[Coco] Y2K fixes ever developed or posted?

[John E. Malmberg]

Ward Griffiths wrote:
> 
> Nah, Y2k _happened_ because of a mythical birth date the later Roman 
> Empire adopted instead of the year the latest emperor chewed his way to 
> the throne (sometimes several in the same year).  The Y2k _problem_ 
> happened because some software/firmware writers made assumptions about 
> product lifespans.

In spite of the hype about Y2K, almost none of the critical functions 
runs by computers actually care what the calendar date is.

In most cases the date was used as a text display for humans only.
I wrote an article about it in 1999 for the monthly newsletter for the 
local ham club that I was in.  It is one of the issues that never made 
it on line.  It was a response for to an alarmist article.

But there was quite a bit of danger that resulted from Y2K, particularly 
to rescue workers and firemen.

In one case while a fire was being fought at a small appartment, someone 
  finally thought to tell the firemen about the jenny jugs of gasoline 
that were stacked almost all the way up the wall on the other side of 
the building.  Fortunately the fire was brought under control before the 
cans when up.

In another one that was shown on one of the Nashville news shows, a 
person put a propane tank in their laundry room so that they would be 
able to cook after Y2K.  The family is alive because they got out of the 
house when they heard funny hissing sounds.

The explosion totally collapsed 1/2 of a four bedroom brick house in 
what appeared to be an upper middle class neighborhood.  About a 3000 SF 
house.  It was interesting that there was no soot or burn marks 
anywhere.  The house collapsed inward so all the debris was inside.


But the most dangerous one is something that you would think only be 
seen on old Bugs Bunny cartoons.

It was one of those days were it was raining just enough to cause fog 
and be a small annoyance, and a grandson came home that day.  At this 
point the police report and the family claims differ about what happened 
next and the actual intent.  But it apparently ended up with the 
grandson sleeping it off in the trailer with a trail of the black powder 
on the ground leading to the the basement.  The trail was burning at one 
end and putting out a lot of black smoke.

The neigbhors saw the smoke and not realizing what it was, called the 
fire department.  The rain apparently slowed down the burning of the 
trail and a fireman extinguished it.  Then they checked what was at the 
other end.

The way it was reported, it appeared that a retired deputy planned to be 
prepared the anarchy that would result from Y2K.  He stocked the 
basement of his house with black powder, ammo, and guns.  Unfortunately 
for him, his heart was not Y2k compliant, and he passed away leaving his 
widow and all of the neighbors unware of his preparations for their safety.

The fire department estimates that if the basement had ignited, it would 
have taken out at least 1/4th of a block.


And the economic impact of Y2K was bad for the computer industry.  While 
they forcasted that hardware sales would be down in 1999 as companies 
were fixing Y2K bugs, what actually happened is that everyone used Y2K 
as an emergency to get their pet projects funded and buy hardware.  They 
moved ahead their computer purchases for the next 3 years into 1999. 
This resulted in an almost industry wide slump in sales after an 
unexpected boom year, about the time that the dot-bomb occurred to 
further depress sales.

The industry was planning based that 1998/1999 would be a bad year and 
that major sales were being delayed until after W2K was over.  And as we 
all know, the opposite happened.

-John
wb8tyw at qsl.net
Personal Opinion Only