A friend of mine has an old computer (486) that he doesn’t want to upgrade. (He just does word processing and a little database management on it.) He had some Y2K concerns, so he had me look at it.
The database program (that I wrote) worked OK. It accepts 4-digit years, but defaults to 1900-dates if you only use 2 digits. I also changed the date to after 1/1/2000, and the program worked well.
The real problem was when I set the PC to 12-31-1999 at 23:59. When the clock rolled over a minute later, it said Jan. 4, 1980.
I told my friend to just adjust his clock New Year’s Day to the right date, and everything should countinue working well. But I have since learned that this problem has been noticed before, and the fix is to replace the clock chip.
The computer held the date when I chaged it specifically. It rolled from 1-1-2000 to 1-2-2000 and other 2000-dates as hoped. But will the date fail later on?
It looks like you’ve done some good Y2K testing and found a workaround. One extra step you should take it to check for leap day 2000. Some non-compliant systems won’t treat 2000 as a leap year or misinterpret it as 1900 which was not a leap year. Set the clock to 02-28-2000 23:59 and see if it rolls over to 02-29 as it should. Proper testing goes beyond that but for a word processing machine that might keep it useful for a while longer.
Well, here’s a follow-up question that I can’t believe I haven’t seen asked before:
Was there, during the 1900’s, a leap year that started on the same day of the week as the year 2000? If so, a lot of problems afflicting non-Y2K-compliant computers can be “worked around” at least long enough to sort things out.
(Do I have to explain this in more detail?)
Are you educated, erudite and maybe a bit eccentric?
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***Timothy Campbell: Well, here’s a follow-up question that I can’t believe I haven’t seen asked before:
Was there, during the 1900’s, a leap year that started on the same day of the week as the year 2000? ***
Yes. 1972, 1944, and 1916. Every 28 years, the year starts on the same day of the week. And being a multiple of 4, years 28 years apart are either both leap or non-leap. Exception: if the 28 years spans a non-400-multiple century year.
***TC: If so, a lot of problems afflicting non-Y2K-compliant computers can be “worked around” at least long enough to sort things out.
(Do I have to explain this in more detail?)***
Um, yes. How does 1972 being the same as 2000 help?