That's how we get "self-fulfilling prophecies"! Actually, many companies are
so stingy with their IT investment that some kind of "scare scenario" may
have been necessary to get their attention. Seems a shame, but that's life in
the corporate world. Managers don't really take their computers seriously
until consultants tell them to!
Bob Hayden wrote:
> ----- 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)
