HI All; I got this email below from another list. I'm not a hardware person, so I'll ask you guys. Is this true, that there are date functions imbeded in chips? Ones that can blow up on Y2K? To be honest, this letter comes across as propaganda to scare people that are not too computer ilterate. If this is wrong, what is right? TIA! J I M ----------------------------------------- Jim Hatridge Germany hatridge@straubing.baynet.de Proud Linux User #88484 !!!!!!!!!! Micro$oft -- Ghostdriver* on the road to the future! (*German Slang for the guy driving on the wrong side of the road!) ---------------------------------------------- "If a President of the United States ever lied to the American people he should resign." Bill Clinton, 1974 ____________________________________________________________________ Dear friends, I have been contributing to this list since about last September. I have enjoyed much and learned much. I hope also that I have been able to help others. I am in a unique situation to offer some perspective on the year 2000 computer problem. A little history first. I entered the workforce after graduate school in 1972. I worked for several years for a large national computer manufacturer. I wrote software for banks and business. I wrote savings and checking programs. I wrote accounts payable, accounts receivable, and payroll programs. I am afraid that I am partly to blame for the fix we are in now. In the late 70's and early 80's I worked for a large custom silicon chip manufacturer. I was not directly involved with the "programming" of the chip, but I worked VERY closely with those that were. I saw the same date schemes used in the custom chips as I used in the bank and business programs. At that time "real estate" on a chip was very valuable. Every thing possible was done to conserve this costly silicon. The development of a custom chip could cost anywhere from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars. I have seen many date dependencies programmed into chips, All using 2 digit year representation. I write the above so that, number one, you understand why I am preparing. It is not because I read about the problem somewhere, it is because I lived through the creation of the problem. The second reason I mention is to also share a perspective that I have. The Y2K computer problem has been referred to as a computer bug. It is not a bug. A bug in a computer program is a piece of code that reacts in an unpredictable manner. A bug can usually be isolated in a timely fashion, and depending on the severity, is usually corrected quickly. A bug affects only a small part of the functionality on a program. They Y2K computer problem is not a bug, but rather a designed part of older computer systems. Therein lies the problem. A design flaw that permeates the entire system, as does this, is not fixed quickly. This is not a relatively simple maintenance problem, but a redesign problem. The original design documents are for the most part incomplete or missing. The best solution would be to replace the systems, but there is not enough time. The second best solution would be to redesign the date routines and rewrite enough of the system to make it work but there is insufficient documentation and a lack of understanding of how the legacy systems work. The solution that has been chosen, in my opinion is the least likely to succeed. That is to treat it as a bug. Make it a maintenance problem. This all sounds rather hopeless, but I have not lost hope. When the going gets tough the geeks get tougher. I still hold out hope for success. BUT I will continue to prepare for the worst. I have been part of the y2k team for the computer systems I support at work. We have had success in remediating the few problems we have uncovered, and we have uncovered several. The systems I support were newly installed and programmed within the last 10 years. We expected to find no problems, but there were some. There is success out there, so continue to hope, but don't stop your preparations. I hope that in sharing the insight that I have from the unique situation that I am in will help some of you and hurt none. I mostly hope it will help anyone that decides there won't be a problem because their PC works OK. It is not about PC's. Dick - To get out of this list, please send email to majordomo@suse.com with this text in its body: unsubscribe suse-linux-e Check out the SuSE-FAQ at <A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/"><A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/</A">http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/</A</A>> and the archiv at <A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/suse-linux-e/index.html"><A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/suse-linux-e/index.html</A">http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/suse-linux-e/index.html</A</A>>