The only thing left unsaid was: what was the distribution of the failules on the range of trivial to Gotterdammerung. 4. Telecommunications is a bigger bag of worms that even I would have guessed. One interesting "gotcha" that was emphasised was to check licences. Seems that some of this gear has EPROMS with "cut off" dates so you can't use the stuff past the date of the contract. In one actual case quoted, this can bite you if you accidentally set test dates beyond the cut off, by not allowing you to reset the dates back. Ouch. 5. The clear word from all the presenters was, "It's too late to start now and finish on time." >Got it, denial-heads, Y2K is real; don't attempt to reason it out; don't >extrapolate from what you know. That's like going into a chemical >manufacturing plant and declaring that you know that turning knobs won't cause >a problem... because you saw a chemistry set in a store once. > Forget the denial-heads. Forget about them entirely. Missionaries in the wildest part of New Guinea have better odds of success of conversion. Only the hard reality of experience might cause them to change their minds. Time and energy spent in this fruitless pursuit is time and energy that could be put to better uses. As far as I'm concerned they are in the same class of folks that believe in the "black hellicopters" and "Waco conspiricies", et. al. Nemesis follows Hubris every time. -Jim Cobbs

To: John Mansfield who wrote (102)	2/19/1998 1:41:00 PM
From: John Mansfield	Respond to of 618

' Explore other features of your business that may need attention such as your energy management systems, time and attendance systems, inventory calculations, voice mail, elevators, fuel dispensing equipment and product expiration dates.' From: rdr@nospam.net (Ron R) Newsgroups: comp.software.year-2000 Subject: FMI conference (Food Retailer) -------- 'This is from an ad produced by FMI (Food Marketing Institute). To quote the ad: "The Food Marketing Institute (FMI) is a non-profit association conducting programs in research, education, industry relations and public affairs on behalf of the 1,500 members including their subsidiaries -- food retailers and wholesalers and their customers in the United States and around the world." The 1998 FMI show (May 3-6, 1998 at McCormick Place, Chicago, Illinois, USA) has a session on the year 2000 problem. Again, quoting: "The Millennium Crisis: Risks, Implications, and Liabilities of the Year 2000 Problem Are your MIS people working feverishly to identify and correct computer programs to ensure you'll still be in business come January 1,2000? Even if they are, it's not enough! Attend this session and learn about other operational aspects of your business that could spell disaster in the year 2000. * Review possible problems with access control systems, alarm systems, and video surveillance systems. * Explore other features of your business that may need attention such as your energy management systems, time and attendance systems, inventory calculations, voice mail, elevators, fuel dispensing equipment and product expiration dates. * Get guidance on how to contact your suppliers or vendors to ensure that their products and services are Year 2000 compliant." Show information on the web at: fmi.org Not an FMI mogul, just a lowly pcweenee at a member retailer. (Hey, they have Bill Cosby and Aretha Franklin at the Monday reception and dinner.) Ron R.'