Svoboda's Home and Small Business Review
The Computer Contrarian
Wm. R. Stocking
June, 1998

Year 2000 Problems

Looming 2000 Computer Doom? - Part I

In the last two months I have been spending countless hours of time examining year 2000 computer problems. The magnitude of current problems and potential problems is far, far greater than I ever dreamed of, or had a nightmare about. Our interest and need to do this research was rudely brought home two months ago when we received a multi-page questionnaire titled "Year 2000 Hardware and Software Compliance Request" from one of our major clients, General Electric. They want to be assured that we will be able to continue supplying them with data analysis functions after the turning of the century.

You will be hearing much more about "Y2K Compliance" in months to come and I predict before the end of the year you will be totally sick of the endless stream of information and doom-saying concerning the matter. And, as with so many things in life, many of the remedial efforts will be too little and too late. Time won't just march on at the turn of the century, it will positively trample businesses not prepared for it!

I suspect that many of you will be receiving Y2K compliance requests from clients and customers of yours. Be very careful how you deal with these questions. Assuming you know the answers because you have a recently purchased computer and software is simply not good enough!

Do not under estimate the complexity of PC problems. Here are some of the PC issues:

Good news: If you own a MacIntosh or have an office full of them then you can once more pat yourself on the back about the wise purchasing decision you made. MacIntoshes have been "2000 Compliant" ever since their inception!

The "IBM Compatible" world - This is a can of worms. Here are the the major issues:

Machine Bios compatibility: The Bios is the program that initializes, (starts), the computer each time it's turned on. It handles some basic chores such as keeping information about the size and configuration of the disk drives and output ports. It also contain the RTC, (real-time-clock), that provides your programs with date and time information. This bios program is stored in a chip called read-only-memory, (ROM). Here's the problem: Bioses in Intel and compatible machines made before late 1996 store the year part of the date in TWO DIGITS, thus the year 2000 becomes year "00" or the machine reverts to the earliest year stored within which is usually Janurary 4, 1984 when the new century begins!

While the bios on many older machines can be "fixed" using various software "patches" the bios problem doesn't end there - Some bioses made since 1996 are still not compliant for a number of other reasons such as not recognizing that the year 2000 is a leap year, etc. Further, some software programs will by-pass the "fix" on the bios and come up with the wrong results anyway. There are many, many other hardware issues to be addressed, but most are too technical to be discussed here.

Needless to say, we have been testing machines and software in my offices and have also begun testing client machines as well. The proper testing is much more involved than just re setting the date and clock in the computer to 23:59 hours at 12/31/99 and watching to see if the computer "rollover" properly into the year 2000. Specialized software is needed to do the job because "rollover" is just one of many functions that need to be checked.

SOFTWARE PROBLEMS

There are additional problems involved with software, but basically they can be divided into two areas: The programs themselves and the data. Accounting programs will be the hardest hit. Some older DOS and Window's accounting programs will become unusable at the turn of the century. But, just because a program is DOS based don't count it as unusable! Most recent versions of major accounting programs are already "fixed" for Y2K. One company we deal with, Cougar Mountain, has been Y2K compliant with their DOS account program since 1996.

WORDS OF WARNING

Just because you recently bought a 32-bit spreadsheet or accounting program for Windows 95 don't just assume that it is Y2K compliant! Example: We subscribe to a Y2K discussion mailing list and receive 60 to 80 messages per day covering hardware and software problems on a global basis. Recently, there have been a number of messages about various problems with Microsoft Excel. A year ago, Microsoft declared that all their software was Y2K compliant. Now, rather late to the party, they have just put up a website on 2000 problems involved with their software. Some experts have charged that Microsoft recently declared some earlier products "incompatible" simply to push the upgrade market! We can't comment on this because we haven't run any tests ourselves or seen the results of tests run by others.

We have to end the present discussion here but stay tuned next month for more. Meanwhile, you can get additional information at our website:

http://www.firstbiz.com/2000