NEWS

United States Senate Special Committee on the Year 2000 Technology Problem

Senator Robert F. Bennett Chairman Senator Christopher J. Dodd Vice Chairman

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 12, 1999

ELECTRIC UTILITY READINESS IMPROVED, BUT REPORT SHOWS BULK OF Y2K COMPLIANCE WORK UNFINISHED

WASHINGTON, DC - U.S. Senator Robert F. Bennett (R-Utah) today said that a new report on the nation's electric utilities shows considerable progress toward year 2000 compliance but indicates slow growth in the number of utilities that have completed testing, the most lengthy and labor-intensive phase in remediating the Y2K computer problem.

"This report inspires confidence that the electric utility industry is working in an organized fashion to ensure that our lights stay on in the year 2000." said Bennett, Chairman of the U.S. Senate Special Committee on the Year 2000 Technology Problem. "But despite assurances by theindustry and U.S. Department of Energy, examination of the facts shows that most utilitites have the most challenging stages of Y2K compliance ahead of them."

A report released Monday by the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) indicates that 96 percent of the nation's 3,200 electric utilities have completed an inventory of mission critical systems for Y2K compliance, and 82 percent have completed an assessment of those systems. Only 44 percent have completed the labor intensive phase of remediation and testing, up from 35 percent in October. The report says the industry "is slightly lagging the target of all mission-critical facilities being Y2K ready by June 30, 1999" and has already passed deadlines for industry-wide completion of inventory and assessment.

Of the nation's 103 nuclear reactors, only 31 percent are Y2K ready and nearly one-third of all facilities will miss the June deadline. Bennett said that despite the low level of compliance, he is encouraged by the utilities' 98 percent participation rate in the industry-wide Y2K readiness program.

Bennett, who in a June 12 hearing on utilities said "the present system is in clear jeopardy, the jeopardy is serious, [and] the impact on the nation would be incalculable if it were not fixed," today said he is pleased the industry "is giving this issue the attention necessary to avoid public panic on January 1,2000

"The level of awareness and action on the year 2000 problem by the nation's electric utilities is encouraging for Americans who are unclear about what to expect in the new year." said Bennett. "I am more optimistic now than I was six months ago, but if future deadlines are not met, the industry will have a responsibility for contingency planning and public information to help Americans prepare for any possible power losses."

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I thought everyone would like to read that. It came from the U.S. Senate by way of the NERC website.

It's a good news/bad news report. Working with only excerpts you could make this sound scary or hopeful. Blend the viewpoints together and you wind up on the edge of your seat anxiously waiting for the next report. Stay tuned to euy2k for the latest updates on Y2K! We now return to our regularly scheduled program...

Steve

BTW, I think the NERC is doing a bang up job over-all. Just my opinion but I wouldn't want the job myself...

-- Anonymous, February 02, 1999

Answers

Dear Steve,

Compare this news with a latin scroll dated 2BC:

Dear Cassius,

Are you still working on the Y zero K problem? This change from BC to AD is giving us a lot of headaches and we haven't much time left. I don't know how people will cope with working the wrong way around. Having been working happily downwards forever, now we have to start thinking upwards. You would think that someone would have thought of it earlier and not left it to us to sort it all out at this last minute.

I spoke to Caesar the other evening. He was livid that Julius hadn't done something about it when he was sorting out the calendar. He said he could see why Brutus turned nasty. We called in Consultus, but he simply said that continuing downwards using minus BC won't work and as usual charged a fortune for doing nothing useful. Surely we will not have to throw out all our hardware and start again? Macrohard will make yet another fortune out of this I suppose.

The money lenders are paranoid of course! They have been told that all usery rates will invert and they will have to pay their clients to take out loans. Its an ill wind ......

As for myself, I just can't see the sand in an hourglass flowing upwards. We have heard that there are three wise men in the East who have been working on the problem, but unfortunately they won't arrive until it's all over.

I have heard that there are plans to stable all horses at midnight at the turn of the year as there are fears that they will stop and try to run backwards, causing immense damage to chariots and possible loss of life.

Some say the world will cease to exist at the moment of transition.

Anyway, we are still continuing to work on this blasted Y zero K problem. I will send a parchment to you if anything further develops.

If you have any ideas please let me know,

Plutonius

Stay tuned to euy2k.

Menno

-- Anonymous, February 03, 1999

Menno & all,

To put the dates we've been focussed on into an interesting mix of other significant dates check out the list below.

