Conference 7.286::digital

    Bob Palmer, after long discussion with Bill Gates, has entered Digital
    into an agreement with MicroSoft wherein neither company will recognize
    the year 2000 as a valid year.  Thus, we will all become a year older
    instantly when the shift to 2001 is made.
    
    Apple is expected to announce it's membership in the "No Millenium"
    club next week.  Picketing by millenial societies and sects has been
    sparse so far, but pressure from the Nostradamites is mounting.  Wang
    has announced that it will *not* be joining this group as it's unsure
    it'll be around then anyway.
    
    							Tex

    
    Tex, 
    
    You forgot to mention the Vice-President appointed to the 
    Skip-2000 Program. Didn't you get the announcement? [I'll
    check my folders and see if I still have a copy]
    
    jc

Our own products don't have a problem with the year 2000.  I don't know if we're
really in the applications consulting business.

				Steve

Steve:

  I think I'll save this quote:

> Our own products don't have a problem with the year 2000.

                                   Atlant

    Steve - If you have a Digital Unix (aka OSF/1) system handy, try
    setting the date to a few dates in the next millenium.

    Yup, you are right. Even in this millenia we have some dates that will
    not work. Most dates beyond 1999 will not work well. For
    the gory details see OSF_QAR:8104 on gorge::

    >Yup, you are right. Even in this millenia we have some dates that will
    >not work. Most dates beyond 1999 will not work well. For
    >the gory details see OSF_QAR:8104 on gorge::
    
    Wow, I'm honored to have my QAR mentioned here!  I was thinking of
    replying to Steve's note with a copy of this QAR  :-)  Note that we do
    plan to have this fixed in the first post-V4.0 release.  I'll have to
    agree that unless someone has set the date up to 2003 on some test
    machines and run them for a while, we can't really claim we won't have
    problems.  It's just too easy to miss this kind of thing.
    
    	Steve

    Wot does the DIGITAL Standard having to do with Sporks & suchlike in
    our Cafeterias have to say on it?  I forget its number as well as its
    contents, but it was getting pretty encyclopedic for awhile there.
    

I sit corrected.  I had been told that Digital UNIX 4.0 didn't have a 
"year 2000" problem, but I see my source was in error.  I am not aware of any
such problems on OpenVMS.

					Steve

    
    It's a software problem -- let the software compaines deal with it.
    

    Maybe it's time to revisit MILORD::WAR_STORY, note 147.9.
    

    Well, while we're replaying old war stories, I'm reminded of the fact
    that some operating systems have had fun with this problem for longer
    than others.  WAR_STORY 220.20

    The applications are where the real big problems are going to be found.
    
    Database changes, source code changes, report formats...
    
    It is going to be hell for dp managers, and party time for
    contractors.  

    From the OpenVMS side of the house there really are not any
    issues with the ADT or DATE datatypes.  One possible 'gotcha'
    exists in TDMS although a workaround is and always was there.
    Specifically if a TDMS (screen) uses a 2 digit century then
    the data conversion routines will default to the current 
    century.   This will present problems when pre-dating and
    post-dating dates over the century.  THE APPLICATION 
    program should be changed to use a 4 digit year.   Simple!
    
    Problems will start cropping up with application software which
    invented there own DATE datatypes which fail to have a 4 century 
    year position.    This type of thing will cause all types of
    sort problems and the like - but this is out of the hands of
    Digital and more of a application specific thing. 
    
    Problems if they exist are in the application design if any...
    

    I don't understand why we don't just do the same thing we did as 1900
    approached. 8-)

>    I don't understand why we don't just do the same thing we did as 1900
>    approached. 8-)

Because all the applications that upgraded to 3-digit years will break this time.

    I'd like to know what VMS is going to do when we roll from the year 
    9999 to 10000?
    
    - George

    Re: -1
    
    I presume VMS will just keep running as usual.
    
