Y2K stuff

From: Don Maslin <donm_at_cts.com>
Date: Mon Jan 4 01:00:59 1999

There was a piece in the Travel section of our paper today - a reprint
from the New York Times News Service headlined "Y2K could slow air
traffic, but airplanes won't fall, experts say".
 
It went on to touch lightly on some perhaps plausible scenarios such as
networked air traffic control computers losing capability to
communicate, and the in-plane flight management computer which handles
navigation and related chores. These were discussed briefly as items
that would reduce the number of planes flying or actually grounding a
plane when it did not pass its pre-takeoff checks, but not as flight
safety items.
 
There was also some idiocy about an FAA inspector grounnding all of an
airline's pilots because all of their flight physicals had expired 100
years ago.
 
But then the article got into the embedded chip thing, worrying that
some chip somewhere in their fire trucks might get confused and lock up
which would shut down the airport since they may not operate without
fire and crash equipment operable.
 
Now I admit that I am not too knowledgeable about fire trucks - airport
type or otherwise - but this rather reminds me of the fears expressed by
some concerning embedded chips in microwaves, digital clocks, electric
ovens, sprinkler timers, etc. Am I dense? I have at least one each of
the above (not including fire trucks) and no one of them has the
foggiest notion what year it is! Because of the firmware, some few care
what day it is, but to the best of my knowledge there are seven days in
a week irrespective what year it is, or even the month.
 
It would really be nice if the thoughts and opinions of truly knowledgeable
folks were to be published and all of this type of panic mongering put
firmly to bed!
 
By the way, when my Kaypro 10 crosses over the mark it will then report
the date is 01 JAN 99.
                                              - don
 
Received on Mon Jan 04 1999 - 01:00:59 GMT

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