Re: y2k

[billboltonREMOVE-TO-EMAIL@computer.org (Bill Bolton)]

"Roderick Smith" <rodsmith@werple.net.au> wrote:

> My students are working on an international challenge which seems to be
> written by a Hollywood filmmaker:
> Describe a railway crash in Japan caused by a y2k problem.
> 
> AFAIK, virtually all railway safeworking is protected by hardware, which
> fails safe.  Computers are used for *control*, not safety protection.  The
> worst problem which y2k could cause is gridlock: everything halts.

OK, here is an unlikely, but possible scenario.

===========

A mid '90s built Japanese high speed train has a computer based
maintenance/diagnostic system, which is not Y2K compliant.

One role of the system is to indicate when components critical to high
speed operation should have periodic inspection, taking into account
how much running the train has done since the previous inspection,
climatic conditions, track conditions etc etc, all of which are
monitored by the system.

1/1/2000 comes around and the date sensitive maintenance calculation
routines are disrupted, but it not immediately obvious to anyone, as
it still produces inspection reports, but they aren't the *right*
inspection reports and some parts miss out on inspections.  The
dedicated maintanence/diagnostic system had been overlooked in all the
fuss about Y2K and general purpose computer systems.

A critical part fails in service at high speed, even though an
inspection at the correct time would have spotted the pending failure
and replaced the component.

The failure causes an horrific accident..... see the recent German
high speed crash which was probably caused by the failure of a single
part.

=======

If this turns up in a film... remember you saw it here first! <grin>

Cheers,

Bill