    $xxxTIM (and $xxxUTC) will need to be fixed, DCL may also need a fix to
    allow five digit years. I'm sure I have seen a DSIN article which
    explains the problem: it included (what I interpreted as) a commitment
    to fix the problem between now and then :-)
    
    Antonio

    re .12
    
    <<< It's a software problem -- let the software compaines deal with it.
    
    
    But, but, but...  Aren't we a software company?  I am sure I read
    somewhere that someone said for sure we did software.  Ah, maybe we
    just don't do any important software and or anything that customers
    run.

    I admit that I am not a system manager or tech type.  However, won't
    everyone of us be dead in 9999?  So who cares?

RE: .21

We are a hardware company.  We do software when we absolutely have 
to.

--PSW

>    I admit that I am not a system manager or tech type.  However, won't
>    everyone of us be dead in 9999?  So who cares?

I think most of us would like to believe otherwise!  (Or maybe I'm just
a terminally unrealistic optimist. :)  I wonder if the VMS/Unix/NT religious
wars will still be going on then?

Chris.

    reply: .22 by IVOSS1::JAQUES
    
    Not me I plan to live forever............
    
    "So who cares?"   what kind of additude is that?
    
    - George

    Oh and another thing.....
    
    What is going to happen when society uses "Star Dates"?
    
    Does anyone know what the Start Date format is?
    
    - George

>  I wonder if the VMS/Unix/NT religious
> wars will still be going on then?

You don't need to wait till 9999; by the year 2020, VMS will be dead and
buried, UNIX likewise, and yes, same with Windows NT!

Ram

                <<< RSTS32::USER$:[NOTES$LIBRARY]RSTS.NOTE;1 >>>
                         -<  Love thy RSTS/E system!  >-
================================================================================
Note 468.0                  Try this simple exercise                     1 reply
SHEILA::VETTE "Que?"                                 17 lines   8-JUL-1987 22:06
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Log into a privileged account, then do the following:

	$ SET SYSTEM/DATE_FORMAT=STARDATE

	$ SHOW DATE

Notice anything different?

Credit must go to Henry Gillard for locating this "feature", and to RSTS
Engineering for putting it there! 

I'm impressed!

Lindsay

P.S. I checked the sources, and looked in the System Programming Manual, and the
SYS call to set this date format is undocumented. I wonder why :-)?

    re .-1
    
    So for those of use who only have access to RSX11-M systems, can you
    produce an example? 
    
    .mike.

The SET SYSTEM /DATE_FORMAT=STARDATE did work when I tried it on my MicroRSTS
system in 1989.  Unfortunately, I no longer have access to a RSTS system.

Paul

And this is what happens....

(BTW this is on an Alpha using the Bob Supnik emulator....)


$ show date
  31-Oct-94 11:50 AM
$ set system/date_format=stardate
$ show date
Stardate  8909.49 11:50 AM
$


Stan.

    Can I get it using native VMS commands ?
    
    Alan

RE .23
>We are a hardware company.  

    I have an official coffee mug here which says, and I quote,
    "Digital is a Software Company".   It lists our many glorious
    accomplishments:  All-In-1, Baseview, Baseway, DECalc Plus
    DECnet, DECpage, DECserver 100, RSTS/E, Labstar, VAX Debug,
    EVE, TPU, RSX-11M, RT-11  and on and on and on and on.
    
    I never believed any of that management strategic drivel,
    but once it's on a mug, it's gospel.
    
    Walt

    Walt, what do you drink from that mug? :-)  If you are hearing voices
    from your mug, run (do not walk) to the nearest exit!
    
    				-John

    
    Re .33:
    
    Is that the mug that when you put hot coffee in it all the product
    names disappear?
    

They made an updated version of the mug to add NT to the list.  There wasn't
room on the bottom portion, so they put NT between the words "is" and "a" in
the heading.

:-)

						Brian

    It's a software mug. It's not meant for coffee, it's for Jolt Cola.

     It would be interesting to see how many of the software products
     listed on the "DIaSC" mug are still being sold...

    Or at least owned by Digital...
    
