paper in explaining Y2K problem with embedded devices and Real-Time Clocks, System Clocks, and Application level clocks. Written by an engineer from Dallas Semi-Conductor.

http://www.dallassemiconductor.com/Prod_info/Time_Keep/y2k.html

Select article by Jim Lott.

-- cl@sky.com (cl_sky@excite.com), November 17, 1999

Answers

This about says it all....

In a nutshell, developing systems expected to function properly before, during, and after the century date change requires thorough testing of the hardware platform and the platform-development tools. Year-2000 failures can occur in the hardware, operating system, compiler, date-conversion routines, and application programs. Everything needs to be checked for correct date handling.

-- PJC (paulchri@msn.com), November 17, 1999.

Link to Lott's article

...for your reading pleasure.

-- semper paratus (always@ready.now), November 17, 1999.

The link for the Jim Lott article is:

http://www.devel.penton.com/ed/Pages/magpages/oct0198/ti/1001ti2.htm

Comments, anyone?

-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), November 17, 1999.

Linkmeister --

Comments? Okay. I read the article and it is a 'keeper'. It explains (from the viewpoint of the actual chip manufacturer) just what it is that is going on in there. (Actually, some of it was new to me, as I just used the functions, without worrying about the 'man behind the curtain').

Hopefully, it will lay to rest the arguments (*sigh*, or at least some of them ;-(), about whether or not there are clocks in there, and how they work and so on. (Note though, that this is *one* manufacturer, and *one* method of doing this.)

It still doesn't reach to the heart of the matter, which is,a) how many devices are out there? b) how many care about dates?

I am still struggling with the belief that most of the estimates I have seen were done with 'functional analysis', which would naturally miss all of the 'marketing driven' 'feaping creaturism' add-on stuff which never had anything at all to do with the functionality of the device. (And which I have seen over and over and over again.)

But on the whole, a *very* good article on how this stuff works. (In at least one case.)

-- just another (another@engineer.com), November 17, 1999.

This is going sound silly...But I wonder if enough systems crap out at the roll-over could a whole city, like, go up in one gigantic explosion?

-- Ocotillo (peeling@out.===), November 18, 1999.

Ocotillo,

Why yes, of course...and hopefully it'll be Detroit!

Just kidding (mostly).

John Ludi (former Detroiter)

-- Ludi (ludi@rollin.com), November 18, 1999.

Quick reminder: the century isn't changing. "Century Date Change" is a misnomer. If you want to make up an alternative for Y2K, try "Leading Date Digits Increment" or something. :)

-- Colin MacDonald (roborogerborg@yahoo.com), November 18, 1999.

Colin:

That depends entirely on which essentially arbitrary frame of reference you choose. Neither 2000 nor 2001 is exactly 2000 years from any event of note, so it's a matter of preference. You appear to hold a minority view, no more nor less valid than anyone else's.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), November 18, 1999.