I haven't heard anyone suggest this as a possible solution before. I wrote a program once which required a lot of simulation so I fast forwarded the clock by writing back to the system every second and updating 10 seconds. It is also possible to do the reverse and effectively slow down the clock down, so it was taking perhaps 2 years for every 1 real elapsed year.

I'm aware this is no magic bullet, and it wouldn't work in all situations by any means, but it might be a way of preventing a crash on the rollover to 2000. Perhaps in a process control situation where putting the clock back is not feasible but the absolute time is not critical. Any thoughts?

-- Kevin Simon (ksimon@ts.co.nz), September 20, 1998

Answers

I'm not sure, but that would also affect payrolls and such in a similar way as Y2K, wouldn't it? How would you like to recieve your paycheck in 4 weeks instead of 2? And if like you said, this wouldn't work in all situations, how do you expect to handle the differences in time between a slow and normal system?

-- Jose Segura (josesegura@hotmail.com), September 20, 1998.