    				-John

RE: .33

The day David Stone's proposal for the software group was turned 
down, I pasted a large NOT! under the list of products on my DiaSC 
mug.  Nearly all of the products listed either have been retired or 
sold off.

--PSW

    I happened across one of those old "DIGITAL is a Software Company!"
    mugs in my pregrinations thru the empire lo these 6-odd years.  The day
    the CSBU proposal was approved, I gave it to Wendy Caswell, who was
    and will be instrumental in the formation of that group.
    
    Kinda seemed appropriate.
                    

    VAXELN Ada was omitted from the mug, even though it had been shipping
    for well over a year.
    
    				Steve

re: .33

I also have one of those "Digital is a Software Company" mugs. Over the years
ALL of the lettering has faded away so it is now a plain gray mug. Being a
software engineer who worked on several of the products originally listed I have
come to view this as quite prophetic.

					Tom

re: .44  (Hi Tom!)

Funny... on my mug, only the "Digital is a Software Company"
has faded.  The product names are still strong and clear.

- Deb B.  

Should I post a note in ::VMS_FIELD_TESTS asking them to implement
the SET...STARDATE feature?  :)

Chris.

  You're just likely to get hit with NIH.

                                   Atlant

    Back to the issue at hand...which to me is, how can we make money
    helping our customers resolve their Year 2000 issues?  I have had three
    calls from customers today asking me that question and one was from a
    major division of the state of Connecticut.
    
    Can't we choose a good third party scanning tool, add one Digital
    Project Manager, subcontract for the language expertise, and sell some
    projects.  
    
    I have heard that SI is beginning to look at this as an
    opportunity but I can't wait.  Any advice/experience would be very
    helpful as it looks like we will have to chart our own course for now?

    >helping our customers resolve their Year 2000 issues?  I have had three
    >calls from customers today asking me that question and one was from a
    >major division of the state of Connecticut.
    
    You probably got those calls because because a couple of the trade mags
    have had articles about it. I think that the Datamation that arrived
    this week had this as a cover story.
    
    Deb

    We will get it to as soon as we solve the annual "my date rolled back"
    issue :-)
    
    - Vikas

    re: .48
    
    Contact XP Software Inc. at e-mail address: The_Real_RPG@msn.com

    Do we have a statement on this which we can use with customers?
    
    Maurice
    (MCS Marketing Europe)

A statement is being worked on - I know our group was asked for input to it.

				Steve

>    Do we have a statement on this which we can use with customers?
    
    I heard that Digital is about to announce that they have decided to
    withdraw from the Year 2000 in order to concentrate on years in which
    they have been more successful.  :-)
    
    -Mark

>    Not bad. If that doesn't go over we could generate a patch to be
>    applied to the operating system. At midnight on Dec 31, 1999 the patch
>    will cause a full year to be added to the date, making the O/S think
>    it's now 2001. We'll miss the "year 2000" problem entirely :-)

There is great debate as to whether to celebrate the start of the new
millennium on Dec. 31, 1999 or on Dec. 31, 2000. A side effect of the above
patch will be to render this problem moot.

    I see nothing wrong with partying twice....
    
    			Steve

....
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
199A
199B
199C
199D
199E
199F
19A0
19A1
19A2
....

> 1999 199A ... 199F 19A0 ... 19FF 1A00 ... 1FFF 2000
    
    But Tom, Steve won't get *any* millenium party that way!  :-)
    
    -Mark

    There was  recent reply that said a party line is being worked for
    customers - is anything available now? To whom can we direct the
    question, since customers are asking about the date impact of the year
    2000?
    
    thanks,
    Lynn
    

    Harold Rude @OGO is collating field requirements for such a service.
    
    Calvin

IBM cares about the year 2000:

We shouldn't wait til it's too late....

