I am at work, I own a small software business with about 25 UNIX systems and 10 PCs. There is only one critical PC and it runs the office accounting system. It runs Windows98 and seems ok today. I turned our main server off from 11:45 pm last nigh until just now. It rebooted fine, I have a tape from Thursday but all seems well.

Even our phone system which is a computer running DOS, I think. It is one of thos package deals where you buy the phones and everything from one company. We bought it back in 97 for $14k and it seems OK. The dates on the phones are right. I also have some older UNIX systems running AIX 3.2.5. These systems are 6-7 years old and one is our mail server....It seems OK too. So since I was too busy trying to make money to keep the business afloat, I didn't have time to do a rollover test prior to the big event. Fortunately, it seems OK right now. Our software has been Y2k OK from day one because we use the time() function to represent time internally and then convert it using ctime. If we want to convert a date to the number of seconds since 1970 we have to take year-1900 since that is the way mktime() works.

We wrote this code back in 1996 and haven't problems with it. We have customers on Wall Street that tested it for rollover earlier this year. I just tested it and it seems to work ok. In fact, everything in our office seems fine. Now if the banks and refineries are OK then I just have to eat some extra canned goods over the next few months.

Happy New Year

-- William R. Sullivan (wrs@wham.com), January 01, 2000

Answers

Great News! Keep it coming.

Thank You!

Wave

-- Wave (eades1@flashcom.net), January 01, 2000.

AIX 3.2.5 must have patches done to make it compliant. I cannot recall if the patches are critical. I suggest you check it out now.

-- hamster (hamster@mycage.com), January 01, 2000.

Hamster,

We don't build code on it anymore and I know that it needs patches. However, I really don't know what they affect and so don't really know if I need them. Do you know what the patches do?

Thanks,

William

-- William R. Sullivan (wrs@wham.com), January 01, 2000.

Hamster, Just for kicks, send me an eamil to the address posted here. I will post the entire text back. The 3.2.5 system is just our mail machine now.

The machine I am running on right now is AIX 4.1.5 which is also not y2k compliant and I am running Netscape 2.0.1 Browser.

-- William R. Sullivan (wrs@wham.com), January 01, 2000.

William,

I dont know if your last message was an attempt at comedy or you just dont understand the predicament you are in. Get someone to look at your machines now or you will find yourself in a bin within a week.

-- hamster (hamster@mycage.com), January 01, 2000.

Hamster,

It wasn't levity. I am serious, send me email and I will be able to see if the mail server works. It is a Public Domain Server not the one shipped long ago with AIX. I don't think I will have problems but I am wondering if you really know something about 3.2.5 or you are simply speculating. I don't like installing patches, they change the working state of a system to an unknown state. It is not unusual to add more bugs when adding the patches. Furthermore, this OS has been out of support for like 2 years. Why would I want to patch it. If it screws up, I will install AIX 4.3.3 and save the mail config file. Everything else on that system is worthless.

Regards,

William

-- William R. Sullivan (wrs@wham.com), January 01, 2000.

Well I am not going to do your homework for you , so here is a starting point. Remember, just because you dont generate new code on a box or platform doesnt mean its dormant. If the box runs and you need it for your business then it must be kept compliant.

Aix 3.2.5 link (if you dont understand it, get someone who does) :

http://s ervice.software.ibm.com/rs6k/y2k/y2kapars.html

ps- At least get a new browser.

-- hamster (hamster@mycage.com), January 01, 2000.

Hamster, Thanks for the pointer. (I do know more than a little about AIX) did you wonder why I have an AIX 3.2.5 box? I have been working on AIX since 1989 (before it was released for public consumption). I have written tens of thousands of lines of AIX code. Not many used date based calculations. All of the PTFs for 3.2 are not going to hurt me because for the most part they deal with arcane points of some commands. The big deal might have been sendmail but that machine is mostly a POP server for Netscape mail clients. Now I still use mail on AIX 4.1.5 but mail -f didn't show any problems..... I am still waiting for your email.

B.T.W. I am now at home on my three year old gateway running Win95 (what a piece of shit that is) and Navigator 4.6. So far no problems but I am anxiously awaiting your email so I can type mail and see mail from hamster.

Regards, William

-- William R. Sullivan (wrs@wham.com), January 01, 2000.

Norman,

Thanks and everything looks good tonight!!!! Here is the text of your message as promised

Message 1: From nharrold@tymewyse.com Sat Jan 1 20:27:56 2000 Date: Sat, 01 Jan 2000 18:26:52 -0800 From: Norman Harrold X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en] (Win98; I) X-Accept-Language: en Mime-Version: 1.0 To: wrs@wham.com Subject: Test Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

With a good Irish name like William R. Sullivan, how can I refuse? In case Hamster didn't send your e-mail test, perhaps this will do. Good luck with it.

-- Norman H. Harrold Public Records Research Service P.O. Box 245 Azalea OR 97410 (541) 837-3355 nharrold@tymewyse.com

-- William R. Sullivan (wrs@wham.com), January 01, 2000.