http://ec1.idec.com/usa/html/Y2K_products.html

YEAR 2000?

Hardware products

The following IDEC Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC) track time and date information:

1.Micro3

2.Micro3C

3.FA3 Series PF3S-CP11T

4.IDEC's HG1B operator interface, RTE, GT3, GT5 timers and complete family of sensors do not contain real time clocks. Therefore, these products will not be effected by any change of date, including that associated with the Year 2000.

The following information shows various tests performed on the above models.

Test Dates Description Micro3 Pass Micro3C Pass CP11T Pass HG2A Pass Rollover Date (m-d-y) Significance

1/1/1999 Flag Year P P P P 9/9/1999 Magic number P P P P 1/1/2000 Oveflow 2 digit year P P P P 1/10/2000 First 9 character date P P P P 10/10/2000 First 10 Character date P P P P 2/1/2000 Start of Feb. in a leap year P P P P 2/29/2000 Leap Year P P P P 3/1/2000 Leap Year P P P P 4/1/2000 First 31 day month after Feb. 29 P P P P 5/1/2000 First 30 day month after Feb. 29 P P P P 12/31/2000 366th day of the year P P P P 1/1/2001 21st. Century P P P P 3/1/2001 Not a leap year P P P P 1/1/2010 Extra digit for 2 character display P P P P

Software products

The PLC programming software, DOS based Cubiq and CLIP, and Windows based WinDLR, depend on the operating system to obtain time/date information. Please see Microsoft Y2K links for more information:

Win95

Win98

Win 3.1

Win 3.11

If your Operating System on your PC is year 2000 compliant, then the above IDEC software products are also compliant.

Call us (800) 262-4332 or fax us (408) 744-9055 if you require aditional information on the Year 2000 Problem.

Disclaimer:

IDEC Corporation has made every reasonable attempt to ensure Year 2000 compliance in its products. However, please be advised that testing the Year 2000 status of IDEC products does not ensure the equipment or system into which IDEC products are applied are Year 2000 ready, even if defined by their vendors as "compliant" or "ready". You must check the interaction of all hardware and software components of your applications and systems to confirm the compatibility for exchanging and using dates.

-- Cherri (sams@brigadoon.com), July 18, 1999

Answers

Thanks Cherri for taking the TIME to post. I know you don't have TIME to reply to Cory's challenge like you so boldly said you would.

O.J. Not guilty!!Let's golf.

-- O.J. (OJSimpson@jailhouse.com), July 18, 1999.

Uhhh, if I understand your info from above, it says two key things. First, it shows an overflow condition on Rollover to 1/1/2000( danger Will Robinson!) and, even more significantly, these PLCs explicitly depend on the operating system for date retrieval. Now, given that the majority of the original programmers of the PLC expected a TWO digit date return, guess what happens next if an arithmetic operation (like DIV) is performed on sequentially acquired dates? Sure, that may occur only in a small fraction of the PLCs in place. But the result.....??

-- RDH (drherr@erols.com), July 18, 1999.

RDH, Take a look at IDEC Y2K page, this shows the above information in table form, which should make things a little clearer. The "overflow 2 digit year" is a description of the significance of the 1/1/2000 test date, not what actually occurred - the devices tested actually passed the test date ("P"). The PLC PROGRAMMING SOFTWARE, not the PLCs themselves, depend on the listed operating systems for date/time information, how this information is used by the PLC programming software is not clear from the above information. The PLCs with date/time functions that I have worked with all get their dates from a Real-Time Clock card included with the PLC, not from any external operating system. Additionally, the date/time information in the PLC programming software is typically used for non-PLC programming purposes, dates on screens, dates on printouts, file creation modification dates. I am not saying that no PLCs have problems, just clarifying how I read the above information. For reference, Allen-Bradley PLC-2 and a few other models have some minor "y2k" problems, actually a problem in not rolling over properly on the leap year date, but I believe they have always had that-(ie, also a problem in previous leap years).

Regards,

-- FactFinder (FactFinder@bzn.com), July 18, 1999.

Thanks Cherri for taking the TIME to post. I know you don't have TIME to reply to Cory's challenge like you so boldly said you would.

O.J. Not guilty!!Let's golf.

-- O.J. (OJSimpson@jailhouse.com), July 18, 1999.

I'm gonna tell you the same thing I tell my 8 year old, The longer you bug me about it, the longer it will be until it happens.

I will post it when it is ready, not when you want it. Now go to your room for a time out to think about what I just said.

-- Cherri (sams@brigadoon.com), July 18, 1999.

Good come back Cherri. I am sure OJ is now running to his room. TIMEOUT? right, [Delete--Per Request--Flame Directed At Poster's Children--Inappropriate--Sysop]. The reason you won't post it is because you don't have it.

-- cherri is full of it (cherriisfull@ofit.com), July 18, 1999.

Hey Cherri, can you just whack the shit out of those new fangled PLCs when they go on the blink, like you do the old mainframes?

-- a (a@a.a), July 19, 1999.