Good old Y2K
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Well, it's that time again and the new year is upon us. Back in 1999 how many of you were actually afraid there would be world-wide disaster? At the time I was only 12 and just beginning to teach myself C++ so my knowledge on the Y2K related stuff was limited. I was unsure of what would happen; what were you thinking? Signature under construction.
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Well, it's that time again and the new year is upon us. Back in 1999 how many of you were actually afraid there would be world-wide disaster? At the time I was only 12 and just beginning to teach myself C++ so my knowledge on the Y2K related stuff was limited. I was unsure of what would happen; what were you thinking? Signature under construction.
Well, I spent 3 years on a Y2K project. We actually started looking at it about 1997 and wrapped up in the early fall of 1999. We were a medical manufacturing company but I can tell you that during the 9 months we spent evaluating every system we found faults in just about everything. We knew we were in trouble when the system that controls what runs are scheduled and executed on the manufacturing floors of three plants reverted back to products almost 15 years old which happened to be the first products manufacturered in those plants. We also found a number of bugs with how payments were accepted (the credit rules got goofed up, there were some issues with how and when checks would get cut, etc) It could have been a major problem but we knew that ystems would be the most problem (alot of it revolved arround the age of the system, the fact it was predominantly mainframe based, and that a majority of the applicaions were written in COBOL). If we were the banking industry...well, some of my friends who work in bank datacenters were not getting alot of sleep and never being able to go out for drinks :) I can tell you that 3 year project made me a pretty penny as a consultant before the company hired me fulltime :) Oh, and btw, technically we were watching tillearly march 2001. We had to deal with leap year and gregorian calendar situations under Y2K as well :) Mark Conger Sonork:100.28396
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Well, I spent 3 years on a Y2K project. We actually started looking at it about 1997 and wrapped up in the early fall of 1999. We were a medical manufacturing company but I can tell you that during the 9 months we spent evaluating every system we found faults in just about everything. We knew we were in trouble when the system that controls what runs are scheduled and executed on the manufacturing floors of three plants reverted back to products almost 15 years old which happened to be the first products manufacturered in those plants. We also found a number of bugs with how payments were accepted (the credit rules got goofed up, there were some issues with how and when checks would get cut, etc) It could have been a major problem but we knew that ystems would be the most problem (alot of it revolved arround the age of the system, the fact it was predominantly mainframe based, and that a majority of the applicaions were written in COBOL). If we were the banking industry...well, some of my friends who work in bank datacenters were not getting alot of sleep and never being able to go out for drinks :) I can tell you that 3 year project made me a pretty penny as a consultant before the company hired me fulltime :) Oh, and btw, technically we were watching tillearly march 2001. We had to deal with leap year and gregorian calendar situations under Y2K as well :) Mark Conger Sonork:100.28396
Wow thats interesting, good thing there are people like us around to fix those kinds of problems (although we were the ones that created it). :laugh: Signature under construction.
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Well, it's that time again and the new year is upon us. Back in 1999 how many of you were actually afraid there would be world-wide disaster? At the time I was only 12 and just beginning to teach myself C++ so my knowledge on the Y2K related stuff was limited. I was unsure of what would happen; what were you thinking? Signature under construction.
The issue didn't affect much (if any) of our software at Cheyenne Mountain AS (NORAD). However, I remember on the clocks turnover I was in a room with about five other individuals monitoring a number of GCCS and VMS based systems for anomolies for the first couple hours..
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The issue didn't affect much (if any) of our software at Cheyenne Mountain AS (NORAD). However, I remember on the clocks turnover I was in a room with about five other individuals monitoring a number of GCCS and VMS based systems for anomolies for the first couple hours..
Excuse my ignorance but im curious as to what GCCS and VMS are? Signature under construction.
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Excuse my ignorance but im curious as to what GCCS and VMS are? Signature under construction.
GCCS stands for Global Command and Control System. The system runs on Solaris and is used for monitoring and reporting C4I assets. With it, we could do things such as monitor objects within North America and get missle warnings, etc. VMS is the Virtual Memory System. Several key programs were ran on it at NORAD such as CCPDSR and Granit Sentry which of course were again, monitoring applications for the most part. NORAD is all about input and output of information so all sites, satellites, etc. are watched and read continuously (particulary the assets in space of which have become so important to todays operations).
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GCCS stands for Global Command and Control System. The system runs on Solaris and is used for monitoring and reporting C4I assets. With it, we could do things such as monitor objects within North America and get missle warnings, etc. VMS is the Virtual Memory System. Several key programs were ran on it at NORAD such as CCPDSR and Granit Sentry which of course were again, monitoring applications for the most part. NORAD is all about input and output of information so all sites, satellites, etc. are watched and read continuously (particulary the assets in space of which have become so important to todays operations).
