some of you are interested in this stuff I think,
Eva
>From the Los Angeles Times
Monday, February 22, 1999
The Y2K Bug Has Company in the Form of 'Time Dilation' Computers: Pair who
stumbled on the odd phenomenon insist it's a legitimate concern. Others
call their warnings a scare tactic.
By ASHLEY DUNN, Times Staff Writer
Like many computer hobbyists, Jace Crouch, a professor of history
at Oakland University in Michigan, decided to test the waters of the year
2000 by turning the clocks on his computers to Dec. 31, 1999.
To his relief, nothing happened. But within a few days, one of his
computers using an older Intel microprocessor began acting strangely,
jumping from January 2000 to December 2000. In later tests, friends
and acquaintances from the comp.software.year-2000 Internet newsgroup
reported similar random jumps in time.
What Crouch had stumbled on was an odd computer phenomenon on the
fringes of the year 2000 issue that typifies the vague uncertainties about
the millennium bug.
The phenomenon is known by the lofty name of "time dilation," or
the Crouch-Echlin Effect. The latter half of its name comes from the
Canadian programmer, Mike Echlin, who first came up with a theory about
its workings.
Unlike the basic Y2K problem, which is a simple, logical problem,
the Crouch-Echlin Effect stems from the interaction between some of the
most obscure and complicated components in a personal computer.
Simply stated, after Jan. 1, 2000, some personal computers will
suffer from erratic timekeeping. In extreme cases, Crouch and Echlin say,
it can lead to malfunctions, such as the inability of the computer to
recognize connected devices.
The two discoverers believe this little gremlin largely affects
pre-Pentium computers that use antiquated internal clocks. They both
concede that it is a petty issue in the spectrum of Y2K problems.
After a year and a half of controversy, there is no conclusive
evidence that the Crouch-Echlin Effect is an identifiable computer malady.
But it has also defied all attempts to be dismissed or explained.
The uncertainty over its origins has forced some of the biggest
players in the computer industry to take on the issue. Intel Corp.,
Digital Equipment Corp., Compaq Computer Corp. and Symantec Corp. have all
done extensive testing for the effect, but have been unable to reproduce
it or figure it out.
Last year Compaq had to defend itself against a claim of false
advertising in Britain because it stated that its new computers were ready
for 2000. The complaint alleged that Compaq could not say its computers
were ready for 2000 because they could be vulnerable to the Crouch-Echlin
Effect.
The British Advertising Standards Authority eventually ruled in
Compaq's favor.
Tom Becker, president of RighTime Co., a Miami-based firm that
specializes in regulating PC clocks and one of the staunchest critics of
the Crouch-Echlin Effect, said he has gotten panicked calls from Exxon
Corp. and the Federal Reserve Board over the Crouch-Echlin Effect.
"This is a scare tactic," he said. "They're proposing this problem
is everywhere. It's just not possible. I'm telling you, this has wasted so
much energy."
As Daniel Leviton, software architect for Symantec's popular Y2K
tool, Norton 2000, said: "I put this in the same category as cold fusion."
The furor over the Crouch-Echlin Effect probably would have died
away long ago if not for an apparent confirmation in October from Digital
Equipment, which had been bought by Compaq a few months earlier. Digital
issued a statement supporting Crouch and Echlin's findings and offering to
sell its customers a time dilation diagnostic program.
The statement was recently replaced with a new message that the
company was unable to reproduce the effect and would no longer offer the
repair program. But the company's earlier findings have lent a validity to
Crouch and Echlin's claims that has stuck.
Mark Slotnick, who conducted the time dilation tests for Digital
and is now an independent Y2K consultant, said there is no real dispute
over the fact that some older computers can start up with erratic dates.
He tested nearly 100 computers and turned up two that did. He has received
numerous messages from computer users reporting similar problems.
Slotnick said there are many routine reasons that a computer will
turn up a wrong date, such as a bad power supply or a weak clock battery.
"It does happen," he said. "The big debate is over why."
Since the first report of the effect in August 1997, there have
been several theories to explain the Crouch-Echlin Effect, variously
blaming the computer's real-time clock, Basic Input Output System, power
supply, device drivers and low batteries.
Echlin, a programmer of safety shutdown software for Atomic Energy
of Canada Ltd., a government-owned company that designs nuclear power
reactors, said that the situation probably is caused by "not a single
problem, but a multitude of closely related problems that show similar
symptoms."
His own theory deals with the interaction among the BIOS, the
computer's internal clock and the operating system. When a computer is
started, one of the first tasks is for the BIOS to fetch the correct time
and date from the real-time clock, a battery-powered circuit that keeps
track of the date and time even when the power is turned off.
The clock has three basic phases of timekeeping. In the first
phase, which lasts almost an entire second, the clock can be safely
accessed with no problems.
In the second phase, the clock warns other devices that it is
about to update itself to the next second. The warning zone is 244
microseconds long, during which the time can still be safely retrieved.
The BIOS usually checks to see if there is a warning. If there is, it will
wait until the next second to get the time.
In the final phase, the clock updates itself to the next second
and will return bad data if accessed.
Echlin believes that after 2000 it can take the BIOS a few extra
microseconds since it must go through additional calculations to handle
dates past 2000. If the extra time pushes the BIOS access past the
244-microsecond warning zone, it will retrieve corrupted information from
the final update phase, according to Echlin's theory.
RighTime's Becker scoffs at the theory, saying that the BIOS has
no part in converting dates for the operating system. He added that even
if there were additional calculations involved, 244 microseconds is an
eternity for a computer--more than enough time to do even very complex
calculations.
"Everything they describe is so foreign to my knowledge," Becker
said. "I really feel like a UFO debunker in this case."
Echlin is nonplused by the criticism, saying time will eventually
tell who is right on this issue. "We just happened to find this problem,"
he said. "What else is out there? The experts think they know everything
about the year 2000. They don't know everything about it."
* * *
Times staff writer Ashley Dunn can be reached via e-mail at
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Copyright 1999 Los Angeles Times. All Rights Reserved
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
