A Y2K letter from my ISP...

greenspun.com : LUSENET : TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) : One Thread

Subj: Year 2000 issue is an integral part of providing the best possible .

Date: 10/21/99 4:54:04 PM Pacific Daylight Time

From: AOLTEAM@aol.com

AOL believes that addressing the Year 2000 issue is an integral part of providing the best possible online experience for our members and business partners, which has always been our number one priority.

That's why AOL created a Year 2000 Task Force in 1997 to assess the Company's Y2K preparedness and to test all of its business and information systems.

The goal of AOL's Year 2000 program is to minimize the impact on our members and business partners from issues related to Year 2000. Through its task force, AOL has been testing both its hardware and software for Year 2000 compliance. To date, AOL has experienced few problems related to Year 2000 testing of its own hardware and software, and those issues are being addressed.

AOL's newest version, 5.0, will be fully Y2K compliant and will be available this fall. It will also put some of AOL's new convenience applications right on the first screen members see when logging on, including "You've Got Pictures" and "My Calendar." For information on how to make your software and your computer Y2K compliant now, click here.

In addition to communicating with its members on Y2K, AOL is continuing to gather information from vendors, joint venture partners and content partners about their progress in identifying and addressing problems that their computer systems may face in correctly processing date information related to the Year 2000. As we continue to build AOL's infrastructure and add new components, Year 2000 issues will remain a priority.

Thank You, AOL team.

-- Uncle Bob (UNCLB0B@Y2KOK.ORG), October 21, 1999

Answers

Personal thought: calling AOL an ISP is being really lenient with the term.

But just so you know HOW seriously they're taking this.... I found the following still linked from AOL's Computing (another oxymoron) forum: http://www.cnet.com/Content/Features/Dlife/Millbug/ ?st.cn.Y2K.rl.gp link, I hope.

Short snip from the "Myth: Critical Systems will fail" page:

quote Myth: Critical systems will fail, sparking a technological apocalypse. If you believe some doomsayers, the millennium bug will spark the end of modern society. The stock market will crash, banks will close as everybody simultaneously withdraws their money, people will riot in the streets when they don't get their government checks, the energy and transportation infrastructures will collapse...the list of horrors goes on and on. A lot of people who should know better believe this: a recent survey conducted on the comp.software.year-2000 newsgroup asked 39 programmers, with an average of 17 years of work experience each, to rate the potential gravity of the problem on a scale from 1 (no problem at all) to 5 (total economic collapse). The average response: 3.96.

Reality: The bug will have little impact on vital systems. The Y2K bug is a real problem, it's a widespread problem, and it needs to be fixed. But most of society's vital organizations expect to have the critical portions of their systems repaired or replaced in time. And nobody who's actually working on the millennium bug expects anything near the apocalyptic scenarios put forth by the doomsayers. unquote

Bear in mind, the closest I can come to dating this thing is pre- September, 1997. When did Sally Katzen leave the OMB, anyway?

-- harl (harlanquin@aol.hell), October 22, 1999.


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