You sound like you know what you're talking about. So, in your opinion, why are computers that are 'fixed' going to fail when the rollover takes place. Will they

a) not be able to talk to each other

b)fail because the fix has bad code

c)fail from contaminated data etc. Thanks...

Owl

-- owl (new@new.com), September 03, 1999

Answers

D) all of the above, but not for all systems. The additional question may-be, were is the fracture tolarence for all systems world- wide, how much has to go down before all has to go down?...---...

-- Les (yoyo@tolate.com), September 03, 1999.

Owl: Computers will "fail" (or more precisely, software applications and systems will malfunction) because of all of the above and also other reasons, just as they do now on any given day. The difference with rollover (and this is a subject that has been relentlessly debated on this forum) is that

- Much, much, much more code than has ever simultaneously gone into live testing will - you guessed it - go into live testing.

- Much of the work has not been done. A good estimate (and I'm being a polly here) is that only 80% of the mission critical apps will be completed in the US. The big question is, what happens when 20% of the critical systems blow a gasket? Note that DOES NOT include non-mission critical systems that will choke, nor any of the foreign systems, most of which are in much more dire straits than ours.

- The ability to "fix on failure" will be severely curtailed due to shortages of parts, trained personnel, failures in other industries such as power, teleco, banking, etc.

Most pollies don't deny any of those premises; they just feel the severity will be manageable. That's the $64,000 question.

Note that I'm not necessarily saying we will see an Infomagic collapse, or even a Milne. My best guess is that the confluence of the y2k glitch, the economic bubble, and people not prepared to deal with hardship will cause another Great Depression.

I'll be offline till Tuesday, somebody cover my butt when Hoff gets wind of this thread...

-- a (a@a.a), September 03, 1999.

a

I'm not a techie, but reading what I can on the issue, my gut feeling is that less than 60% of "mission critical" systems will end up being more or less remediated.

We are now starting to hear more and more about cancelled projects and the tearing of hair and wailing, oh my, how did this happen, we were told we were on schedule, everything is fine, how did this happen?????

-- Jon Williamson (jwilliamson003@sprintmail.com), September 03, 1999.