signifignt rollover dates prior to January 1/2000

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What are some up-coming dates we can watch for that will help dermine how the computers are going to handle?

-- Kris Armstrong (carson@aloha.net), April 24, 1999

Answers

Well Kris, July 1, 1999 is the fiscal year roll over date for most of the U.S. states. October 1, 1999 is the fiscal year rollover date for the U.S. federal government. Many people think that Sep 9, 1999 is going to be a day to watch. Because September is the 9th month, combined with the 9th day and the 99th year, some people speculate that when that date is entered into a computer as 9999, the computer may shut down as '9999' was used sometimes as a command to 'goto end of program'. IMO, however, computers will read this information as 090999 or 09091999 which is different from a shutdown command.

-- A.P. (grim2k@hotmail.com), April 24, 1999.

this is a good site for predictions

y2k warning sign predictions

-- (humble@just.me), April 24, 1999.


Kris,

We have ALREADY PASSED at least 4 of the D&G's "critical dates." We had some minor burps...nothing more. Doesn't that tell you something? IT'S ALL A BUNCH OF BULL!!!!! Get on with your life'cause it ain't gonna be TEOTWAWKI or anything close.

-- Get Over It (thinksitscrap@getreal.com), April 24, 1999.


Yourdon, Hamasaki and other IT gurus have said that the significant dates we've already passed without noteworthy problems are a good sign. I haven't seen any experienced IT people argue that these dates were meaningless (although the hard core folks now argue that doom is certain and if those dates didn't cause trouble, they didn't count). If those dates continue to pass without impact for another year, we're probably out of the woods, though problems will still crop up here and there.

The only dates I know of that still cause any worry are July 1 and following (most states), October 1 and following (Federal), and September 21-22 (GPS rollover). September 9 is now considered obsolete, and the FY changes are losing support due to lack of problems in New York, UK, and Japan.

It's important to bear in mind that these dates are considered barometers. Not much problem at those times is thus taken to mean fewer problems at (and following) rollover. Certainly not NO problems, but fewer and less serious problems. Our success so far probably means that y2k has been a bit overblown, but this is not certain. It can't be a bad sign, but it might not be that great, and the argument that no problems up till now means no problems later cannot be supported very well.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), April 24, 1999.


Y2K predictions are no more accurate than weather or economic predictions. And economists even have econometric models to base their predictions on. There is no prior model for Y2K.

Watches and warnings though for a Y2K 'storm' have been released.

-- Prepping for a hurricane (ill@wind.blows), April 24, 1999.



Hi Kris. I need a rubber stamp made up for this one! They call it the Y2K problem for a good reason, not the various dates in 1999 problem. The number of programs that do look ahead processing is tiny when compared to the total number of programs that have a date problem. Doesn't it make sense to fix these programs first? Also most embedded systems problems will not show up until 2000. We're not out of the woods yet. <:)=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), April 24, 1999.

Is that the sound of back pedaling I hear?

"On January 1, 1999 they will experience many more, and it will be much more difficult to sweep them under the rug. On April 1, 1999 we will all watch anxiously as the governments of Japan and Canada, as well as the state of New York, begin their 1999-2000 fiscal year; at that moment, the speculation about Y2K will end, and we will have tangible evidence of whether governmental computer systems work or not."-- Ed Yourdon

"So, of course I want to see y2k bring down the system, all over the world. I have hoped for this all of my adult life." -- Gary North

-- Y2K Pro (2@641.com), April 24, 1999.


The issue of the significance of April 1st comes up...again. Unless the Canadian and British government, the state of New York and businesses in general were already 99% compliant, then you would think we would have heard about at least a few glitches in accounting software. None were reported in the media. Why?

Here are some possible explanations. Some of these make sense to me and some don't:

1. Y2K never needed to be fixed. It was all a hoax from the beginning. Problems will be minor even if no remediation takes place.

2. It's easy to make an organization Y2K compliant. (But if that's true, then most everyone would have finished by December 31, 1998).

