I just wonder why the countries that have done nothing to remediate their computers have had no problems or am I just not getting the whole story? Should there be more media coverage? Thank you for answering, you guys know more on this than me. Take care.

-- darcy (darcy@aol.com), January 03, 2000

Answers

Hi Darcy,

I have wondered this same thing. Some countries like the US and Canada have been quite diligent in addressing Y2K, so it is understandable that we would be in relatively good shape. Other countries, like Italy, have done little, yet everyone is "A-OK." What gives??? Were we all hoodwinked, are we not getting the true story regarding third world countries and Y2K foot-draggers? Did the U.S. waste all the money, time, and effort spent on Y2K??? Or, has the truth of Y2K not yet surfaced??

I'm confused!

-- No Polly (nopolly@hotmail.com), January 03, 2000.

It doesn't add up. I've worked on Software Systems - The US & Canada DID NOT waste the money. Well, there all sorts of double-billing, wasted time on trivial systems, compliant hardware replaced, etc. but the fact is these systems would not work without remediation/windowing/replacement/something. It just doesn't make sense that the rest of the world is A-OK. You're right - the coverage is about as good as it was leading up to Dec. 31 (except for the last two or three days!). Time will tell.

-- Think It (Through@Pollies.Duh), January 03, 2000.

Has it ever entered your mind that the money was surely taken out, but was it used for what the media says it was, or was it secretly funneled into hidden bank accounts? When hugh money is on the table, the playes get dirty. I personally feel that most of those billions are now safely hid away in the power play of this nation, it was not used in any form to remedy the Y2K bug. If this is not the case, then how come all those third world nations are in just as good a shape as the good old US Of A?

-- Notforlong (Fsur439@aol.com), January 03, 2000.

I with you too! The only thing I can come up with is that embedded systems turned out to be no threat all along. That is dates aren't used in them. Why IEEE would testify in front of Congress with concerns just six months ago is beyond me?

This does not mean that the business applications are all fine across the globe. As I've often testified on this forum, I've had to fix y2k down here at work. But, let's be happy that millions of lives are no longer at risk.

To sum it up, I'm admitting that I'm wrong even though it's still early in the game to access an financial impact. I'm really getting ribbed today over my previous concerns (which were never the end of the world). I would like it over. Cripe, even Koskinen looked like a doomer when you consider the outcome.

-- Larry (cobol.programmer@usa.net), January 03, 2000.

I have wondered about this too. I have been giving credit to all the extensive remediation but computerized countries like Japan and western Europe didn't do as much and they seem to be ok. It's one thing to say "y2k can't be fixed", and quite another to say "y2k doesn't need to be fixed".

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), January 03, 2000.

I too have been thinking a lot about this. The best answer that I can come up with is, ASSUMING that things continue to hold together for the EMBEDDED SYSTEMS (still would like to see a few weeks go by with no problems), that Y2K was really not that big a deal for embedded systems in the first place.

As far as the justification as to why all that money was spent by some countries: Well, it all gets down to the odds versus the stakes....

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.cum), January 03, 2000.

Slightly different/related matter:

In all the news coverage I watched this weekend, I saw NOTHING about oil production/distribution, oil refineries. I saw no coverage of shipping port systems, JIT distribution, embedded systems, etc. If anything will be our downfall, I still think it will be oil.

-- No Polly (nopolly@hotmail.com), January 03, 2000.

Well I think it's just hilarious. Here the U.S. Y2K gurus have been blowing about how nothing would happen here, but those other countries, no doubt, wouldn't or couldn't come up to our standards. If anything happened it would be their fault for not being compliant. As usual, here TPTB were bellowing, once again, that we're #1. And lo and behold--those other lesser mortals (countries) did just fine. The Nerve! Now isn't that a hoot. hee hee

-- gilda (jess@listbot.com), January 03, 2000.

I have stated this once before, the truth comes out in two places, first and almost immediate is at the gas pump when you fuel your car. The second place will be in the courts, this will take a bit longer, but it will bring the truth out. When the biggies start putting claims against the ins industry to try and get reembursed for failures they say are not Y2K, then the truth will rear it's ugly head. Insurance lawyers those guys that rely on lies for their fortunes will bring the truth to bear.

-- Notforlong (Fsur439@aol.com), January 03, 2000.

I think one is forced to conclude that the embedded chips were not as big an issue as some believed. The code? Quite possibly another story.

-- Dave (aaa@aaa.com), January 03, 2000.

