Re: Year 2000 Bug
Donald Talleur (dtalleur_at_uiuc.edu)
Sat, 21 Feb 1998 09:33:48 -0600
The '2000' bug only effects certain windows programs that sort and order by
the last two digits of the year. So something like 2000 would be put prior
to the year 1901. I don't see this as a problem for a majority of programs
that are currently in use. The notion that windows 3.xx will be useless in
year 2000 is complete bunk. Lotus and Excel both understand the difference
between 1900 and 2000 and sort accordingly. (And these are old programs!) I
susepct most other programs will work as well. As for DOS based programs.
Not an issue. DOS was designed to understand all dates for 120 something
years from somewhere around the late 70's. Flgiht deck software that deals
with dates is also required to be updated frequently. So I see no reason
why the year 2000 should cause any problems. I will be using windows 3.xx
long into the future although I'm forced to upgrade some of my equip. to
Win 95 to be able to run new software versions. For the general user this
"bug" will be a non-issue. It seems that only a few very large
organizations will need to revise their entire database systems, primarily
because the designers never figured they'd still be in use at the turn of
the century. (Great planning!)
Don Talleur
At 10:08 AM 2/21/98 EST, you wrote:
>
>The 2 March U.S. edition of "BusinessWeek" focuses on the "Year 2000 Bug" and
>its impact on the U.S. economy. My specific concern is with its impact on
our
>industry and specifically any human factors concerns which it may create on
>the flight deck. I know that this is not a trivial problem to the FAA
>(particularly for ATC) but I am wondering how individual organizations are
>currently approaching this issue around the world. Any comments? Thanks.
>Bob Barnes
>
>
Donald Anders Talleur
Assistant Aviation Education Specialist/
Assistant Chief Flight Instructor
Aviation Reserach Laboratory/ Pilot Training
Institute of Aviation
Willard Airport
217-244-8687 or 217-244-8606