International Business Machines Corporation
IBM United States
1133 Westchester Avenue
White Plains, New York 10604

Immediate Release

Marta Decker
IBM Media Relations
914/892-7358

Jordan Chanofsky
TSI for IBM
212/696-2000

                       IBM Year 2000 Efforts Under Way

    IBM Readies Customers, Products and Services for Year 2000 Transition

Armonk, New York, October 30, 1995 ... Recognizing that the turn of the
century poses a significant challenge for the Information Technology
industry, IBM today announced it will provide customers with a comprehensive
set of services, tools and support for their Year 2000 transitions.

For more than four decades, industry and businesses have written many of
their computer programs and databases with dates represented by only two
digit years (e.g., 95 versus 1995). However popular this method was, and is,
customers' system and application programs may yield incorrect results when
the millennium advances, and the date approaches "2000."

This means that customers whose businesses typically rely on applications
which make forecasts, projections, comparisons, or arithmetic operations are
encouraged to complete their preparations for Year 2000 date changes now.

The difficulty for many businesses comes in assessing what applications have
date-sensitive programs; how many need to be altered; what it takes to
actually make the required changes to source code and data files; and
finally, running tests to ensure that all is operating properly. IBM's Year
2000 services, tools, and support will assist customers with this process.

"If customers are to be successful in tackling the Year 2000 issue, they
need to focus on specific date-change methodologies, processes -- and
overall project management," said John Phelps, Gartner Group. "Year 2000
projects need to be expedited by customers so that they can accurately
determine their application programs' exposures and can begin corrective
measures immediately."

"The problem is large; it's complex, and the IT industry has the skills and
resources to take care of it -- providing we give ourselves the time to
solve it," said Peter de Jager, Year 2000 consultant and speaker. "IBM is
right to encourage and advise businesses, and vendors who support that
business, to address this issue today."

Because of IBM's commitment to protect its customers' investments -- and its
obvious interest in the long-term viability of the computer industry -- the
company has spent considerable time researching, testing and analyzing the
Year 2000 issue and possible solutions.

"With today's announcement, IBM is sharing what we have learned about the
Year 2000 with our customers, and all computer - more users, to help them
make date transitions as smooth as possible," said Carla Gude, director of
System Software Structure, IBM. "No matter how old or new their software is,
customers and industry vendors will never know how much work is ahead of
them -- unless they focus now."

                  Information, Services, Tools and Support

To assist customers in timely Year 2000 transitions, IBM has assembled a
variety of information, services, tools and support.

The following Year 2000 offerings are being announced by IBM today:

                      Year 2000 Customer Guidance Paper

IBM is making available to everyone a comprehensive Year 2000 resource
guide, at no charge. The guide explains Year 2000 issues and helps users,
vendors and customers successfully plan for -- and implement Year 2000
transitions. The 180-page document, entitled "The Year 2000 and 2-Digit
Dates: A Guide for Planning and Introduction," is available on the World
Wide Web through the IBM Software Home Page, at http://www.software.ibm.com.
Customers can also obtain the guide from their IBM marketing
representatives.

This no-charge resource is a compilation of IBM's Year 2000 findings,
recommended approaches and product listings. Also included in the guidance
paper is a bibliography of other Year 2000 publications available throughout
the industry.

                        TRANSFORMATION 2000* Services

In addition to the Customer Guidance Paper, IBM is making available to
customers a comprehensive set of fee-based services to help companies
develop Year 2000-ready solutions for their applications, system software
and hardware.

TRANSFORMATION 2000 services, delivered by Integrated Systems Solutions
Corporation, an IBM subsidiary, and are available to IBM and non-IBM clients
operating in both centralized and distributed computing environments. These
new services seek to balance customers' Year 2000 investment activities --
with their current and planned strategic business initiatives.

TRANSFORMATION 2000 solutions make date-field transitions easier by bringing
together proven techniques and state-of-the-art technologies to help reduce
cost, redundancy and complexity for the customer.

                          Year 2000-Ready Software

By year-end 1996, IBM intends to have the most recent versions and releases
of current IBM software products supporting the Year 2000 and beyond.

