Re: The Great Year-2000 Hoax!

In article <32657C7F.6FB0@mcmaster.ca> James Buss <bussjd@mcmaster.ca> writes: >Sam McFadden wrote: >> I know nothing about what will happen but rather than debate how many >> angels can dance, why not just set your computer date to 2000+ and find >> out what will happen?? > > > >Actually, if you set the date to 1/1/2000, everything will probably be >okay. But, try this: > >Set the date for 12/31/1999 and the time for 23:59, then turn off the >computer, and let it sit for a couple minutes. > >Now turn it on, and check the date. Mine said 1/4/1980. > >However, if I left the computer running, the clock would continue to >tick, and the time would be 00:01, 1/1/2000. However, as soon as I >switched off the computer, the date went back to 1/4/1980. > >However, if I set the date for 1/1/2000, and switch off the computer, the >date will still be 1/1/2000 (or 1/2/2000 depending on what the time is). Tried it on a W95 Pentium 120, and... it's fine. But many problems of this sort may not show up until an entire production app is run over time. Like, when the first person born before 1950 dies. Anyone can find these basic things like the system time. It's those buried data bombs (or obscure screen input bombs in the case of most modern db's) that'll getcha. It's the big, old government databases that will have most of the problems. > >Very interesting. >Jim. > -- Joel Garry joelga@rossinc.com Compuserve 70661,1534 These are my opinions, not necessarily those of Ross Systems, Inc. <> <> %DCL-W-SOFTONEDGEDONTPUSH, Software On Edge - Don't Push. \\ V / panic: ifree: freeing free inodes... O