Steve

TIMELINE BC 4000 - Ancient Egyptian Calendar (Lunar) 2344 - Hebrew Deluge 1200 - Egyptian Sothic (Ptolemaic) Calendar 1000 - Chinese Shang Dynasty 753 - Start of Roman Calendar (Lunar) 200 - Mayan Calendar 46 - Julian Calendar (Solar - 365.25 days) Roman Year 709 44 - Julius Caesar assassinated 0000-00-00 - Special value used by programmers AD 1 - Start of Christian era 1325 - Aztec Calendar 1582 - Gregorian Calendar (Solar- 400th year not leap) 1752 - British Government (including American colonies) adapt Gregorian calendar 1900 - Start of IBM/360 64 bit clock Start of Lotus/Spreadsheet world 1904 - Start of original Apple Mac clock 1918 - Soviet Union adopt Gregorian Calendar 1920 - Current Start of Apple Mac World 1949 - Communist China adopts Gregorian Calendar 1960 - IBM/360 1970 - IBM/370 1971 - IBM Clock rollover 1972-08-16 - 9999 days to 2000 (OS catalog corrupts) 1980 - IBM 4300 1980-08-01 - MS DOS Default startup date 1986-06-30 - Deadline 2000 starts 1986-07-21 - Deadline 2000 ends 1986 - ANSI X3.30 defines YYYYMMDD standard 1987 - MVS SVC11 changes VM IPL 01/01/00 to 2000 1988-07-30 - FIPS 4-1 YYYY standard in effect 1988 - ISO 8601 defines YYYYMMDD standard (but also allows 2 digit forms) 1991 - Chris Anderson writes about 4 digit years in MSDOS 1995 - Peter de Jager - Datamation www.year2000.com on the air US Congress Technical Committee IBM announces Year 2000 ready ESA 1996-01-01 - UNISYS 8bit clock rollover Datamation Year 2000 issue 1996 - US Congress subcommittees 1996-11-06 - comp.software.year-2000 begins 1996-11-15 - First "More Y2k Links" report 1996-11-19 - www.cinderella.co.za on the air 1996-12-13 - IBM announces VSE/ESA2.2 Y2k ready 1997-01-01 - Datamation Year 2000 issue 1997-03-18 - New York Stock Exchange trades on de Jager Index 1997-04-07 - 999 days to 2000 (catalogs?) 1997-10 - US Government Progress Reviews 1998-08-19 - Global Y2k Awareness Day 1998-12 - US Government deadline for Mission Critical apps 1999-01-01 - US Government deadline 1999-08-21 - GPS EOW 10bit counter rollover 99-09-09 - Special value used by programmers 1999-12-31 - PC BIOS Tickover problem: Set the clock early! Party Time 99/365 - End of Pseudo Julian world 99-99-99 - Special Value used by programmers 2000-01-01 - Last year of the 20th Century Overflow 2 digit years causes Meltdown? 2000-1-10 - First 9-character date 2000-02-29 - Leap Year 2000-12-31 - 366th day of 2000 2000-10-10 - First 10 character date 2001-01-01 - Start of 21st Century 2001-01-01 - Overflow Tandem Systems 2010-01-01 - Overflow ANSI C library 2019 - Original Apple Mac end of world 2034-09-30 - Overflow Unix time function 2038-01-19 - UNIX signed 32bit timer rolls over 2040 - Current Apple Mac end of world 2042-09-18 - IBM 64bit clocks rolls over 2099 - MSDOS x86 (FAT 7 bit year) end of world 2100-01-01 - Not a leap year 2101-01-01 - Start of 22nd Century 3000-01-01 - Not a leap year 9999-99-99 - Special value used by programmers

-- Anonymous, February 03, 1999

Ok now that you have all proved how smart you are NOW WHAT?

-- Anonymous, February 03, 1999

On the other side of the pond there's an interesting parallel to our situation here. Check out the argument over presentations of facts in Ingland via this link;

http://www.y2ktoday.com/modules/home/default.asp?id=785

excerpts follow;'

"When Action 2000 presented the results of it survey of the FTSE-500 last week, it said 90% of the companies were on track to deal with the effects of the computer problem.

But Robin Guenier, of Taskforce 2000, and David Walton, who heads Year 2000, insist this interpretation is fundamentally flawed."

"There are two interpretations. Either Action 2000 don't understand their own figures, or it is their view not to publish because of the possibility of panic."

"What I'm objecting to is the stifling and suppression of information.

"Blair said last week people needed facts on this. I think that's true - let's have them.

"All I've seen is the original questionnaire and a high level summary of the results. I'd like to see raw data.

"You've got to constantly dig beneath the language and see what their words mean."

Cheers!

Steve

-- Anonymous, February 03, 1999

Steve, I haven't the inclination to go there - but I understand that the NERC web site gives raw data as submitted by the utilities. Only concession is that the ID of the utility has been removed. Sounds like the Brits would see this as a "bloody good" improvement.

-- Anonymous, February 03, 1999