Re: Y2K for the railway industry

["Chris Stratton" <stratton.chris.cp@bhp.com.au>]

C. Dewick wrote in message <72ko4o$sn$1@lios.apana.org.au>...
>In <71tp84$2ho$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> michael.house@north.com.au writes:
>
>Well, I have tested a few Tangara sets when I've been driving them, and
they
>click over quite happily from 23:59:59 31-Dec-1999 to 00:00:00 01-Jan-2000
>without any problems at all.
>
>Interestingly, if the TMS clock is set to any year prior to '86', it
assumes
>it's next century and sets the year to '20xx', but if the year is '86' or
>higher, it assumes (correctly) that the year is '19xx'. That's definitely a
>strange quirk...

That's not a quirk, it is a feature of software designed to handle the Y2K.
It is actually called the pivot year, in this case the pivot year is 86. But
this could cause another problem if the software is still around in 2085
(unlikely) because when it rolls over to 2086 it will actually go back to
1986.
--
Regards,
Chris Stratton
Wollongong, NSW, Australia
stratton.chris.cp@bhp.com.au