RE: Date field's and their file space usage.

Here you go:

http://idiot-dog.com/humor/y10k.html

COBOL Forever

There was once a COBOL programmer in the mid to late 1990s. For the sake of 
this story, we'll call him Jack. After years of being taken for granted and 
treated as a technological dinosaur by all the UNIX programmers and 
Client/Server programmers and website developers, Jack was finally getting some 
respect. He'd become a private consultant specializing in Year 2000 
conversions. He was working short-term assignments for prestige companies, 
traveling all over the world on different assignments. He was working 70 and 80 
and even 90 hour weeks, but it was worth it.

Several years of this relentless, mind-numbing work had taken its toll on Jack. 
He had problems sleeping and began having anxiety dreams about the Year 2000. 
It had reached a point where even the thought of the year 2000 made him nearly 
violent. He must have suffered some sort of breakdown, because all he could 
think about was how he could avoid the year 2000 and all that came with it.

Jack decided to contact a company that specialized in cryogenics. He made a 
deal to have himself frozen until March 15th, 2000. This was very expensive 
process and totally automated. He was thrilled. The next thing he would know is 
he'd wake up in the year 2000; after the New Year celebrations and computer 
debacles; after the leap day. Nothing else to worry about except getting on 
with his life.

He was put into his cryogenic receptacle, the technicians set the revive date, 
he was given injections to slow his heartbeat to a bare minimum, and that was 
that.

The next thing that Jack saw was an enormous and very modern room filled with 
excited people. They were all shouting "I can't believe it!" and "It's a 
miracle" and "He's alive!". There were cameras (unlike any he'd ever seen) and 
equipment that looked like it came out of a science fiction movie.

Someone who was obviously a spokesperson for the group stepped forward. Jack 
couldn't contain his enthusiasm. "It is over?" he asked. "Is 2000 already here? 
Are all the millennial parties and promotions and crises all over and done 
with?"

The spokesman explained that there had been a problem with the programming of 
the timer on Jack's cryogenic receptacle, it hadn't been year 2000 compliant. 
It was actually eight thousand years later, not the year 2000. But the 
spokesman told Jack that he shouldn't get excited; someone important wanted to 
speak to him.

Suddenly a wall-sized projection screen displayed the image of a man that 
remarkably looked very much like Bill Gates. This man was Prime Minister of 
Earth. He told Jack not to be upset. That this was a wonderful time to be 
alive. That there was world peace and no more starvation. That the space 
program had been reinstated and there were colonies on the moon and on Mars. 
That technology had advanced to such a degree that everyone had virtual reality 
interfaces which allowed them to contact anyone else on the planet, or to watch 
any entertainment, or to hear any music recorded anywhere.

"That sounds terrific," said Jack. "But I'm curious. Why is everybody so 
interested in *me*?"

"Well," said the Prime Minister. "The year 10000 is just around the corner, and 
it says in your files that you know COBOL...."

Charles Wilt
iSeries Systems Administrator / Developer
Mitsubishi Electric Automotive America
ph: 513-573-4343
fax: 513-398-1121
 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of rob@xxxxxxxxx
> Sent: Wednesday, January 12, 2005 8:36 AM
> To: RPG programming on the AS400 / iSeries
> Subject: Re: Date field's and their file space usage.
> 
> 
> I remember a funny story about a COBOL worker brought out of 
> retirement to 
> do Y2K work.  Got so swamped that he went into cryogenic 
> suspension until 
> the Y2K mess was over.  Something went wrong and they finally 
> unfroze him 
> around the year 9999.  And then it was to fix the Y10K issue 
> and he knew 
> COBOL.
> There was more to it.  Something about the first person 
> talking to him 
> being the President - which was really a large screen image 
> of Bill Gates.
> 
> Rob Berendt