Subject: Computer Clock Year 2000

From: [email-masked] (mk95528)
Date: Mon, 02 Sep 1996 01:17:12 GMT

YEAR 2000 CLOCK ON COMPUTERS

There are two trouble spots. First, some systems can't make the
transition from December 31, 1999, to January 1, 2000. In addition,
many programs assume that the first two digits of the year are 19 and
store only the last two digits. Thus, 1996 is stored as 96. When we
reach the start of a new millennium, such programs will be 100 years
off.
The consequences of this oversight will range from mildly humorous to
catastropic. Babies will become eligible for social security because
the governments computers will think they're 100 years old. Anyone
lucky enough to live to the age of 106 will receive a kindergarden
registration packet from the local school district. Your best
customers will get collection notices, because the computer will think
they have 100-year-old unpaid bills. Who knows whether your home
morgage, life-insurance premiums, and income-tax depreciation
schedules will be calculated properly?
Unfortunately, mainframe computers arn't the only systems that will
have trouble making the transition from 1999 to 2000. To find out
whether your PC has a problem, try this simple experiment. Use
MS-DOS's time and date commands to set your computer's time and date
to 11:57 P.M., December 31, 1999. Then turn off for five minutes.
When you turn it back on, execute the date command again. It should
say January 1, 2000. I'll bet money it won't. On my computer, the date
resets to January 1,1994; some computers set to 1980. Few handle the
date change correctly; you'd think manufacturers would have dealt with
this problem years ago. My computer is only six months old and
probably still be in use when the year 2000 rolls around.
Once you reset your computer's date, most newer spreadsheet programs,
such as Excell and Lotus 1-2-3, will handle date calculations
properly. But not all programs have this capability. Older database
managers, for example, look only at the last two digits of the year.
Even if your computer knows that it's the year 2000, your database
will be out of step with the times.