Interesting, thanks for the info and Happy New Year. Signature under construction.
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Well, it's that time again and the new year is upon us. Back in 1999 how many of you were actually afraid there would be world-wide disaster? At the time I was only 12 and just beginning to teach myself C++ so my knowledge on the Y2K related stuff was limited. I was unsure of what would happen; what were you thinking? Signature under construction.
There was some big credit card system in England that fell over on Dec 30 (for whatever reason that's when it started considering dates in 2000). I didn't fear world-wide disaster but I did expect to hear more stories of big systems that weren't completely fixed... I don't think I ever did. [edit] While I'm thinking of it, our Y2K "celebration" here in LA sucked. Sydney had fireworks off that bridge in Sydney harbor, Paris did cool fireworks from the Eiffel tower, NYC had their big thing in Times Square. In LA we... lit up the Hollywood sign. ooooooo, fun. ;) [/edit] --Mike-- Ericahist | CP SearchBar v2.0.2 | Homepage | 1ClickPicGrabber New v2.0! | RightClick-Encrypt Actual sign at the laundromat I go to: "No tinting or dying."
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Well, it's that time again and the new year is upon us. Back in 1999 how many of you were actually afraid there would be world-wide disaster? At the time I was only 12 and just beginning to teach myself C++ so my knowledge on the Y2K related stuff was limited. I was unsure of what would happen; what were you thinking? Signature under construction.
Kes, I was able to convert from Y to K. But I have a feeling, which says, that there is something wrong! But I don't know what, because Y to K is Y to K and nothing different :-D scio me nihil scire My OpenSource(zlib/libpng License) Engine: http://sourceforge.net/projects/rendertech Its incurable, its a Pentium division failure.
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Well, it's that time again and the new year is upon us. Back in 1999 how many of you were actually afraid there would be world-wide disaster? At the time I was only 12 and just beginning to teach myself C++ so my knowledge on the Y2K related stuff was limited. I was unsure of what would happen; what were you thinking? Signature under construction.
BrianO. wrote: Back in 1999 how many of you were actually afraid there would be world-wide disaster? I told people that Y2K was overblown, but there might be some minor problems for a few days afterwards. I told people that they didn't need to stock up on food or water. I attacked Ed Yourdon's* claims (in his book Time Bomb 2000) that it would be unsafe to drive your car on New Year Eve 2000 because of the Y2K rollover. Fortunately, I was right. I was somewhat concerned about Russia, though, because I wasn't sure that they had the money to correct their Y2K software bugs. *Ed Yourdon wrote a number of books on software. You can do a search at Amazon. He seems to know what he's talking about when it comes to software. I don't know how he could've believed some of the drivel that he wrote. You'd think that someone who had worked in the software industry for so long would know better. ------------------------------------------ Law of Nazi Analogies: As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one. In any debate, Hitler's opinion on the subject is automatically the evil one, so it had better be contrary to the side you're arguing.
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Well, it's that time again and the new year is upon us. Back in 1999 how many of you were actually afraid there would be world-wide disaster? At the time I was only 12 and just beginning to teach myself C++ so my knowledge on the Y2K related stuff was limited. I was unsure of what would happen; what were you thinking? Signature under construction.
I wasn't sure, either. I knew that my systems would be fine, as I'd spent much of 1999 investigating the computers, heating and cooling controls, alarm systems, telephone systems, and other devices in use in my workplace. Those I found to be iffy or just plain wrong, I had replaced. A few items in our proprietary retail software I recoded, just in case, but our software vendor delivered fixes well in advance of the critical day. Probably the most significant precaution we took was gaining access to alternate sources of fuel for our delivery trucks, because most gas stations were using electronic controls of unkown origin. The City Yard uses mechanical pumps, and we worked out a deal to be allowed to buy from them in case our usual supply broke down. The systems of others I did not know about. I know that code I wrote 20 years ago would break, because the operating systems we used didn't support long dates. But I had no reason to expect that they were still in use, and really didn't care much. I knew otherwise sane people who were burying valuables in the backyard, many who stocked up on bottled water, canned food, and ammunition as well. I had plenty of ammo, and for food and water, there's always the river a few blocks away. It could have been serious, and people who downplay the event are uninformed; it was professionals like the bunch here at CP working hard who turned a potential bang into a fizzle, and they were accused of fear-mongering for doing their jobs superbly. We should have let the comfy little world come crashing down around the necks of the ninnies. "Another day done - All targets met; all systems fully operational; all customers satisfied; all staff keen and well motivated; all pigs fed and ready to fly" - Jennie A.