3. Organizations have prioritized their remediation and made sure that accounting software was dealt with early on.

4. Organizations changed the end date of their fiscal year 2000 from March 31, 2000 to December 31, 1999.

5. There are problems with accounting software going on at some organizations, but we don't hear about it. It's problems in manufacturing or distribution that the public would notice, and those wouldn't come until 2000.

My personal opinion about why no problems were reported on and after April 1? It's some combination of points three, four or five.

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), April 24, 1999.


See these threads for more info...

"fiscal years reported as yr 2000":

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=000add

...and...

"Will something really happen or just another April Fool's Day?":

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=000f20

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), April 24, 1999.


Oh come on Kevin, if problems with Y2K are small enough that they can be kept 'in house', why do you care? If the mainframes at ADM crash, and are brought up later in the day, why should that be news? Crap, my network, a critical govt. network at that, was down from problems with a T1 CSU/DSU modem for 22.5 hours a few weeks ago - dozens of folks sitting on their hands and asking me when it would be fixed (about every 10 minutes). Didn't make the news. Suppose some other system is down for two days due to rollover problems. Should that be news? Not if we fix it before some critical date for accounting or finance passes.

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), April 24, 1999.


If nothing much has happened a year from now, a lot of these people are going to insist that we really *did* have a catastrophe, you just have to look real hard to see it.

As an exercise, pick some earlier year. Doesn't matter which one. You'll find lots of bankruptcies, lots of explosions, lots of death, lots of economic problems here and there around the world, lots of people predicting all manner of doom, you'll find stock market corrections and strikes and civil unrest and political instabilities. All of it *absolute proof* of the devastation of y2k, except that y2k didn't happen that year. Doesn't matter, the proof is still there. Just look!

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), April 25, 1999.


Paul,

For some reason, you completely misunderstood what I said about point five (newsworthiness). I did not say that accounting software problems should be in the news; it's problems that affect manufacturing and distribution that would show up in the news, and most of those won't happen until 2000.

Also, in many cases, there are no accounting software problems to be reported, because organizations have already taken care of the problem using either point three (prioritization) or point four (temporary workarounds).

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), April 25, 1999.


So what if the "experts" were wrong about April 1st. It is not Jan 1st yet is it?

-- angry at the pollys (forget@predictions.wrong), April 25, 1999.

angry:

The 'so what' is that these experts *wrote* the code that was to have failed on April 1. They made those predictions based on their own past programming experience. They are making predictions about next January 1 based on that same programming experience, and expecting it to fail at that time for the very same reasons. That ought to tell you something.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), April 25, 1999.


That's the point "angry", if your "experts" have been wrong so far, how can you still pledge blind allegiance to them?

-- Y2K Pro (2@641.com), April 25, 1999.


Yes, but what about all the embedded systems, how can we do anything if we have no power?

-- angry (angry@all.pollyannas), April 25, 1999.

Flint,

I believe you will agree that these experts did NOT expect that we would see the level of kluging that we saw with the UI issues in (I think) 13 states in January. Their predictions had been made prior to that time. I can't help but wonder how the UI programs in those states looks now, now that the calculations for benefit year amounts is getting a LOT harder to manually correct. But, since they have the kluge in, we'll not know if they actually went back and fixed it, or went on to something else.

Chuck

-- chuck, a Night Driver (rienzoo@en.com), April 25, 1999.


without power, we'll all starve while we freeze in the dark. How's that?

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), April 25, 1999.

Chuck:

Here's what I've read so far about the UI issue: A maximum of 13 states may not have been ready (Yourdon didn't know if it might have been seven states). One state (Missouri?) kludged around this by truncating the payment period to end this year.

Here's what I have NOT seen: How many of those 13 states actually had problems. Of those, how many kludged by truncating. Of those, how many have fixed the problems.

Lacking all of this information, I'm unwilling to extrapolate and say that all 13 had the same problem, all 13 kludged it the same way, and none of those 13 have fixed it yet. I have no information at all that would lead me to that conclusion or *any other* conclusion.

If you have better data, let me know.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), April 25, 1999.


You are starting to "Get It" Flint!

-- Angry (angry@but.hopeful), April 25, 1999.

I take that back after reading what you wrote to Chuck.

-- Angry (not@as.hopeful), April 25, 1999.

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