Is this a lot of hype for something somewhat trivial

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Electric Utilities and Y2K : One Thread

There are a number of new reports that say your car will not start for you on your way home from that New Years Eve party and now the power gird will collapse. Can somone who really knows about chip design or computer system architecture and the theoritical problems of Y2K explain in summary how a system embedded or not can be affected if the system or software is not processing date information?

For example, I do not set the date or year for my car when the battery is replace after being dead for a week. Do the computer systems running and distributing power through the national grid system use date/year information to run this system?

-- Anonymous, June 12, 1998

Answers

Your car will not be affected. That is HYPE. But the issues you have been hearing about are mostly true. It is too bad that people mix facts with disinformation. It makes it hard for some people to know if this whole thing is just a bunch of hype.

-- Anonymous, June 23, 1998

Is it alot of hype? Just think of how much computer control this world today. Look at me right now, I'm on a computer. When the computer crash on January just about every piece of information is gone. We still have books, that's surprising, because our whole identities lie within a computer. Your credit history, your social security # which is your identification to this world. We will loose everything and it will begin a destruction. If if you go and replace the bad chips in the computer that will be an extraneous task. Everything is run on computers and just about everthing is vulnerable to the the flaw with the date. Hype? You all better wake up.

-- Anonymous, June 30, 1998

Is it alot of hype? Just think of how much computer control this world today. Look at me right now, I'm on a computer. When the computer crash on January just about every piece of information is gone. We still have books, that's surprising, because our whole identities lie within a computer. Your credit history, your social security # which is your identification to this world. We will loose everything and it will begin a destruction. If if you go and replace the bad chips in the computer that will be an extraneous task. Everything is run on computers and just about everthing is vulnerable to the the flaw with the date. Hype? You all better wake up!!!!!!!!!!!

-- Anonymous, June 30, 1998

It seems that you are missing the fundamentals for computer design. The chips themselves are not the culprit. It is the software/firmware that will cause the problems. Additionally I have yet to see the press or any computer designer come forward and state why the computer system will creash on Jan 1, 2000.

All computer systems will continue to run the only problem you will find in the operating system is the possibility that the Time of Year (TOY) clock will show the year 1900 instead of 2000. With this in mind and how software and hardware work the computer will think the next logical year is 1900 and continue to run.

Now if you have a bank loan and you still own a balance on it going into the year 2000 and the bank software has not been fixed your computation for interest will be quit interesting. If the software encounters a divide by zero error the software application will abort. The computer system will continue to run and all the information on the disk drives or on tape backups will continue to be valid. If you set the TOY date prior to Jan 1, 2000 everything can still be recovered.

So my question still remains! Can some one validate that the actual computer system will crash and take everything down on Jan 1, 2000. If the software is not passing time and date information how can the programs abort/crash? Can the computer chip instruction sets realize there is a date problem? Does the micro-code of computers systems realize there is a problem?

I have been able to simulate a year 2000 change on a 386 PC running DOS applications passing and processing date information (what better way to test this than with extremely old equipment). The O/S and software thought it was Jan 1, 1900. After I reset the date to Jan 1, 2000, the system continued without missing a beat.

-- Anonymous, June 30, 1998


Patrick,

First, Brenna was referring to the embedded microprocessors (chips) that are used in great abundance in manufacturing processes, not to the chips in your PC. Maybe it would be advisable to insure that you're on the same page before you belittle someone's knowledge of the subject.

Second, I will provide you with two references:

http://www.remnant.org/y2k/Results.CFM?Links__Category=Power_Grid

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/extras/007/4051126.htm

Since you are convinced that computers won't crash because of the date problem, start with the second reference first. Was that a crash.........a whole bunch of programs simply went down, one after another. If your definition of 'crash' is that smoke comes out, it wasn't a crash. If you use the more common definition that a program that won't run has crashed, it was a mega-crash.

