Say the power goes out. Will power companies be able to get it back up the same way it would in other situations? What I'm trying to say is if the power goes out because the y2k bug wasn't fixed, will it be able to get going again without the code changed and embeded systems replaced?

-- Anonymous, July 07, 1998

Answers

My understanding of this issuse is in short, yes. There are manual overrides available. There is some great info on this subject at www.y2ktimebomb.com

-- Anonymous, July 08, 1998

According to an article @ www.valleyadvocate.com, called "Y2K Computers run damn near everything today," there are no manual overrides, anywhere. It's an excellent article, 14 pages long, but very informative!

-- Anonymous, July 10, 1998

I work for a utility company and there are no manual overrides. The only companies that MAY still have some are those that are hydro-electric and ancient. There are still a few around. If the generating or transmission system goes down, there will be no electricity until the problem parts are replaced and hopefully the system can be jump started.

-- Anonymous, July 10, 1998

I have a friend who works at a utility in their IT department. He is directly involved in Y2K remediation on software. He is not directly involved in power generation or distribution. However, he maintains that there ARE manual overrides at the substations. Understand, he is not necessarily an expert in that area, but does communicate with people involved in that area. He thinks that the whole thing (Y2K) is overblown. I think he misses the whole point about embedded microporcessors, however, because those that fail will more than likely prevent electricity from being generated, therefore there will be no need to switch electricity if there is none being generated.

-- Anonymous, July 10, 1998