I look around my house, which now looks like an Army-Navy Surplus Store, and feel like an idiot. Looks like something, somewhere would have broken. The gumball machines in Botchsolvia, anything! I was so sure. I am glad that no one will have to suffer and I thought I was mentally prepared to face everyone if nothing did happen. But I have to admit I am having trouble adjusting to all of this. Faced with the 'evidence' that we had, I would have to make the same choice again. The wrong choice would have been too serious and I did what I thought was best for my family. I even scared my elderly parents who are on a fixed income into spending money they couldn't afford. Also folks at work and neighbors trusted me. I felt an obligation to share with them infomation that they were not able to get listening to the main stream media. I'm not whining but this is a lot harder than I figured it would be. Please don't tell me give my preps to the poor because I am now one of them. It's nothing that I can't recover from but it will take time and hard work from both myself and my wife. She is dusting off her nurse's uniform and headed back to the ER. Anyway, just needed to vent.

-- Gary (nada@rollover.com), January 03, 2000.

I think that Y2K will go down as one of the greatest hoaxes of all time pushed by hucksters and charlatans the world over out to make a fast buck.

-- Ted Stevens (tstevens@aol.com), January 03, 2000.

Yes Gary Indeed You Are an Idiot!!!! Anyone that understood the Y2K issue also understood that 12:00 around the world was only ONE piece of the equation. Why must everything be black or white for some people?

Do you honestly believe that entities ie., .Bus .Gov etc., are actually going to announce to the world any issues arising due to failed Y2k remediation efforts....hardly! Does the fact that you could not buy coverage for Y2K errors clue you in as to how this will play out?

-- (karlacalif@aol.com), January 03, 2000.

I don't get it either. My (wild) guess is that the real killer y2k bugs (that crash systems) are fairly infrequent, and showed up immediately on even trivial testing, and were fairly simply to patch. Many of these could have been found with really simple testing in a short time. Bugs that corrupt data won't show up so quickly, and are probably doing their silent evil in many many places.

Also, remember that 2-digit-dates worked fine for a long time. Systems that use dates for calculations and comparisons only screw up when not every date used falls on the same side of the century change. If ALL the dates are in 99 or 00, many bugs have passed their critical point, and will work OK for another 100 years. Displays and printouts might be screwed up, but the LOGIC will be correct.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), January 03, 2000.

Darcy,

Y2K as a potential doomsday was a lot of hype and ignorance. Date errors do not destroy computer systems, computer systems that do break can be overridden, and most fixes are not that complicated. Y2K computer issues are nuisances spread across time, and as they crop up, they are addressed and fixed. A huge percentage of US Business have had Y2K issues so far--and guess what--they fixed 'em. Notice any big disruptions? Countries that didn't remediate in advance didn't suffer because they realized Y2K issues would be spread over time, usually minor, usually fixable, and with good interim workarounds. That's why all the nonsense on this board is just that--nonsense. Get it now? Sincerely, Jim Thompson

-- Jim Thompson (jimthompsonmd@attglobal.net), January 03, 2000.

Does M.I.T. stand for Morons In Training or what? I wish I had listened to Joe the Mechanic who fitted my generator for a car muffler in Nov. so the roving bands of dog eaters couldn't find me out. He said, "Them folks ain't gonna let nuthin break cause there is too much money involved". A wise man indeed.

-- Dave (confused@midnight.net), January 03, 2000.

One answer on the embeddeds may be the one listed here yesterday referencing Mark Frautschi's essay on them, the section on TIMING! Few short paragraphs, but very interesting read and maybe offers some clues to this most mysterious happening or non-happening!

Also just heard on one of the stock market channels one analyst's prediction that oil will top $30 a barrel by later this year. Any ideas why, if production is going A-OK?

-- rumdoodles (rumdoodles@yahoo.com), January 03, 2000.

Jim Thompson,

You are rather belligerent and I doubt you know for sure what side-effects date errors produce. Here is what could happen in an embedded system that used date values.

1. Subtracts 00-99 gets negative number.

2. Uses difference as index into an array in the RAM

3. Processor produces address fault which hangs system....It must now be manually reset. If it is inaccessible, it will take a long time to reset.

I personally wrote code for the 6800,6809,F9450,8086 and TMS32010 for computers that went in the F-15,F-16 and C130. These systems were dipped in a substance that made it impossible to replace components. The entire board had to be replaced. Now those were airplanes.

I personally wrote code for the 68030 and 68040 on a little real time operating system called VxWorks. It had a serious problem with something called priority inversion. This caused significant problems with the Mars Explorer a few years ago. I also had no date code in the VxWorks stuff that I wrote but there were facilities for keeping real-time and time of day. ON the aircraft systems we used counter chips that produced interrupts after a termination count had been reached.

In the Aircraft systems we used something called a watchdog counter that if it wasn't reset after say 50ms, the system automatically reset through hardware. This was to account for the picking daisies scenario that I outlined to begin this response.

Unless you can tell me how you know for certain that a date related error cannot cause a problem, I would say you aren't any better informed than Gary North. In fact, it sounds to me like you are really ill-informed and just a blow-hard.

With respect to IT systems, date related errors can cause bad numbers to be produced that go unnoticed for a while until they cause a problem in a downstream program. In this case the bad result is stored in a database and another unsuspecting program uses it and that program crashes. This is the kind of thing that I believe lot's of y2k money was spent on.