Second, when you get into the field of embedded systems, the real problem is that until the system is actually checked, no one knows whether it is using date sensitive calculations or not. In some cases it's not readily apparent. As was point out in a good reference on the subject of embedded systems, there are about 25 to 40 billion such animals in operation. Not all are date sensitive. The ones that aren't are not a problem. However, since it is estimated that somewhere between 1 and 10% of the processors in use are date sensitive, that leaves between 250 million and 4 billion devices that must be looked at.

Third, it has been more than adequately documented that electric power companies use date-time stamping in numerous applications. Before you equate the power generation and distribution problem with your 386 test bed, I'd suggest that you review the first reference. If you aren't comfortable with the up-front rhetoric, bypass it and go to the articles given in the links. If you research, you'll find great evidence that there are many, many problems associated with avoiding blackouts come January 1, 2000.

By the way, about once a week someone logs on to one forum or another and asks the same question: "Convince me." This is usually done with an attitude that the person asking the question won't be convinced, no matter what. There's a lot of information available at a lot of web sites. Please use it.

-- Anonymous, July 01, 1998



Rocky,

I was only able to access the first reference you suggested but unable to access the second and I know there is a problem with Y2K. However, my concern is much of the information being reported is overly exaggerated or dis-information. Our press over the years has shown a tendency to report anything the will grab the headlines without doing research to validate what they are reporting. Our present day society has also turned into society of people that believe everything that they hear and read without applying logic or asking questions to what has been reported.

I have done some chip design and know on the hardware level these chips are made up of logic gates that set "1" 's and "0" 's. Additionally I have gone through the exercises of computer architecture design. I have also done my share of programming and understand software does exactly what you tell it to do (even if the logic behind the programming is flawed). I do not claim to be an expert, especially since I don't do this for a living anymore, but I am still waiting for someone to lay out specifics of what is going to happen. As you stated "it is estimated that somewhere between 1 and 10% of the processors in use are date sensitive" Can someone provide the public with an idea of the type of processors involved here? What is the report's definition of a processor? I have seen many definitions that range from the CMOS and BIOS chips to the actual micro/system processing chip.

I consider Y2K to be a very serious issue but delivering this information in generalities is very dangerous. Specifics are needed when reporting this type information and those questions that cannot be answered should not have answers based on speculation or theoretical extrapolation.

Here is another one to think about!!!!!

Years ago FORTRAN was used extensively for science and engineering applications. Some businesses, to this day, still use these old programs. "9999" was used for the End Of File (EOF) marker in data files. What is going to happen on September 9, 1999? Much like the Y2K issue, the number "9999" will be floating around these systems. I don't have an answer and I'm not going to generalize or speculate what will happen.

-- Anonymous, July 01, 1998


I did a copy and paste of the second URL, right out of my post, and it takes me to "The Australian," and the story of a meltdown, which was my intent.

The point I'm trying to make is that there is beginning to be a great deal of evidence that a lot of things would quit working tomorrow if it were January 1, 2000. IT IS NOT HYPE when Royal Dutch Shell does a check of a ship and finds that 5 controllers failed. Their comment was that "no single failure would disable the ship." It isn't hype when David Hall tells a group of congressional aides that he's never seen a test (water companies) that passed. And so on, and so forth.

All of these things have been reported in newspaper articles. The information is available. No, it's not hype. But, you'll have to learn that for yourself, by researching the subject.

-- Anonymous, July 02, 1998


Embedded logic on chips is the least of your worries Pat. Please read on to see what I mean.

I can only qualify my predictions with the following example of recent human behavior.

Toy companies can create enough hype, demand, and perceived shortage of supply to cause educated adults to line up at midnight, in the dead of winter, in front of toy stores to buy stuffed animals that cost under a dollar to manufacture, for $50.00 dollars, for children under the age of two who find the toy about as amusing and interesting as their most recent bowel movement.

