Klarinet Archive - Posting 001035.txt from 1998/03

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.edu>
Subj: The year 2000 problem
Date: Thu, 19 Mar 1998 13:18:50 -0500

Very good summary with one exception. It is not that the hardware
has lasted far longer than any expectations had a right to believe,
because the hardware from the 50s, 60s, 70s, and part of the 80s is
mostly rust now.

It's the software that went from generation to generation that is
at the heart of the problem. In the 1950s for for 40 years thereafter,
only two characters were reserved for the year. If they had put in
19XX, it wouldn't be so bad, but all they put in was XX, and that was
masked into 19xx on the printout.

So to fix the problem is a lot more than simply changing a line of
code here and there. It requires a rearchitecture of the software
and most of the source code has gone bye bye.

I was there in the 50s when it was happening and probably
contributed to the problem in no small way. Now I have to live
with it.

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Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
Rosanne Leeson, Los Altos, California
leeson@-----.edu
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