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Archiver > GENBRIT > 1998-02 > 0886730843


From: Lesley Robertson <>
Subject: Re: Time Bomb Year 2000?
Date: Thu, 05 Feb 1998 18:07:23 -0800


Tim Pierce wrote:
>
> In article <>, Jim Lynch wrote:
>
> >You should understand that the Y2K (Year 2000) problem applies only to
> >software and hardware created some time ago in an era when storage (floppy
> >and hard drives) and memory (640K was projected as the maximum anyone would
> >ever need) was very, very expensive and limited.
>
> This is just not true. Modern software is potentially as
> vulnerable to Y2K problems as is ancient software. I have myself
> seen and worked on software systems written in the last few years
> that will fail if still in use by 2000, due to a combination of
> programmer ignorance and poor operating system support.
>
> The problem is much worse where old computer warhorses are
> concerned, because twenty-year-old IBM mainframes and COBOL
> accounting systems are much more difficult to upgrade, replace or
> fix. However, we must not let ourselves fall into a false sense
> of security that any software written after 1988 may be presumed
> invulnerable to the millennium bug.
> Yes, there was a feature on TV last week about how the software houses
are recalling retired programmers who "speak" these languages to try and
cope. I found it interesting that the Microsoft site admits that there
are even minor y2000 bugs in Win95, Access and others!
Lesley Robertson

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