I have a hard time finding the off/on button on the PC, so don't profess to understand all about the embeds. However, I READ EVERY WORD and for the first time, I AM SCARED. I have two things that I need from this forum:

1. Where is the Mr. CEO report? I have missed that I guess. I thought he had crawled back under the carpet without giving out any info. I guess I was wrong. Please direct me to this report(s)

2. WHAT ARE THE RAMIFICATIONS OF EMBED FAILURES? Put it into simple language. Does it mean the refineries will go down or up? (explode?) Does it mean the pipelines won't flow or they will explode? The planes will fall out of the sky (couldn't resist that one, guys!) The ships will get lost at sea?, the oil wells will go down or up?, the power plants that think they are y2k ok will not be?, that the banks will all go TU?, that communications will be via tin cans and a string? What does this all mean to ME and MINE?? Are there any problems with embeds and nuclear plants? How about the chemical plants? I don't understand about embeds, but EVEN THIS DUMB OLD LADY HAD BEEN TOLD THIS AT LEAST 18 MONTHS AGO. And its now too late to test... so what is going to happen is going to happen. WITH LEADERS LIKE KLINTON AND KOSKY, WHO THE HELL NEEDS TERRORISTS??

Taz...who is off to fight the hordes in order to buy a NEW ROPE!!!

-- Taz (Tassi123@aol.com), December 07, 1999

Answers

Taz,

There are lots of good threads with links here: TB2000 Embedded Threads

-- TA (sea_spur@yahoo.com), December 07, 1999.

I hope you saw Y2K, the Movie. This much maligned flick is based on reality...Except for the Jet crash at Kwajelien, evety incident in the story has either occurred in real life or in testing!

-- K. Stevens (kstevens@ It's ALL going away in January.com), December 07, 1999.

I've posted this link a bunch of times, but one more can't hurt.

IEE Embedded Sytems Fault Casebook

Click through all the links. These are all cases of y2k failures in embedded chips. Each example contains a description of the problem, when the problem occurs, the problems impact on the system it is in, and the impact of the failure on the business.

Hope this helps.

-- John Ainsworth (ainsje00@wfu.edu), December 07, 1999.

Jet crash? Didn't a pair of F16s crash during a Y2k test last year, no reason given, not mid-air, no further report?

-- bw (home@puget.sound), December 07, 1999.

Taz:

As another computer user, my best interpretation of the embeddeds issue is that all of that will happen. Not to every location, not everywhere.

I read, can't lay my hands on a link just now, that a 1% failure rate in embeddeds is about 1000 times higher than normal.

They use them at least partly because they are normally so dependable.

-- mushroom (mushroom_bs_too_long@yahoo.com), December 07, 1999.

Don't buy that 1% failure crap! Even Koskinene admitted that the failure rate is much higher among utilities.

First of all, if mr CEO is right (I think it is safe to assume that he is real), then we are probably looking at a VERY SCARY SITUATION. Seeing as he knows alot more than you or I, I vote to prepare like his is the word of God. One of the biggest problems with the embedds is the multi-purpose chip. The VAST majority of companies who use embedds, do not pay thousands of dollars to have one specifically manufactured for them...rather they buy pre-existing 'multi-function' chips that will do whatever they need. While the company may not require that the chip they are looking for be able to keep time, the 'multi-function' chips NECESSARILY keep time anyway by virtue of the fact that they are multi-function. This results in millions upon millions (billions?) of chips that WILL NOT BE CHECKED because they do not appear to process dates.

Combine this with the fact that we import 55% of our oil, and as far as domestic oil, the "Mr CEO"S" of the oil industry say we will be lucky if we can salvage 30% of our domestic oil. Don't forget the 80% of small businesses who will not be ready, and the local governments who are screwed...oh, and don't forget the problem of cascading cross defaults when all systems go online with their new (uncompleted) code on the same day, and the fact that the Fed is not nearly done (INCLUDING social security), etc, etc, etc, etc,

p.s.-don't forget the thousands of planned viruses and potential terrorism...

p.s.s.-all this will be brought upon a completely unsuspecting populace who are going to freak.

Other than that stuff, I think it wil be like a 3 day snow storm. '

-- Orson Wells (wells@whitebulb.com), December 07, 1999.

Wow, John...I read 'em all. I guess the answer to my questions is "all of the above". Thanks for all the comments. Still looking for Mr. CEO thread.

Taz

-- Taz (Tassi123@aol.com), December 07, 1999.

Just found this great page with several pertinent links to embedded systems:

Embedded Systems

-- Iam (Embedwith@systems.net), December 07, 1999.

Boy, talk about an unprepared population, isn't that the truth. As I've mentioned to my family and friends, this is the media's finest moment as far as "spin control". The day to day functions occupy all of the attention of most everyone other that the GI's. I'm not looking forward to the next year or so (should I survive, of course), many (OK, make it darn near all) of the population has never had to confront the animosity I expect we will have to encounter. Time is short, very short, if there are things you plan to do, feel fortunate there is any time left at all, do it now, and I mean NOW. It's incredulous to me that I can still make last minute preps. this late in the game, and I don't mean any of this is a game at all, Michael

-- Michael Teever (teotwawki_soon_2000@yahoo.com), December 07, 1999.

I've had to develop a class/seminar in Y2K remediation planning for embedded systems. Preparing for it was eye-opening to say the least.
One of the major problems that we face is the truly large number of embedded systems...25-70 BILLION! Even if only 1 in 10,000 causes a real problem, we are facing 2,500,000 serious failures world-wide. And failures in, say an Indonesian or Malasian oil field can eventually cause us difficulty.
Testing and remediation is also a problem. The only "generalized tool" that I've found works really well, but requires an electronics engineer or technician, runs only on memory from 5 years ago, and with CPUs that run slower than 20 MHz. Oh, yeah, AND there's a 10 week or so wait to buy one! So much for a silver bullet for embedded systems!
Still holding to a 7-9 or so...I hope it's that low!

-- Mad Monk (madmonk@hawaiian.net), December 08, 1999.