Ignoring the "embedded controllers" (at my own peril), this guy seems to make a good point that the Y2K problem could be fixed at the OS level on "big iron":

http://www.murphysoftware.com/y2k/y2k.htm

Any "big iron" folks out there care to comment? I'm more the minicomputer/server/PC type...

-- Phil (pperucci@mindspring.com), June 05, 1998

Answers

His "fix" takes care of some arithmetic calculations, but introducing new hexadecimal decades to the 20th century would probably trip up "valid date"-checking software and introduce a whole new set of bugs.... which would be hard to fix, because now you're "fighting" the operating system. Also, the REALLY hard part would be to get IBM, NEC, Hitachi, etc. to put the change into versions of its OS which are long out of date and no longer supported. This idea is not likely to get beyond the patent stage. I'd like to see this strategy up and running on a big system before I'd even bother patenting it. (Besides, Bob Bemer probably got there first.)

I'd suggest running this by Cory Hamasaki on the c.s.y2k newsgroup (kiyoinc@ibm.XOUT.net); he's an expert on big iron.

/Nick Chase

-- Nick Chase (nick15@eve.assumption.edu), June 05, 1998.