(this is one of the items that I'm including in today's Sanger and Shannon's Review of Y2K News Reports. I think that although it's VERY subtle, it's too big to wait, and I have to share it here:

"This could be a tricky one. Atlanta Y2K Computer Test 'a Success' During Weekend (Julie B. Hairston, Atlanta Journal-Constitution) On Sept. 2, the Review linked to a story called City Will Make Y2K Switch This Weekend (Julie B. Hairston, Atlanta Journal-Constitution). The gist of this story was this paragraph: "The city of Atlanta will shut down its centralized computer system for 36 hours during the Labor Day weekend to prepare for Y2K. From midnight Saturday until noon Monday, the city's mainframe computer, which controls its criminal justice and business systems, will be shut off. During that period, city officials and computer consultants will switch the centralized memory from a system that is not programmed to cope with the so-called Millennium Bug to one that can function properly after Dec. 31..." Today's article says: "Atlanta city officials said Tuesday that work during the Labor Day weekend on a new, Y2K-compliant program for the city's mainframe computer was successful.

Administrative Services Commissioner Herb McCall said city information systems personnel installed the new program temporarily and consultants checked external communications and other key functions in the city's central computer network.

'The production test went well,' McCall said. 'What we need to do now is determine a permanent cut-over date...'" The article from last week left one with the assumption that this weekend WAS the "cut-over date," as there was no mention that it was a test. Hmmm..."

-- pshannon (pshannon@inch.com), September 08, 1999

Answers

Heck, let's backtrack! 1999 for testing! ... 100 mission critical ... 60 mission critical ... 10 mission critical ... most critical of mission critical ... damn this accounting software keeps crashing, gotta be able to bill! ... going over to year-2000 running systems ahead of time ... we tried it ... um, it worked! now we've pulled it out again ... testing, um, planning, um, well reviewing contingency plans ... uh, on tabletop ... oh, just renamed our 15-year old dusty emergency binder ... um, staged prescripted media event ... sorry to inform you, but the media will not be allowed to view our predetermined event ... however we'll be sending you the report!

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), September 08, 1999.

Padraig,

that's not so subtle at all. the test (of what we are not real sure) was successful so we go back to the old machine, and continue to try to convert MORE programs to the new machine. Ummm-hmmmm. Transparency strikes again, or as Pudintame says "It's getting real hard to see through all this transparency".

Chuck

-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), September 08, 1999.

Presumably the vendor of the new system has assured the city that it is Y2K compliant...? With on-line in-service testing and independent validation...?

The City of Atlanta has something of a reputation for handing out contracts to friends of the mayor and certain councilmen. Not all these arrangements have had happy endings.

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), September 09, 1999.

Even IF successful (as a test, or as a "change-over" - hmmmmmn?) this was only ONE system....and government records and the central processor (court records, tax records, whatever) are usually the first and easiest to convert.

This shows me that this is the FIRST City of Atlanta system to get to a position that it CAN be begin to be tested. Not installed yet, Tom, nor in production, just tested.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), September 13, 1999.