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Report: FAA clears air traffic computers Wednesday, July 22, 1998

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Federal Aviation Administration technicians have concluded that a critical mainframe computer used in the nation's largest air traffic control centers will function properly in the year 2000, the Washington Post reported in Wednesday editions.

The determination, reached over the past few weeks by programmers, came despite warnings from International Business Machines Corp., the system's manufacturer, that the agency should replace the equipment.

``The examination has revealed that the (system) will transition the millennium in a routine manner,'' FAA Administrator Jane Garvey told the Post in an interview.

The mainframe computers at issue are used at the FAA's 20 air route traffic control centers to track high-altitude aircraft between airports.

Last October, IBM warned that it lacked the appropriate skills and tools to determine if the Model 3073 mainframes would malfunction in the year 2000, by mistaking the year 2000 for the year 1900, the newspaper reported.

The problem arises because many older computer systems record dates using only the last two digits of the year. If left uncorrected, such systems could treat the year 2000 as the year 1900, generating errors or system crashes.

The FAA is planning to replace the mainframes but was unsure it could complete the process by 2000, so officials embarked on an aggressive testing program to figure out how the computer system would be affected, the Post said.

The technicians found that the software that controls the computer's most basic functions, or microcode, doesn't consider the last two digits of the year when processing dates.

Instead it stores the year as two-digit number between one and 32, assuming that 1975 was year one. As a result, they determined, the system would fail in 2007, but not in 2000.

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I'll keep posting good news here as I find it :)

-- John Miller (nocturnus6@usa.net), July 22, 1998

Answers

I'm sorry - but did you say this is GOOD news? We must be reading two different stories...according to *this* story IBM is saying that the FAA should REPLACE this hardware because they can't guarantee that it will work accurately when the clocks roll over. Now it's only going to fail "according to the FAA" --- seven years later...!

Sorry - I don't see this as particularly "good" -- this sounds like a desperate maneuver that they are hoping will work under the circumstances. They are starting to cut corners and hoping that the fall-out (or in the case of planes I guess it would be "fall-down")will not be too severe. They were planning on replacing them anyway -- but ran out of time. They say they have aggressively tested them. Great. Let them put *their* families on a plane in January.

I don't find this comforting at all. I think it's a sign of things to come. More and more businesses are suddenly going to announce that they have "aggressively" tested their mission-critical systems and that we have nothing to worry about. I hope it's true - but I'm not going to bet my life on it.

-- Chana Campos (chana@campos.org), July 22, 1998.


Its bad news for IBM who won't immediately benefit from supplying the replacements. Anyway if its true, why not accept the fact. A lot of y2k will be fixed, a lot won't.

-- Richard Dale (rdale@figroup.co.uk), July 22, 1998.

It's good news from one very important point of view: Having over eight years to replace these systems makes it a manageable and achievable project. Of course, whether an arm of the U.S. Government will actually get it's act together and do it within the time allowed is another story, but it allows for the possibility.

-- Paul Neuhardt (neuhardt@ultranet.com), July 22, 1998.

After posting the above, I found this news piece from the Washington Post on this news:

"Last October, IBM sent a letter to the FAA warning that "the appropriate skills and tools do not exist to conduct a complete Year 2000 test assessment" of the 3083 computers, once the mainstay of large corporate data centers. The machines have been mothballed by most users, a step IBM urged the FAA to take."

Oh, and by the way, another story is out that all of cars are "ok" according to a report from GM and the National Credit Bureau Association has announced that they're ready for Y2K also. By the end of this year, all of our worries should be over. I find it really interesting that just a the government/media begin to get a clue that people are taking this thing more seriously than they have --- suddenly we start getting a blitz of good news. I'd love to believe it - but the timing and the rather blithe answers "there's nothing to worry" about concern me.

I'd love to hear IBM's response to the FAA announcement.

-- Chana Campos (chana@campos.org), July 22, 1998.


Of course cars, lifts and applicances will be ok, any medium to large organisation reliant on old business software won't be (unless they fix y2k on time).

-- Richard Dale (rdale@figroup.co.uk), July 22, 1998.


Let's see... IBM says that "the appropriate skills and tools do not exist to conduct a complete Year 2000 test assessment" of the 3083 computers used by the FAA. However, after two retired IBM programmers and a handful of other agency employees spent "the past few weeks" at the FAA's technical center looking into the problem, they decided everything's going to work just fine until 2007.

The dilemma... Do I trust IBM, which allegedly has a financial incentive because they want to sell replacements for these computers, or do I trust the FAA, which has recently gotten a big black eye in the media over their lack of Year 2000 preparedness?

I know all you optimists out there will label me a doom-and-gloomer, but at this point I'm highly suspicious of the FAA's "good news." I'm not quite ready yet to book any flights over the millennium weekend. When IBM or an independent source verifies the FAA's claims of Y2K compliance, then I might reconsider. Until then, those who consider this "good news" are being a bit premature in my estimation.

-- Nabi Davidson (nabi7@yahoo.com), July 22, 1998.


Last week the National Air Traffic Controllers Association published a report highly critical of progress by FAA in its Y2k remediation efforts. In regard to the above mentioned computers, it included the following statement:

It is important to recognize that even if the HOST can be made Year-2000 compliant, the processor, the heart of the HOST computer system, has a September 30, 1998, end-of-service life. The processor uses Thermal Conduction Modules that contain processing chips. Module failures can have consequences because they cool the processing chips. There is a shortage of spare parts for five types of these modules and they are failing at an increasing rate. For these 5 modules, there were 4 failures in 1995 and 12 failures in 1997. In addition to age, one factor which may be contributing to the increasing failure rate is that refurbishing after 7 years, as recommended by IBM, was not done. Despite a worldwide search to acquire additional units, there are only six spares left is the inventory for a key module. When the spare modules are no longer available, FAA will have to obtain parts by cannibalizing HOST systems at its two support facilities. <<>>

So it appears there is more to the story that the FAA is not telling us here. The full NATCA report can be found by looking in www.garynorth.com, in the Transportation and Shipping section, dated July 17.

