> I cannot understand why anyone would think that trains, planes,
>traffic lights etc would just stop working. IMO the worst that could
>happen to these things is they will think it is the wrong day of the
>week. I ask you why would a train care if the date is 99 or 00. How
>would it know that 00 is a problem date and then decide to just stop
>working? Same for planes. Traffic lights however may cause some
>problems as I have no doubt that they work by using the date to
>calculate the day of the week and thus their cycling. But that won't
>make them stop working, but just not properly. Your comments on
>ticketing systems being upset may very well be true. As for the
>railway signaling system again I ask how would the system know the
>date is 'invalid' and just stop working?? Computers are inteligent but
>they have no way (unless programed) to decide to stop because they
>cannot tell if it is 1900 or 2000!!
Is it possible some equipment has built in clocks to allow it to
calculate the time since the last service? Who knows what equipment
would have such things?
Is it possible that some programers have built in a warning when the
next service is due, a big warning when it's a month overdue, a
complete shutdown if it's several months overdue? What will happen if
it miscalculates and thinks it's years overdue? Will someone service
it if it thinks the next service is not due for 100 years?
Peter Shute, Melbourne, Australia