They say, that only the old chips with a small memory had to work with a two digit year. I would like to know, what the year was, when chips were given four digit years.

-- Omar Binato (Obin@fla.net), December 19, 1998

Answers

If you mean when was the PC dating functions given a 4 digit year - it always has had a 4 digit year as far as I know.

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), December 19, 1998.

Sorry dude, not old CHIPS but old data storage devices, and it was a cost thing.

Hunt up the capacity on a 2311, or 2314 and teh cost per Kbyte, and you will have some understanding.

As I broke in, if you had told my boss that he would live to see even 105 MEG selling for less than $1,000, he would have laughed. If you told him that this 105 MEG would NOT need a 2,000 per MONTH maintenance contract, he'd have you committed!

Chuck

-- Chuck a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), December 19, 1998.

Beats me what he really means Chuck - he's got me confused. Maybe if you would clarify what you mean?

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), December 21, 1998.

Omar,

There wasn't any one year when all chips were changed from two-digit years to four-digit years. Different manufacturers changed over at different times.

-- No Spam Please (anon@ymous.com), December 21, 1998.

It's a combination of the old software which only used two digits for the year and of chips used in computer manufacturing. I can't put an exact date on the chip issue, because it varied by manufacturer and the function of the chip.

I do know that a few months back Motorola released a multi-page list of chip part numbers of products it was declaring no longer supported products. While not stating that these chips have date problems, since most were Real-Time Clock (RTC) chips or microprocessors thate use dates, it's a very good bet that everything on that three-page list has a Y2K problem.

Also keep in mind that a chip with a four-digit date register can still be using programming (such as a PC's BIOS) that only uses two digits. In this case it would only read the last two digits of the chip's date register. This is another recipe for problems, since the last two digits will show zero-zero when the date rolls over.

Hope this helps.

WW

-- wildweasel (vtmldm@epix.net), December 21, 1998.