Re: Y2K Fears to Stop Cityrail Trains

[John Duncan McCallum <mccallum@melbpc.org.au>]

the original greg h wrote:
 
> On Tue, 27 Jul 1999 17:21:58 +1100, David Bromage
> <dbromage@omni.com.au> wrote:

> >David Bennetts wrote:

> >> The NSW Transport Minister Carl Scully has announced that trains will stop
> >> at 11.45 pm on New Years eve and resume at 12.15 am in the city underground
> >> area, probably quite a sensible idea if one is not sure about the
> >> reliability of power supply and signalling, particularly with underground
> >> stations.
 
> >>   He's more confident than me that they will resume at 12.15, if
> >> there's a bug about it will take more than 15 minutes to find it and fix it.
 
> Not quite true - I know that the computers used by State Rail are much
> more complex than PCs, but if the same principle applies to the Y2K
> bug, stopping trains before midnight and starting them after midnight
> may solve the probs.
 
> In respect of desktop PCs, simple testing programs downloaded off the
> net indicate that most PCs are not Y2K compatible, but if they are
> turned off before midnight, then turned on after midnight, the
> roll-over time will not be a problem.

I am going to answer this by explaining how my own PC is in regards to
the
Y2K problem.
I know that my PC is Y2K compliant. I had it tested.
I know that Microsoft Works for Windows is not Y2K compliant. I am not
going to 
keep my computer on over New Year because I never do anyway, but, even
if I did,
and was running Works at the time, I do not expect anything to happen. 
This is because I believe that Works would crash only if I tried to
count the
number of days/hours/minutes between say 1000 on 31/12/1999 and 0900 on
2/1/2000.
I never have any need to use such this function of the program.
This, I believe, is the only problem that non Y2K compliant computers
and software
will have. Most equipment controlling power supplies etc does not need
such a
function and will most probably continue to function normally.
This also applies to all equipment with microprocessors embedded in
their systems.
Any equipment with no date function in their controls will have no
problem.

John McCallum