RE: y2k reflections

["Shaw, David" <dshaw@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

-----Original Message-----
From: nina jones [mailto:ddi@datadesigninc.com]

well, we got through y2k, with our biggest problem being old autofax
machines, that rolled over to 1980.  after some serious hair pulling, we
found that these machines could be dated to 2000 by the dos date
command.

out of curiosity, i fired up my old p/c, (from 1990) and found the same
thing to be true.  

i never heard that you could do that.  just a bunch of media hype that
old p/c's wouldn't work.  was there much money was spent on updating
bios, etc, that a simple date command would fix? 

after the big rollover, we've found system 34's still running, etc.  and
carl's old as/400 on version 2 was still going.  he doesn't care that
officevision won't work, since the machine doesn't use that anyway!

as a profession, did we make too big a deal over some things?  for
example, when david asked about v3r6, the only advice he got was to
upgrade to version 4 or date the machine to 1972.  nothing was said that
it would mostly work, and if it was only for 2 months, so what!  

well, i'm running for cover now!

-------------
Nina,

I think that it was very much a case that no one wanted to be on record as
saying that something old might work (with a bit of effort), because of the
liability involved if it didn't (or if the user wasn't sharp enough to make it
work).  I knew that I could get most PC's to accept 2000 as a date, even if the
BIOS wouldn't roll over - I checked a bunch of XT's, AT's, my original-model
1984 Compaq "sewing machine", etc, and I wondered why no one ever mentioned that
- so I didn't either.  Sorry.

I think people with a little common sense and a willingness to experiment
creatively probably saved some folks a lot of money, and were the ones who
really pulled off this great Y2K success.  The contribution of the chicken
littles was merely to get a little resource allocated to resolving the problems.
Did they overdo it?  In many cases, probably.  Was it necessary?  In many cases,
probably.  Was the net result positive?  I think so.

Dave Shaw
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