In order to assist customers with planning for the analysis, updating and
testing of user and vendor applications and data, IBM provides a table in
the Customer Guidance Paper which lists many widely-used IBM products, and
spells out the level or levels that will be 2000-ready. Many of these
products are available now, and the others are being shipped between now and
year-end 1996.

                               Year 2000 Tools

IBM is also highlighting new and existing software tools to assist customers
with their Year 2000 transitions. These tools and compilers are
platform-specific and target the host application development environment.

They support MVS*, OS/400*, AIX*, OS/2+, VSE+ and VM* customers. A
significant set of the tools, compilers and product listings is included in
the Year 2000 Customer Guidance Paper.

                         Year 2000 Hardware Support

The hardware timers on IBM S/390+, AS/400*, and RISC System/6000* servers
and Personal Systems+, using PowerPC* technology, are not effected by Year
2000 date changes.

IBM Personal Systems and IBM PC Servers introduced in 1996 will handle the
century rollover automatically. Some current and earlier IBM PCs will
automatically update the century; others may need to enter a simple command
or use a special utility. These systems need to be tested because there are
different BIOS -- or basic input/output system, handling the timing routine.
Diagnostic guidance and tools will also be available to help users
understand what to do for their individual IBM systems.

Date functions in some IBM network devices are currently being updated as
well.

In regard to IBM and other vendors' personal computers and systems, a
variety of implementations exist and behavior is system-dependent. For
non-IBM PCs, some of the same procedures used for IBM systems may also be
useful to determine if changes to customers' systems are required. In
addition, customers are encouraged to contact individual vendors regarding
their non-IBM products and related compliance questions.

                  Year 2000 Information at Your Fingertips

Information on IBM and ISSC's Year 2000 services, tools and support can be
obtained on the Internet via IBM's Software Home Page on the Worldwide Web.
The Software Home Page is located at http://www.software.ibm.com.

The Customer Guidance Paper and its "White Paper" summary are also available
in several formats via the IBM Software Home Page.

The IBM FAX Information Service allows you to receive facsimiles of this,
and other IBM product press releases. Dial 1 800 IBM-4FAX and enter "99" at
the voice menu. From outside of North America, facsimiles may be obtained by
calling 1-415-855-4444.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Indicates trademark or registered trademark of International Business
Machines Corporation

    Bob Supnik's office was supposedly coordinating a corporate response
    on this issue - he collected input from many different groups,
    including my own.  I wrote to him recently asking what had happened -
    he said that there were insufficient responses and that he was no
    longer involved with this.  His secretary told me that Sam Fuller was
    handling it, but my mail to Sam has received no response in a week and
    a half.  Sigh.
    
    OpenVMS product management did send a short letter to Datamation (which
    had published a claim that Digital's operating systems would "reset to
    the base date" in the year 2000), but I just got forwarded mail from
    Datamation's senior editor saying no such letter was received.  ARRGH!
    
    I think we are seeing the results of the Balkanization of Digital -
    lots of little fiefdoms, each caring only about its own "business unit"
    interests.  NOBODY is looking out for Digital as a whole.
    
    					Steve

Check out the Year 2000 web page.

I am seeing many associates flocking to participate in the opportunities this 
provides to the organizations that can help companies solve this giant 
problem.  There is big money to be made in this field.  

If our SI folks do not have a focused solution set, or partnerships with 
specialists, we are so far behind we will never catch up.  Many of the SI 
dollars we anticipate will be rerouted to solve these problems in the future. 
 This is one problem that will not go away.

Please look at this homepage and look at all the companies that are providing 
solutions to this big, big problem.

http://www.year2000.com

Thanks - Kevin

    Re .64:
    
    > This is one problem that will not go away.
    
    I bet it will, and I can tell you when.
    
    
    				-- edp
    
    
Public key fingerprint:  8e ad 63 61 ba 0c 26 86  32 0a 7d 28 db e7 6f 75
To find PGP, read note 2688.4 in Humane::IBMPC_Shareware.