Russians - NO PROBLEM!

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It'd be funny if it weren't so scary... -- Wednesday December 16, 2:03 AM

Russian nuclear forces ready to fight millennium bug MOSCOW, Dec 15 (AFP) - The Russian strategic missile forces command has developed a computer program to resolve problems related to the millennium bug, its top general said here Tuesday. "The program has been completely written and will be implemented in 1999," General Vladimir Iakovlev told the press.

The millennium bug "isn't causing any worry" to his forces, Iakovlev said.

"The total needed to resolve the problem is only 10 million rubles (500,000 dollars)," he added.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) at the urging of the United States, recently proposed a cooperative effort with Moscow to find solutions to the computer glitch.

The root of the problem is that most computers identify years using just two digits. As the century moves on, many computers will be unable to distinguish between 2000 and 1900.

Last Summer, US Defense Secretary William Cohen failed to convince his Russian counterpart to accept US aid for a joint effort to solve it.

The Moscow Times on December 3 quoted Russian General Vladimir Dvorkin, who heads the main research institute for strategic missiles, as saying that certain computer programs for the nuclear forces "could be affected by the millennium bug."

But General Dvorkin also said that efforts to rewrite missile programs would take "much less time and cost much less than in the United States."

Pavel Felgenhauer, a military affairs expert for the daily Sevodnia, said mainframe computers that controlled nuclear arms don't have hard drives, but use magnetic tape to run their programs.

Beyond the military applications, there are fears worldwide that traffic lights, life-support units at hospitals, air traffic control systems, bank vaults, bar code pricing and a host of other systems will be susceptible to the millennium bug.

Some will malfunction, while others will simply shut down.

-- Scott Johnson (scojo@yahoo.com), December 15, 1998

Answers

So if the program is loaded from magnetic tape, all the Y2K problems will fall off?

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), December 15, 1998.

Sounds more like Scotch Tape Robert. Never thought of it before, but what about the old tape drives? I remember having to actually sit on top of one (cover) or it would pop open in the middle of a read and rewind!

-- Rob Michaels (sonofdust@net.com), December 15, 1998.

hey, at least they're letting their IT people live - the Chinese told their folks that anyone who failed to meet their deadline would suffer severe consequences...in other words the IT deadline would be THEIR deadline...now there's a policy that will encourage honesty in your subordinates!

Arlin

-- Arlin H. Adams (ahadams@ix.netcom.com), December 15, 1998.


The Russians have IT people?

-- Leo (leo_champion@hotmail.com), December 16, 1998.

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