The following information concerns a 7 day clock problem. The information has been provided by an engineer who prefers not to have his name and contact information posted. I will be pleased to forward any e-mail inquiries to him. (See my e-mail address below.)

Another thread that includes information provided by the same engineer was posted 1/11/2000 at http://hv.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=002HzT Comments in that thread concerned other kinds of failures that involve embedded systems.

A 7 Day Clock Problem.

"....The system is set to run for a 24 hour period for 7 days and restart. During the first 5 days it does certain commands, then on the 6 and 7 days the command changes. Normal operation.

Now let's change from its 5 and 2 [day] schedule and modify it with a holiday [on the weekend]. For the first four days the system runs fine. On the fifth day it cannot recognize the change in pattern. It loops into the buffer and can again fail, become degraded etc....

Since not all holidays fall under on the same day of the week this could become a problem throughout the year when the holidays move around on different days of the week.

Traffic lights are a prime example of this possibility. Since January 1, 2000 fell on a Saturday, the system did not have a problem with 5 x 2 [the regular configuration of five week days and two weekend days]. Now Martin Luther King Day [Monday, January 17] is the first holiday of the New Year. The system works over the weekend and is ready for the new week to start. Monday is not part of its normal schedule. (FIRST OF FIVE) It attempts to run the new programmed date but can not. Older systems that have worked for a long time may have been programmed prior to Martin Luther King Day becoming an offical holiday. This could become very interesting."

(End of quoted material)

Officials at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the General Accounting Office have expressed interest in looking into this, but time may be too short for them to issue a timely alert.

-- Paula Gordon (pgordon@erols.com), January 11, 2000

Answers

How did the system that is the subject of this posting handle, or mishandle, the (U.S.) Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday, November 25, 1999? Or hasn't it been in existence for tweo months?

Looks like, according to the information provided, this is not a Y2k problem because it really has nothing to do with the year number. One could substitute an earlier year that began on Saturday, and have the same problem.

>Officials at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the General Accounting Office have expressed interest in looking into this,

Why? Do they issue alerts for every date-related programming error that comes to their attention?

(... grumble ... Can we please have a moratorium on reports of computer problems that have nothing to do with the year number or any special characteristic of the year 2000 or neighboring years and thus are not in the Y2k category? )

-- No Spam Please (nos_pam_please@hotmail.com), January 11, 2000.

Ms. Gordon, though it pains me because I respect your posts, I'm gonna have to agree with no spam on this one. Unless there is a missing level of detail from your engineer, or unless you left it out, this system won't work in 1998, 1999, or 2000. If there is a separate date aware control system resetting this system then there may be problems, otherwise it doesn't work.

The other option is it doesn't reset for holidays.

CHuck

-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), January 11, 2000.

Patience, patience. This Forum is filled with computer programmers. Let them kindly address computer < -- > date related possible problems, if they are interested in this specific quirk. Sometimes readers pose questions in order to learn, alert, or inform. Discussions are more valuable without the snide sniping.

-- interested regular (willing@to.learn), January 11, 2000.

Agreed. This appears to be a very serious problem. If people can't see that, then they might just be in denial.

Thanks for the heads up, Paula!! Keep it up!

-- (Digiman@rethel.net), January 11, 2000.

Must be nice!! Our first holiday isn't until Memorial Day.

Deano

-- Deano (deano@luvthebeach.com), January 11, 2000.

interested regular,

Since I haven't posted much lately, let me point out, for the sake of those not familiar with my background, that I have been a professional computer programmer for over three decades, that I started alerting people to the suite of computer problems denoted "Y2k" back in 1979, and that I have both occasionally created and frequently solved date-related computer problems during my career.

The details given in Paula Gordon's posting should allow any experienced computer professional to quickly conclude that the described problem is not Y2k-related. I do not like to see this forum cluttered with clearly non-Y2k-related problems -- such clutter distracts attention from the real Y2k problems.

>Sometimes readers pose questions in order to learn, alert, or inform.

If the posting had been in that category _with respect to a Y2k problem_, I would not have complained. If it had been labelled as off-topic, I would not have complained.

>Discussions are more valuable without the snide sniping.

So -- don't do it.

- - - - - - -

Digiman@rethel.net,

>This appears to be a very serious problem.

Is this the "Very Serious Problem" forum, or the "TimeBomb 2000" forum?

There are many more very serious problems that are off-topic for this forum than that are on-topic for this forum.

>If people can't see that, then they might just be in denial.

If "that" were referring to my preceding sentence (regarding off-topic/on-topic), then I would be in agreement.

-- No Spam Please (nos_pam_please@hotmail.com), January 11, 2000.

Paula knows her stuff. If you don't think this is Y2K-related, that's your problem. Like I said, you're probably in denial.

-- (Digiman@rethel.net), January 11, 2000.

Digiman,

If you substitute "1994" or "2005" for "2000" in the sentence "Since January 1, 2000 fell on a Saturday, the system did not have a problem with 5 x 2 [the regular configuration of five week days and two weekend days]", you will find that the described problem still occurs. As I said, the problem has nothing to do with the year number 00 or 2000 or, in fact, with the specific year number at all. Thus, it is not a Y2k-related problem, whether you agree or not.

The problem is related to the way that holidays line up with days of the week, not to the year number. Except for the part about January 1 not causing a problem, it could occur in any year at all.

"Y2k" is not a synonym for "date-related computer problem".

-- No Spam Please (nos_pam_please@hotmail.com), January 11, 2000.

Make my preceding sentence:

"Y2k" is a subset, not a synonym, of "date-related computer problem".

-- No Spam Please (nos_pam_please@hotmail.com), January 11, 2000.

No Spam, Chuck.

I'm on permanent vaction from y2k "debating" and "debunking", so you guys made my day. Believe it or not, I like it better when you guys provide facts and common sense than for me to attempt to do so - my attempts were too often antagonizing, which hurt the message.

Highest Regards,

-- FactFinder (FactFinder@bzn.com), January 11, 2000.

no spam pls-1979? you are the winner. perhaps the holiday could be mistaken for y2Xmas probs? thanx.

-- prashan (noone@zero.net), January 18, 2000.