Food for thought: The real problem will be realized long before the calendar flips to 2000. People reacting to all of the potential Y2K scenarios will create most of the initial problems.

1. Food: Most of the grocery stores and supermarkets will burdened by people attempting to stockpile food before the Millenium. Food shortages will start to become reality some time in the third quarter of 1999. Grocery store chains are predicting seventy percent stock outages by November 1999 and ninety percent by December. Panic will escalate.

2. Fuel: People will attempt to stockpile extra fuel before the "crises" hits and will test the fuel distribution channels. Fuel rationing will become a reality early in the third quarter. Local fuel storage accidents are inevitable. Old Joe next door will not realize that the leaky barrels of gas and fuel oil are a hazard and will most likely store it incorrectly.

3. Finances: Many people will attempt to liquidate assets and transfer funds into Y2K proof investments. This will cause panic in the financial markets and send the economy into a mild recession. When the economy becomes unstable, the Federal government will be forced to react and stabilize the economy by limiting trading and transfer of funds. This will drive public panic and force the economy into a recession similar to the 73-75 fuel crisis. The economy will be on a downward spiral that will continue for a minimum of nine months to a year. Panic will multiply.

4. Communications: Satellites will fail! Satellite communications will start to break down sometime in late August and early September of 1999 forcing people who have been unconvinced up to this point, to focus on the reality of the Y2K problem. People will become scared and the panic level will increase. People will clog all available channels to share the panic. Other communication channels not directly affected by the Satellite failures will have to pick the slack and will be slowed at best. Other communication systems, such as the Internet will start to grind to a very slow pace as millions of networks are brought down for Y2K upgrades. A significant percentage will remain down for an extended period of time. Other communication channels (phone system, postal system) will not be able to assume the load and will slow even more. The panic level will continue to rise.

5: Emergency Services: As panic ensues, local government emergency services will be taxed to their limits. Local government resources slated for Y2K project management will be forced to deal with the taxed emergency service problems and will lose site of their other Y2K initiatives. This will slow the overall pace of all local government Y2K preparedness. The local governments will be forced to ask for more resources from the Federal Government and some sort of military action will become necessary. These additional resources will be called into to deal with the less violent human behavior. All of the armed and undereducated doomsayers will just start to get warmed up.

6. Health Care - The Least Prepared: The health care industry will be burdened by the rise in imagined and real illness brought on by stress, panic and mental illness. Panic related injuries will steadily increase as the Millenium approaches. Most Y2Late initiatives will be hampered by operational needs gouging into scarce human resources. Lack of contingency planning and qualified professionals will force hospitals to use all available resources for emergency services. The elderly, mentally ill, handicapped and terminally ill will not receive adequate health care. Outbreaks of infectious disease will increase due to lack of timely treatment. Expect out of control influenza and pneumonia outbreaks. Medical research will be set back many months.

6. Government Communication: The Government will start its communication campaign in the first quarter of 1999 to attempt to control the panic. The Government will tell Americans that everything will be OK and ask them not to panic. In the mean time the military will be preparing to execute Martial Law.

7. Government Action: Martial Law in the mildest form will happen in the second quarter of 1999. They will show up with their helpful hats on to ASSIST local governments, meanwhile silently taking control of vital food, water, fuel and utility distribution channels. They will also position themselves in strategic areas to deal with potential local and national security threats (domestic terrorists, militant groups and poor people). Full scale Martial Law will happen late in the third quarter of 1999.

All of these things are easily predictable in the mildest increase in public panic. Imagine the impact of and panic created by the recession during the seventies, The Great Depression of the thirties, the country in a state of war and the entire country hit by some sort of natural disaster. Now add it all up and shorten the timeline to a six-month window. Attempt to predict human behavior.

The computer problem, first and foremost, is a human behavior problem!

How will people react?

Please email comments and insights to slindstrom@uswest.net.

-- Anonymous, July 21, 1998


Moderation questions? read the FAQ