Year 2000 Websites and Newsgroups
Websites
HTTP://WWW.YEAR2000.COM
HTTP://WWW.Y2K.GOV
HTTP://WWW.MICROSOFT.COM/TECHNET/YEAR2K/
HTTP://SUPPORT.INTEL.COM/SUPPORT/YEAR2000/
NewsGroups
COMP.SOFTWARE.YEAR-2000
COMP.SOFTWARE.YEAR-2000.TECH
GOV.TOPIC.INFO.SYSTEMS.YEAR2000
BRIEF DEFINITION OF Y2K CONFORMITY:
YEAR 2000 CONFORMITY SHALL MEAN THAT NEITHER PERFORMANCE NOR
FUNCTIONALITY WILL BE AFFECTED BY DATES THAT FALL BEFORE, DURING, AND AFTER THE YEAR 2000.
- NO VALUE FOR CURRENT DATE WILL CAUSE ANY INTERRUPTION
IN OPERATION
- DATE-BASED FUNCTIONALITY MUST BEHAVE CONSISTENTLY FOR
DATES PRIOR TO, DURING, AND AFTER THE YEAR 2000
- IN ALL INTERFACES AND DATA STORAGE, THE CENTURY IN
ANY DATE MUST BE SPECIFIED EITHER EXPLICITLY OR BY UNAMBIGUOUS ALGORITHMS OR INFERENCING
RULES.
- THE YEAR 2000 MUST BE RECOGNIZED AS A LEAP YEAR.
Brief explanation of Y2K problem:
The problem first appeared around 1984, when Motorola's MC146818 chip was
introduced into AT computers. This was the first chip that was actually placed on the
motherboard, and it included a real-time clock (RTC). The problem with the year 2000 is
that the RTC only records the last two digits of the year (from 00-99). The century is
stored as a constant in non-volatile RAM and is called the century byte (which was set to
19).
When the clock strikes 12 on December 31st this year, the last two digits of the date will
advance to 00 but, the century byte will remain at 19 (hence the date will read 1900). The
operating system and BIOS are also sources of time for applications. So, the time on the
RTC is as equally important as how the OS and BIOS interpret the time and the date.
Generally, if you bought your system within the last few years, your BIOS will most likely
be able to recognize the turn of the century. This is what many computer manufacturers
consider to be Year 2000 compliant. Be aware though that a problem may still exist if an
application makes a direct call to the RTC before a request can be made to the BIOS. In
this case, it is possible for the date to be interpreted incorrectly. |
