Pulling the plug on Embedded's ?

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My question about pulling the plug on embedded's goes like this; since we can assume there will be some power outages post-rollover, why can't the power companies simply shut down all of their plants a few minutes before their own rollover ( whether that's GMT time or local ) and then bring them back up a few minutes afterwards, wouldn't that protect their own embedded's ?

If their rollover time is not local, they could then shut back down a few minutes before the local rollover time and start back up a few minutes afterwards, wouldn't that protect embedded's in the companies to whom they supply power ?

If some companies complained that some of their equiptment got damanged from the outage, couldn't the power companies blame Y2K or the all-handy squirrel ?

-- Stanley Lucas (StanleyLucas@WebTv.net), November 05, 1999

Answers

>> "since we can assume there will be some power outages post-rollover..."

Umm..no "we" can't and don't. And exactly what type of engineering logic are you trying to employ in this scenario?

-- You Knowwho (debunk@doomeridiots.com), November 05, 1999.


The answer to why your question is ummmm not printable and why the question is a TAD too simplistic is buried in the POWER GENERATION AND DISTRIBUTION 101 thread a ways down. Go read it. Shutting down for a few minutes is IMPOSSIBLE as the thread wil explain, in COPIOUS detail.

Chuck

-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), November 05, 1999.


Thanks Chuck,

Perhaps it's not practical to intentionally shut down the whole grid, but if there are some localized and temporary power outages which I think even Mr. John K would agree could occur, if the outages occur before the rollover then maybe the silver lining in those outages would be the resetting of embedded chips and avoidance of rollover problems.

-- Stanley Lucas (StanleyLucas@WebTv.net), November 05, 1999.


Thanks Chuck,

Oh well, there goes that idea. Back to the Drawing Board.

-- Stanley Lucas (StanleyLucas@WebTv.net), November 05, 1999.


Stanley:

Don't give up so fast. Your technique will be widely used, though not in power generation. Everything depends on exactly what an embedded system actually does (in detail). For example, many use the date as part of a BIG current-time value, to subtract a prior value and determine an elapsed time. When the rollover is improperly handled, the current-time will be nearly 100 years before the prior time. This will screw up the elapsed time calculation ONCE, leading (in that one case) to results engineers call "undefined".

Shutting down before rollover and starting up afterwards will dodge that single erroneous calculation. After that, you're good for a long time. A lot of process controls work this way. So your idea is a good one where appropriate. There are no panaceas.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), November 05, 1999.



There have been no embedded chips found to be connected to the running of the grid. In other words, besides the mass problems caused by unnecessarily shutting down the grid, there is no reason to as there are no embedded chips that exist that can cause a failure.

-- Cherri (sams@brigadoon.com), November 05, 1999.

Thanks Flint,

That's the first time you have come my defense. I'll be.

-- Stanley Lucas (StanleyLucas@WebTv.net), November 05, 1999.


Cherri,

Get a grip. Where did you discover that there are no imbedded systems in electrical power plants? That is revelation knowledge! The companies that have just spent 10's of millions and years of time are really gonna be pissed when than find out what you know!

And,thank you for existing the gene pool shortly.

TA

-- TA (im@a-loss-for-words.now), November 08, 1999.


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