(Prior to running any benchmark test ensure that important data is backed up)

The DOS Bench Test. Can be run on any 8086, 386, 486 or Pentium with a non date retention problem:

Set the Date to the last day of the 20th Century and the time to the last second.

At the DOS prompt type:

"Date 31/12/1999" (Set the Date) - Press the Enter Key

Then:

" Time 23:59:59" (Set the Time) - Press the Enter Key

Then leave the Computer System running for 24 Hours plus 1 Minute

Then close the system down (Windows 95, 98) and finally switch off.

Wait for a couple of minutes then switch the system on again. Once booted, view the system date.

At the DOS prompt type:

"Date" - Press the Enter Key

The date should read 2nd January 2000. If so this proves that Natural Time Progression (NTP) will solve the problem.

Try it it works then read all the rest of the crap here and be amused at the rantings of the idiots and con merchants. We are and we can't not spell or wave any wands or sprinkle fairy dust in hope to prove the benchmark wrong. Ethics ladies and gentlemen the show is over go and make your money else where.

-- Bob Johnson-Perkins (Bob@Internet2000-Plc.com), December 13, 1998

Answers

Once was enough, Bob. We heard you.

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), December 14, 1998.

Bob,

Your comments keep evidencing that you don't realize that there's a lot more to the suite of calendar-related computer problems nicknamed "Y2K" than the one-day BIOS date retention problem.

As long as you continue to imply that your proof about one small slice of the Y2K problems means that the rest of Y2K is negligible, you will continue to lack credibility among those with wider Y2K understanding.

-- No Spam Please (anon@ymous.com), December 14, 1998.

We had 70 PCs at work which did not rollover. All of them can be reset, older ones can't.

This is not the main y2k problem as you know.

We had a total of 74 different PC packages and applications that were non-compliant.

A mainframe company I previously worked at would have gone out of business had it not fixed y2k. It still hasn't finished mind you. Insurance company, 20,000 employess, several billions assets.

-- Richard Dale (rdale@figroup.co.uk), December 14, 1998.

Bob, do you work in IT or know about computer projects.

-- Richard Dale (rdale@figroup.co.uk), December 14, 1998.

Lets try to draw these viewpoints together.

At the PC end, we have the situation for many small businesses. They've checked that theit PC hardware survives rollover, they've checked that their off-the-shelf software is claimed to be compliant, and they've posted governmental and other Y2K-readiness survey forms in the bin with the rest of the junk mail. Provided the software vendors are telling the truth and there's still electricity in 2000, they're actually in pretty good shape. In fact, many of them also know that they don't really need the computer to run the business at all, it just speeds things up a bit when it's working, which is by no means always because nobody in the business knows much about computers anyway.

However, if such small businesses try to generalize their experiences to the concerns of large computer users like banks, multinationals, and governments, it becomes apparent that they're talking about that of which they know nothing. It's also probable that when a survey predicts doom on the basis of small-business responses to questionnaires that ask questions which only a full-blown DP department could answer, then the big users are being foolish.

You think I'm kidding? well, one of our staff occasionally supplies custom-made research equipment to a government agency. Manufacture of these items does not involve a computer. In fact, it could probably be done without electricity if the hardware was moved to a room with a window! He got a ten-page Y2K compliance form from this agency asking totally inapplicable questions. He passed it to me. I passed to to our director of IT. I've no idea what the IT director did with it, but if it was returned I doubt that anything on it was useful. By the way, the person who buys our custom devices know nothing about the survey when our guy phoned to ask how the heck he was supposed to answer it. His suggestion was to pass it on! Anyway, I guess that's one more "unremediated small business" in the statistics ...

-- Nigel Arnot (nra@maxwell.ph.kcl.ac.uk), December 14, 1998.