Bill Presented to Congress Today/FAA response to skepticism

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The Good Samaritan bill WAS introduced into Congress today. If anyone is interested in the text, please email me and I will be happy to send it along.

On another note, the following email was sent from someone intimately involved with the FAA remediation project to an FAA skeptic:

>Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1998 11:54:26 -0400 >From: NATE MURPHY <105174.1470@compuserve.com> >Subject: RE: Sighting: FAA ATC Computers Y2K OK! >To: "INTERNET:year2000-discuss@year2000.com" > >Re: FAA > >Ralph, > >Yes, you are a skeptic and unnecessarily so. > >The FAA started developing this system over thithy years ago. It went into >production in the Los Angeles Airtraffic Control Center in 1972. The >National Airspace System(NAS) was developed as a result of several air >collisions that occurred in the 1950's. They understand more about the >business of air traffic control and air safety than any organization that I >am aware of. Believe me, Flight Plans, Departure flights, Tracking and >Handoffs to ARTS(departure and landing) are all part of this >multiprocessing, continuously operational(24x7) fully recoverable software >/ fail hardware system. >This is a hugh messaging system written with its own priority operating(pre >OS/360) and database management system(" DBMS" word not invented yet). This >is a time dependent system(not Date Sensitive). Day is only important when >it read the daily flight plan tape which is supplied by the airlines. > >Believe this, on March 23,1998, Stan Graham,TechBeamers, Bob Nagel and >myself met for two hours with Ray Long, the FAA year 2000 manager and his >staff. We discussed several alternatives with Ray. Ray's top priority was >to analyze the micro code in the 3083's because it was the best alternative >for the FAA, and it worked. At the time, we did not feel it would be >appropriate to share that information with the group. By the way, it only >took twenty lines of code to make the Enroute Air Traffic System year 2000 >compliant. > >Ray and his staff deserves credit for saving a lot of time and money. They >are perfectionist and the airways are much safer because of their technical >tenacity. > > > Nate Murphy > Nate Murphy & Associates > 105174.1470@compuserve.com > The Assembler People > 609-234-2353 >

-- Chana Campos (chana@campos.org), July 28, 1998

Answers

Let me see if I've got this straight. Mr. Murphy thinks that by impressing us with how important and complicated the FAA's software is we'll be assured that everything will be ok. Well, he's convinced me. I think I'll tour the country by air on Jan 1, 2000.

-- Ed Perrault (EdPerrault@Compuserve.com), July 29, 1998.

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