Fixing Standalone Systems through Encapsulation (hopefully educational)

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There are several reports of authorities fixing embedded systems through "encapsulation", which usually means putting the year back 28 years to 1972 (that has an identical calendar). This includes, according to the Washington Post, a building in Omaha, and according to rumor, traffic signals in South Carolina and oil refinery equipment in Turkey. This is a perfectly fine resolution strategy, as long as the equipment does not interface with other software or equipment that could be affected by the date (e.g., production assembly line equipment interfacing with accounting data bases). One caveat, the systems may not always be able to be set back 28 years (such as the oil refinery equipment in Turkey, which, if the rumor is true, was set back to 1995).

Thus, if your equipment is messed up and you don't have an immediate resolution, setting the dates back can work if the equipment is stand-alone.

-- bud hamilton (budham@hotmail.com), January 02, 2000


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