RE: Y2K Customer nuts?

[Neil Palmer <NeilP@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Well, it's not April 1st, so you better call the guys in white suits to take 
him away !    :-)

There is one solution where you basically turn back the dates in all your 
files, but it's 28 years, not 100, to maintain correct day of week and leap 
year calculations.  (I suppose 56 years would work too, but I haven't looked at 
a calendar to check).  Of course, you STILL have to modify all your programs to 
add/subtract 28 years before updating/printing/displaying.  It's not a simple 
case of just changing the system date.  What it DOES gain you is a 28 year's 
more time to redesign your database to use date fields, or 4 digit years, or 
century flags, for all your date fields - and redo any necessary date 
calculations.  And you still need to consider the consequences if you have any 
type of electronic interface/file transfer to other companies.


Neil Palmer         DPS Data Processing Services Canada Ltd.
                                             AS/400~~~~~
Thornhill, Ontario,  Canada    ___________          ___  ~     
Phone: (905) 731-9000  x238   |OOOOOOOOOO| ________  o|__||=   
Cell.: (416) 565-1682  x238   |__________|_|______|_|______)   
Fax:   (905) 731-9202          oo      oo   oo  oo   OOOo=o\   
mailto:NeilP@DPSlink.com    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 
http://www.DPSlink.com        AS/400  The Ultimate Business Server      


-----Original Message-----
From:   Art Tostaine, Jr. [SMTP:art@link400.com]
Sent:   Wednesday, December 02, 1998 1:44 PM
To:     midrange-l@midrange.com
Subject:        Y2K Customer nuts?

I have a customer who has just told me that they cannot afford the $500K it
will take to upgrade all of their software/hardware (AS/400, PC's, Retail
store Cash registers, store controllers, etc.).

They want to know if they can just set the date back on their /400.  The
controller knows of people who are going to do this.  They want me to test
this on another 400.

I can do this, just wondering if anyone has any serious reason why you can't
do this?

I know things like reports will show wrong dates, etc.  But they don't seem
to bother the customer.  I think they are crazy.  What do you think?

Art Tostaine, Jr.
CCA, Inc.
Parlin, NJ  08859

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