<<<<<<<<<<

-- Dan Hunt (dhunt@hostscorp.com), July 22, 1998.


OK, maybe I was was being a little sarcastic. I thought "Good news" might get some attention either way, heh heh. Wow, every one so far in this discussion is rational! Anyway, I thought the article was interesting, but, I'm still skeptical about the FAA's report too. The report from the flight controler assoc., that Dan Hunt mentioned, makes it clear the FAA doesn't have everyones' confidence. I saw a news report recently, on Channel 2 News Houston,TX....about the FAA and y2k. The investigative reporter confirmed that all flights are almost surely going to be grounded jan 1st 2000, for obvious reasons. He also reported, that one high level Airline official (I can't remember just who), is so sure that nothing will go wrong on Jan 1st, that he already has a flight booked that day, for him and his family, cross country. Looking around today, I found some more articles. One mentions how IBM feels about the FAA's situation, as already mentioned here. Another reports how Lawmakers Doubt FAA Can Fix 2000 Glitch In Time. In order the links are: http://www.y2ktimebomb.com/Washington/Misc/faa9802.htm http://www7.yahoo.com/headlines/980205/tech/stories/faa_1.html Oh well, looks like the FAA may be trying to cover their butts. As I understand it, some of that agencies computer equipment is so old, it needs to be replaced anyway. Talk about stress management, I'd hate to be one of the guys in charge of the FAA's 2000 compliancy project, Doh!

-- John Miller (nocturnus6@usa.net), July 23, 1998.

As I understand it, the 3083's have NO compliant OS. This report concerned the microcode. Even if this story is true, it is merely another piece of optimistic flotsam for the pollyanna to cling to.

-- Will Huett (willhuett@usa.net), July 23, 1998.

That's right, WIll. You chicken littles are amazing. Is there any such thing as good news? Is there any such thing as an optimistic news item that ISN'T conspiratorial? It has become evident that this site is for the likes of you, the anxiety-riddled, intellectually incapicitated,morally constipated run-for-the-hills disciples of profiteers like Gary North.

Take another Prozac, pal.

-- Professor K (PROFESSORK@prodigy.com), July 25, 1998.



One of Yardeni's y2k laws:

"Chicken Little was an Optimist."

-- Al Sprout (alsprout@usa.net), July 25, 1998.


K,

Here's a clue for the clueless, a computer needs an operating system in order to function, as I understand it, there is not a compliant one for this mainframe.

But you don't care. The fact that one can't argue from the specific to the general is obviously beyond your ken. The only thing that will matter is full functionality.

I can imagine you as a medical student, " Gee, doc, his heart works, his kidneys are ok, his liver isn't squashed, jeepers, everything is PERFECT except that littly, bitty piece of meat got stuck in his trachea. How come he went all dead and stuff?"

-- Will Huett (Willhuett@usa.net), July 26, 1998.


I believe a point has been missed here.

<< Here's a clue for the clueless, a computer needs an operating system in order to function, as I understand it, there is not a compliant one for this mainframe.>>

The good news isn't that the OS was rollover-safe, but that it's particular rollover problem gives another 7 years to remediate the problem (in this case, replace the system).

This situation, if accurate, would be great to describe to people the real problem here in that it provides a solid example of how the year 2000 has nothing to do with the problem. The real problem is how computer systems have been designed to handle date arithmetic.

-- Paul Neuhardt (neuhardt@ultranet.com), July 26, 1998.


Paul,

It was not the OS that the FAA claims was found safe, it was the microcode. Below is a post from csy2k regarding same.

>Microcode is only one part of the problem.

You have also to consider :

- the operating system : 3083 cannot run any state-of-the-art OS, only "old dogs" of the 70-80's (MVS/SP, MVS/XA, ...) that are not Y2K compliant <

Will

-- Will Huett (willhuett@usa.net), July 27, 1998.


It would be rather bizzre for a platform specific OS (the only kind allowed by Big Blue in those days)not to have the same idiosyncracies as the microcode of it's platform. This would include date handling.

Of course, IBM has done plenty of bizarre things before, so I suppose I could believe they did it again here. It just seems a bit unlikely. Okay, more than a bit.

-- Paul Neuhardt (neuhardt@ultranet.com), July 27, 1998.



Wait...I have even "better" news...the microcode and OS problems do not even address the APPLICATION code (K, that means the PROGRAM, like your Windows SOLITIARE game). There are several hundred million lines of it, and it will have to be fixed regardless of whether the 3073's are scrapped. And TESTED somehow in the ATC systems's "spare time"(?) There are apparently other issues with these 30-year old museum pieces as well, such as their mechanical (ie. thermal) stability when they are pushed beyond their current limits to process the "kludged" software that will have been quick-fixed to circumvent the date problem.

Note also that the FAA has squandered many BILLIONS of dollars over the last few years on FAILED moderization attempts. Under these circumstances, I think it is perfectly reasonably to assume the FAA's conclusion on this one is "if we can't fix it, it ain't broke!"

-- ed carraway (carrawae@anubis.nosc.mil), July 29, 1998.


I've heard a rumor that the FAA is planning to replace the 3083s with G3 PowerMacs, running the software in emulation. Mac hardware is date-OK for the next 10,000 years, if I remember correctly.

That just leaves the software (the hard part).

-- Larry Kollar (lekollar@nyx.net), July 29, 1998.


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