Do not pass Go, do not collect 2000 without the dating game rules
If you think your agency's year 2000 problems are licked, here's a quick quiz. What's important about Sept. 9, 1999, Feb. 29, 2000, and Dec. 31, 2000? Some experts say certain database applications are going to parse the first of the dates as 9/9/99, which database users will recognize as common dummy date code.
If you think your agencys year 2000 problems are licked, heres a quick Some experts say certain database applications are going to parse the first of the How about Feb. 29? Not every programmer in the past five decades knew that 2000 is a Nevertheless, Dec. 31, 2000, will be the 366th day of a year that some programs think But thats not the end of the dating game. July 1, 1999, will kick off fiscal 2000 While checking whether your PC systems work properly on all these days, dont I hope I havent ruined your day, but year 2000 problems are not confined to next The best book on the subject I have read is Hayes and Ulrichs The Year 2000 Although the first book is targeted to business readers, most of the problems discussed Despite its lack of PC focus, I do recommend that someone in every large office read If you need more facts to bolster a remediation proposal or you want to develop broad For more immediate help, there is always the Internet. Take a look at the Small Also visit http://www.compinfo.co.uk/y2k/manufpos.htm, Compaq Computer Corp.s site, for example, lists portables introduced as far back SBAs page explains in detail how to do basic PC year 2000 testing without any John McCormick, a free-lance writer and computer consultant, has been working with
quiz. Whats important about Sept. 9, 1999, Feb. 29, 2000, and Dec. 31, 2000?
dates as 9/9/99, which database users will recognize as common dummy date code.
leap yearafter all, 1900 wasntand their programs will calculate the
wrong number of days. Leading PC applications and Microsoft Windows 9x operating systems
do know, however, so users with newer PCs are off the hook for that day.
has only 365.
in 46 states, and Oct. 1 is the start of the federal fiscal year. These particular dates
dont have special coding problems, but look out for trouble anyhow.
forget to test for Oct. 10, 2000, the first time in history that some software programs
will have to fill in eight-digit (10/10/2000) date fields.
year, and merely selecting four-digit years in all your software programs wont fix
every problem.
Software Crisis: Challenge of the Century (Prentice Hall, 1997). The same team wrote The
Year 2000 Software Crisis: The Continuing Challenge.
in it could apply to one federal agency or another, especially the warnings about upstream
suppliers that fail to fix their own systems properly.
the book, even if only as a backup to see whether something on the checklist might have
been missed.
hands-on expertise, read Year 2000: Best Practices for Y2K Millennium Computing. It has
everything from flowcharts and code samples to identification of the leads on real-time
clock chips and a list of embedded Intel Corp., Motorola Inc. and Zilog Inc. chips that
should be replaced to bring older PCs up to the mark.
Business Administrations Web site at http://www.sba.gov\y2k\indexcheck.htm,
which has the Federal Reserve Boards checklist for small businesses. Everything
there can apply to your office, too.
the home site of the Computer Information Center that, among other things, links to
hundreds of software and hardware vendors year 2000 sites.
as 1983 and has useful information for government users.
additional software. It shows only whether your PCs will roll over to the next year
correctly; it doesnt test any of the applications. But it certainly is the first
place to start testing PCs, even ones connected to networks.
computers since the early 1960s. E-mail him at powerusr@penn.com.