----- Forwarded message from Paige Miller -----
>
> I'm wondering if those spending/earning the billions are congratulating
> themselves on so "few problems" (We fixed that just right!!!) or if the
> problems existed in the first place. Now, if we'd only had a control
> group.....
I read somewhere that a state government agency deliberately left three
computers unfixed for Y2K and they crashed immediately and were useless.
----- End of forwarded message from Paige Miller -----
Sounds pretty unlikely. I'm sure there are thousands of computers out
there that were not updated and I have not heard of massive crashes.
Also, I'm not aware of any y2k problems that kill a system -- they
usually just mess up dates.
Of my three machines at home, the ancient 486 laptop showed multiple
problems on testing, so I let the test program "fix" it. The two 686s
showed only one problem -- they would not automatically roll over to
y2k but could be advanced manually. So I left those alone. As it
turned out, they DID advance themselves automatically. So now to the
statistical issue;-) if other testing software was similarly
pessimistic then the y2k problem may have been overestimated.
Another tests and measurement issue -- I heard one report on a talk
show that one facility found all its computers reading 4 JA 1980 on
New Year's Day. A y2k bug? Not exactly. I noted that one of the
test programs I used left the system clock set wrong. How wrong?
Well, if you did not notice the problem, then on New Years's Day the
clock would have read 4 JA 1980. I suspect this problem was caused by
the test program, not by a y2k bug!
_
| | Robert W. Hayden
| | Department of Mathematics
/ | Plymouth State College MSC#29
| | Plymouth, New Hampshire 03264 USA
| * | Rural Route 1, Box 10
/ | Ashland, NH 03217-9702
| ) (603) 968-9914 (home)
L_____/ [EMAIL PROTECTED]
fax (603) 535-2943 (work)
