Most discussion of the Year 2000 (Y2K) Problem up until now has focused on legacy (read mainframe) systems. However, even if legacy systems can be repaired in time, the systems with which they communicate or exchange data must be compliant as well, or the problem may persist. Corporate PCs and mobile laptops are examples of such potentially troublesome systems.
To illustrate how easily a PC can go bad, my Acer Acros 75mHz Pentium tower, purchased 2/95 (oops, 2/1995), fails IBM's suggested tests for Y2K compliance woefully. IBM has produced a hefty document (See ftp://lscftp.pok.ibm.com/pub/year2000/y2kpaper.txt or http://www.software.ibm.com/) that, among other things, suggests simple tests you can run on the PC system clock. The IBM document expresses these tests in terms of step-by-step instructions; below I describe the tests in terms of what they are actually testing for. At this point, I must issue a strong
*** WARNING *** These tests will change the date on your PC far into the future and then return it to the present. Disable any software on your PC that could affect your data, such as TSRs, backup software, disk garbage-file-collection utilities, network agents, etc. Also, remove your PC from any networks it is on, so the fictitious dates don't get out and corrupt someone else's system. Better safe than sorry.
All these tests are accomplished from the DOS prompt, using the time and date commands. (I'm running MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.1.):
- Check for correct rollover from 12/31/1999 to 1/1/2000, both with power off and power on. To do this, you set date/time to one minute before 1/1/2000 and wait for a couple of minutes. My system failed to rollover correctly with the power off. (How many users do you think will take a sick day on Monday, January 3, 2000?)
- Check whether the system clock will remember dates after 12/31/1999 through a power-off/power-on cycle, depending on whether the clock arrived at the date from a rollover or from being explicitly set. (Yes, it can make a difference. My system could remember dates after 12/31/1999 that I had explicitly set, but not those that were reached via rollover.)
- Check the preceding tests with the new date 02-28-2000. Does your system properly roll over to 02-29-2000? The year 2000 is a leap year. (The year 2100 is not.)
Internet Y2K Resources
Several Internet resources are available with information concerning the looming Year 2000 problem:
http://www.software.ibm.com/ ftp://lscftp.pok.ibm.com/pub/year2000/y2kpaper.txt http://www.year2000.com http://web.idirect.com/~mbsprog http://www.simnet.org [also check out http://www.mpsinc.com — mb]For an eye-opening description of dates, calendars, and an interesting routine for representing and calculating date ranges, see the OSE library described in the April 1996 CUJ. After I downloaded the library, the file was in OSE-4.3\INCLUDE\OTC\TYPES\DATE.HH. As of January 1997, you could obtain the OSE library from ftp://ftp.th-darmstadt.de/pub/programming/languages/C++/class-libraries/OSE, or http://www.dscpl.com.au/download.html.
Summary
These are only a few basic tests. Some hot backup-site third-party providers offer test facilities for Y2K. You can install a copy of your data center and set the date ahead artificially to test the compliance of your in-house developed software. You can test leased or purchased software as well.
If you are in a support position, test a sampling of all the revisions of hardware and software you can. Contact vendors immediately for resolutions. They will appreciate all the lead time they can get.
Thanks to Charles Efken <cefken@aol.com> for this article.