My young whippersnapper self (I'm 31 now, but I started my career as a 
mainframe developer at 23) remembers listening to the seasoned professionals 
talk about Y2K.  They told me that they weren't all that concerned with Y2K on 
mainframe insurance administration and claims systems since they used ALIS 
dates (my former employer was a Fortune 500 disability insurer) where the dates 
were stored as DDDYYY in packed decimal format, where DDD is the Julian date 
and YYY is the offset from 1800.  Developers in the year 2799 might be in a 
pinch, but there's plenty of time to figure it out. :)

Anthem, Inc.

Nathan A. Smith, Database Administrator Sr., Anthem Database Services
600 Peachtree St. NE, Main Drop GA1319-A154, Atlanta, GA 30308
O: (770) 519-6496 | M: (770) 519-6496
[email protected]



-----Original Message-----
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf 
Of Porowski, Kenneth
Sent: Friday, April 20, 2018 16:35
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: IRS - 60-Year-Old IT System Failed on Tax Day Due to New Hardware 
(nextgov.com)

Now for those that didn't move to a 4 digit year to resolve Y2K but instead 
went to a window technique, how many of your current staff know what dates were 
used for the window so they can again fix the problem before it occurs.

-----Original Message-----
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf 
Of David L. Craig
Sent: Friday, April 20, 2018 4:26 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [IBM-MAIN] IRS - 60-Year-Old IT System Failed on Tax Day Due to 
New Hardware (nextgov.com)

In 1974, we considered it, but the cost of a byte of disk storage was enough to 
push the storage of each date's century toward the '90s.  We fully expected the 
remediation would be needed but storage would be more affordable by then, which 
panned out.  What everybody got wrong was expecting the relative costs of 
hardware and software to not change, but in fact they flipped--hardware became 
dirt cheap but software became very expensive.

On Fri, Apr 20, 2018 at 7:46 PM, Gerhard Adam <[email protected]> wrote:

> It was discussed, but the general feeling was that those systems would
> have been rewritten or replaced long before it became an issue.
>
> No one expected applications to be running 30-40 years after they were
> first implemented.
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> > On Apr 20, 2018, at 12:25 PM, Lester, Bob <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> >
> > I agree with both you and Gil.  But, how many programmers in the
> > 60s,
> 70s, even 80s were thinking about Y2K?  Sure, the really good ones
> were, but what about the other 80%?
> >
> > ....and, Y2K came off without a hitch...(FSVO - "hitch")    😊
> >
> > I love Fridays...
> >
> > BobL
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List
> > [mailto:[email protected]]
> On Behalf Of Porowski, Kenneth
> > Sent: Friday, April 20, 2018 1:20 PM
> > To: [email protected]
> > Subject: Re: IRS - 60-Year-Old IT System Failed on Tax Day Due to
> > New
> Hardware (nextgov.com) [ EXTERNAL ]
> >
> > That was due to lack of foresight by the programmer not due to the
> > age
> of the system.
> >
> >
> >
> > This email message and any accompanying materials may contain
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> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List
> > [mailto:[email protected]]
> On Behalf Of Paul Gilmartin
> > Sent: Friday, April 20, 2018 3:13 PM
> > To: [email protected]
> > Subject: Re: [IBM-MAIN] IRS - 60-Year-Old IT System Failed on Tax
> > Day
> Due to New Hardware (nextgov.com)
> >
> >> On Fri, 20 Apr 2018 07:14:20 -0700, Gerhard Adam wrote:
> >>
> >> Applications don't get old.  They either do what they're supposed
> >> to do
> or they don't.   It has nothing to do with age.
> > Remember Y2K?
> >
> > -- gil
> >
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