A comfirmation of difficulties ahead. ------------------------------WWW.Webpal.org/report.htm

-- King of Free Estimates (Isnotkidding@this.time), January 24, 1999

Answers

I have been looking for this type of info on the Natural Gas front. Looks like the author, who seems to have written a well researched report, got nothing but gas from the PR spinmasters. Last week I bought some electric heaters even though my house is gas heated because it crossed my mind that electric could come back well ahead of gas. Just trying to cover another contingency. The report is a must read and thanks King for the info.

-- Mike Lang (webflier@erols.com), January 24, 1999.

We are on all electric where I am at. So I will depend on kerosene heaters, blocking off half of the house, removing the pellet stove and relying on the fireplace and south-western solar exposure to warm the house. If people during the 1800's can do it, so can I.

-- prepared (prepared@burnit.com), January 24, 1999.

Thanks King. Now my headaches worse.

Hotlink:

http://www.Webpal.org/ report.htm

Blankets, might make good barter items ... mutter, mutter.

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), January 25, 1999.

I skimmed that till I got to the estimated 50 billion embedded part. Nearly ten for every human. I am sure the people in the third world would have something to say about that. BAD BAD BAD. Small Scale Integration is not capable of having any problem with Y2K. Period. It just can not happen. Large Scale Integrated Circuits can not have a problem unless they are either connected to a Real Time Clock chip that is not compliant, or they have a non compliant program counting seconds to years in ROM. (Would be silly to do it that way - not impossible) And even then, to cause a shutdown type failure, they must be delivering dates in some critical way. You absolutely cannot have anything remotely approaching 50 billion systems at risk. They just have not been built. If this character gives data that far off - his report is just rumour and garbage.

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), January 25, 1999.

According to their SEC filing, my gas provider had only spent about 30% of its Y2K budget as of 09/30/98. Either their project has been FAR cheaper than expected, or they have a long road to haul. Any bets on which is true?

-- Sue (conibear@gateway.net), January 25, 1999.

Paul, I think you may have mis-interpreted the embedded chip comment in that report. The author said:

"I am not going to try to explain here, the embedded processor problem. But to briefly recap the facts. It is estimated that there are about 50 billion of them in the world. If only 1% of these are a problem then that amounts to millions of faulty processors."

This estimate seems no wackier than any other I've seen.

Actually, I thought that report was one of the more well-researched pieces I've seen. I recommend it.

-- Lewis (aslanshow@yahoo.com), January 25, 1999.

Once again the number 50 billion is being tossed around with regards to chips and processors.

50 billion chips is probably right, but only a fraction of those are processors and controllers.

How come it's so hard for people to understand that not all chips are processors or controllers? The word "chip" covers all integrated circuits, of which processors and controllers are only a subset.

-- chip (chip@integrated.circuit), January 25, 1999.

I've seen the number 70 billion chips tossed around too. But as chip said, they're only tiny parts embedded in systems, "the black boxes withing black boxes". That reduces greatly the actual number of systems that need to be replaced, if faulty.

What I understand and which I found said consistantly among well known experts is that the number of those single chips being non-compliant is anywhere from 1 to 10% (depending on the "expert source") of the total estimated numbers of single chips out there.

The problem it seems, is not so much that those multi-chips systems ("black boxes") can't be found or tested, but it's in the way they are being tested, or potentially tested. It appears each identical blackbox cannot be assumed to all be compliant if one of them has been tested and found compliant, because the chips used in those blackbox system are often from different manufacturers with different standards and compliancy etc., and that many manufacturers are from overseas, some are unreachable, some have gone out of business etc.

That's the jist of what I understand from this dilema.

-- Chris (catsy@pond.com), January 25, 1999.

This is surely one of the best, well-researched reports I've yet read on Y2K. The author obviously has invested enormous energy and commitment in uncovering the facts.

The natural gas industry is in very deep trouble, folks. Read it and weep.

A must-read report.

Please, let's hear from some natural gas engineers who have read this report!

-- Cetus (cetus@capella.com), January 25, 1999.

The report went on to say 1% of the chips might be susceptible. I think you should try concentrating a little harder when you read Paul.

-- King of Free Estimates (Istiredofdumbshit@this.time), January 25, 1999.

Here's another 2 bahts to throw in the fire...

A roll-over problem for 0.001% is a reasonable estimation based on empirical data from system assessments versus guesses and theories (which were all we had to go on a one year ago). This is good news. The bad news is that it is still a sizable number of individual boards with problems.

It may seen "unreasonable" to use RTC/date data to you Paul, but your area of expertise, if I am correct, is in telecom PC networks. Unfortunately, the area of industrial automation systems does use RTC data more than you might imagine.

I do NOT work for Siemens AG or any subsidiary, however, I believe Siemens AG is doing a responsible and excellent job of providing as much data and information as they can to assist their industrial customers in their remediation efforts. I consider their open and forthright efforts to be exemplary of global corporate citizenship.

That being said, their product y2k information website is ample evidence of the scale of industrial problems that require action before next year.

-- PNG (png@gol.com), January 26, 1999.