In summary, I can certainly see how we had the possibility for a melt-down and as a country we probably erred on the side of caution. This wasn't too imprudent and furthermore, the lack of over-engineering has recently raised it's head in the Mars Lander and Orbiter projects.

If the rest of the world gets off without spending much then they took a risk, calculated at that and won. That is what I would conclude. NOT that no computer system could have failed anyway as you seem to be.

-- Wiliam R. Sullivan (wrs@wham.com), January 03, 2000.

Embedded chips were never a problem because it was easier to get the time/date information external to them. In a discussion with Sysman this was explained. The relativly small about of "memory" on a single programmable chips you want to be as thrifty as possible. The algerythems needed to put in time in the chip uses a large amount of space, you have to get the different months sizes in and 7 days a week to line up as it should, as well as 60 minute/seconds. If time and date used digital numbering- ones and zero's or a version of digital binary such as octal or hex, then it would be easier. As it is our time and calender system makes it difficult to calculate which would take up so much space it just is not worth it to put the process in the chip. Much easier to connect the input from an external source in the first place. As chips become able to hold vaster amounts of memory then this will probably be done. Something that needs to be watched for leap-years and the decades to be correct. Basically there was no reason and too little space to have this function put in in the first place.

Origionally Y2K date errors (correctly) were seen as a software problem. At that time people were not too concerned because they felt (justifiably so) that programmers would you take care of the problem. They did.

What went wrong was that literally ONE PERSON in a position of influence started the theory that chips, because they could be programed, probably had the same problem. If this person had the least bit of knowledge of them he would have known how improbable that would have been. Also the fact that he assumed that every chip made was potentially vulnerable to this is what caused the entire "embedded" spin to blow up out of proportion in the first place. Others who also did not know or have enough experience jumped in and helped spread the fear through suggesting the posibilities they guessed would be effected. Soon this "theory" was out of control and anyone who attempted to stop it was shouted down.

Soon the "idea" was embellished upon to the point where well known, mainstream consulting companies were parroting the "possibilities" of how much could go wrong.

I have absolutly no hesitation in stating that Charles Reuben was instrumental if not directly responsible for saving me from years of terror. He also patiently showed me that I, too could make a difference by trying to explain the truth to people.

I wrote about this over a year ago on the old Gary North is a big fat Idiot board, and reciently on debunker.

I figured it would not hurt to try to explain to people. After all it was the possibilities of chips failing that was scaring everyone, not some banks potential data-processing failure.

Unfounded rumors can prove indestructible in cyberspace (http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/099/nation/Unfounded_rumors_can_pro ve_indestructible_in_cyberspace+.shtml)

Also the fact that intimate knowledge of embedded chips and embedded systems is not common and takes a lot of training and years of experience to understand, made it difficult for people to know who spoke the truth and who was guessing or speculating.

If you really want an answer to why the information on embeddeds became so dominate, why not go to the source of the "spin".

Ask Dave Hall why he did it.

He will tell you that he changed his opinion since the beginning, but why did he give that opinion in the first place when he did not know what he was talking about?

dhal-@enteract.com

-- Cherri (sams@brigadoon.com), January 03, 2000.

Hey, thanks for the info. I wasn't sure who to believe!! I still am sorta confused :-) I now not only don't trust the government, I distrust the anti-government. Frankly, I don't trust anyone anymore! I can't believe how worried I got over all of this crapola! I guess the only thing you can count on is your own two hands. I have learned a lot from all of this.

-- darcy (darcy@aol.com), January 04, 2000.

Darcy, Go up and read Mr Sullivan's post. The pseudo-expertise you see there is a perfect example of Y2K confusion and hype. Even after nothing happened, the guy is still explaining why it's a problem. Sheesh.

-- Jim Thompson (jimthompsonmd@attglobal.net), January 04, 2000.

Actually, it's a PROOF of Murphy's Law: "Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong". Since EVERYONE (not just people on this forum) expected that the power would fail at midnight Dec 31 SOMEWHERE in the world, Mr. Murphy stepped in to ensure that it didn't. QED.

But beware of Murphy, he's got a few more tricks up his sleeve.

-- Risteard Mac Thomais (uachtaran@ireland.com), January 04, 2000.

Con and Scam artists know that for the most part their victims will not come forth, out of embarrassment. This syndrome is much more intense in cases of sexual rape. But here we have a brand new phenomenon:

 The scammed and screwed are now attempting to raise the perpetrators to a higher level of respectability. In their minds, this will hopefully diminish their stupidity for being sucked into the Y2K scheme.

It is this quirk of human nature that allows the Norths, Hyatts, and Yourdons of the world to operate their schemes over and over. Very sad.

-- Look (at@the.facts), January 04, 2000.

Two words: "Goin' manual!"

-- Ron Schwarz (rs@clubvb.com.delete.this), January 04, 2000.