"Frank C. Earl" wrote:
>
> Don Adams wrote:
>
> > actually... it has been my thought that Y2K will be just what you described...
> > a 'trigger' of a kind. I just didnt want to state that for fear of offending
> > the resident Keely deities with conspiracy theories. <g>
>
> Too true. ;->
>
> > Frank, I'm aware that UNIX boxes are set for 2038 and that they comprise
> > the majority of net notes, servers, etc... my concern was regarding the PLC's
> > et al. If these go...well, UNIX Y2K compliancy won't help.
>
> That's the thing. I think you're going to find that it's going to be
> isolated,
> largely irrelavent systems that are going to be impacted (Financial
> stuff is,
> sadly, largely irrelevent compared to communications, power, etc.).
>
> > > The chips issue is nowhere as bad as the pundits for Y2K claim it is.
> >
> > well, the question is...which pundits do you believe? The ones that are in
> > our industry trying to calm everyone down and make a ton of money off stirring
> > the pot of fear just enough to make people pay or the frothing at the mouth
> > militant survivalist who sees conspiracies everywhere? Personally I have little
> > faith inthe claims of either.
>
> Neither. I think we'll see problems, to be sure, but just not what the
> doom
> and gloom sayers claim either. Yes, it's a domino effect, waiting to
> happen-
> but it's not going to play out the way they're claiming it will.
>
> > Reasonable self reliancy IMHO is never a bad thing.
>
> If you knew me personally, you'd know that I've always kept that to
> heart and
> always plan my life around that simple concept. Right now, I lack a few
> things
> to be self-reliant no matter what goes down- which are to be obtained
> over the
> next year from now. If I or someone else find over-unity and
> super-luminal
> communications, some of the items will no longer be needed and may
> render all
> of these conversations as moot.
>
> > which reality would that be Frank? to my limited, inferior knowledge, I was under
> > the general understanding that when it came to programmable logic controllers
> > there was hardly any sort of glaobal standard in place for operation or design.
>
> Doesn't need to be a standard for design. Most of them do not need a
> year to operate.
> A large number of them don't even need the time of day. I know what I'm
> talking about
> here- been in the industry for 8+ years and been playing with this stuff
> as a hobby for
> 17+ years (including the 8 for the professional stuff).
>
> > At least for many of the now aged plc's that were fab'd and implemented between
> > the 70's and mid 80's? Who knows what conventions are used in each situation
> > in places such as Eastern Europe.
>
> PLCs are generally simple devices. They are no more complex than the
> Sinclair
> Radionics ZX-80 in design and programming- recent devices have things
> like 486's
> and Pentiums on them, but they're used for rather sophisticated things
> like these
> fancy-schmancy ATMs with the pretty pictures on the screens. Largely,
> you're
> going to find that most of the PLCs are going to be of the complexity of
> a ZX80
> because it's dirt-cheap to make these days. Cost is the _main_ issue in
> PLCs.
>
> > Any one who claims to have 100% solid knowledge about all the different protocols
> > and date related functions that are set in place IMHO is either a con man or a fool.
>
> But in the case of what I speak of, date is largely irrelavent. Anybody
> that USED
> dates in the context of most PLCs is a poor programmer or a fool for
> making the code
> largely more complex than it _ever_ needed to be. The problem with
> dates is with
> systems that deal in dates- mostly database and financial systems.
>
> > Why else would organizations like the Aussie govt be sweating so much publicly
> > JUST to get essential services in place?
>
> Because they don't know the stuff in question and they're freaking out
> like the
> rest of the world will be come January 1, 2000. Y2K is the new
> apocalypse theory.
>
> > well heres the thing... you say don't 'normally' go off. even if we happened to
> > have lucked out and the whole world had decided 15 to 20 years ago that they were all
> > going to more or less use the same design specs for plc's (which I am convinced
> > pretty much, this was not the case), and if there was only a very small fraction
> > of these devices that WERE sensitive to a year date and some of them happened to be
> > used in critical places susch as plants, factories, utilities.... you'd only
> > need a few small ones going screwy to cause one big monstrous effect.
>
> That's just it. Dates are needed for things like VCR clocks to start
> and stop
> recording. Dates _aren't_ needed to monitor or control processes. Like
> I said
> before, only a fool would complicate their designs this way and the
> people doing
> that sort of thing quickly get darwinized out of the profession. You
> WON'T find
> things like date sensitive stuff in power plants, etc. The old stuff
> _might_ have
> needed it, but the resources available to the PLCs of the time
> _precluded_ doing
> that sort of thing as there wouldn't be enough space for both things in
> the PLC.
>
> > you obviously have MUCH more faith in the intelligence of companies and computer
> > professionals.
>
> Yeah, could be because I am a computer professional- software engineer
> in fact.
> Could be because your experience with all of this is derived from
> _applications_
> development situations and not _engineering_ or _systems_ level
> development.
> Surprisingly, there's a LARGE gap in all of that- I know, been on both
> sides of the
> coin and would rather be doing REAL software/systems engineering (Which
> is what I
> do for a living nowadays...) than writing applications software.
>
> > I have never know any dev group to be able to get to a prod
> > release date under budget and according to spec without having some major bugs
> > shake loose. The standard thing I've seen is a systems/programmer guy or
> > team promise the moon to save his butt or get a client and then end up being
> > hideously late in delivering and having to scale way back on what he had promised
> > in the first place.
>
> I've NEVER promised the moon. It's damned unprofessional AND
> unethical. Oftentimes
> the reasons for the problems with software development reside in either
> unrealistic
> expectations/offerings (i.e. Some marketing droid offers something that
> is pure
> vaporware and the hapless developers end up scrambling to fill the
> void.), subtly or
> dramatically shifting specs, unrealistic deadlines that are motivated by
> marketing
> reasons, or pure and simple mismanagement of the project. I've seen it
> all and these
> are the most common reasons for why there's bugs in the software and
> it's over budget
> and out of spec.
>
> > As for plc's, from what I understand many of them ARE year dependent
> > since their service cycles check against the date in some cases to flag for
> > system replacement or component replacement.
>
> I know of none that have been sold in the US, UK, or Germany that had
> this
> sort of feature in them. Most stuff when it needs to have a service
> cycle
> happen to have a clock of elapsed time that runs until it goes off,
> signaling
> the maintenance cycle for the unit or it's parts. A clock that keeps
> track of
> all of the current year, day, hour information is another chip that adds
> to the
> cost of the unit. These chips run about $4 or so in quantities of
> 1000. A PC
> needs one of them to set the OS up with this information. A PLC's
> margin cost
> would be increased by this sort of thing. Code to duplicate this
> functionality
> is extra bulk that eats up precious ROM space for the main
> functionality.
>
> > IF your point is that many of the recently made
> > plc's are strictly minute / hourly logged...sure I'd agree.
> > But old ones, from what I understand were prone to all kinds of failure based
> > on year slot averages. A good case in point is power supply replacement.
> > I could be wrong about all this.
>
> A year slot type failure does not require a year to signal things- this
> is merely
> a function of how many hours the unit is in operation. It's very likely
> that even
> the oldest ones operate under this premise.
>
> > > Citicorp supposedly has their "critical" software corrected.
> >
> > right, and when they say 'supposedly' we are supposed to stick our thumbs back
> > in our mouths and go wandering in our pajamas back to bed cos daddy says everythings
> > ok. Sorry, I don't buy it. You get a letter from Citicorp stating that they
> > are 100% compliant in their critical code as you mentioned it above and then lets talk again.
>
> Which is why I'm going to have a couple thousand US dollars socked away
> in hard
> currency for what might come. I think they'll have it largely working
> but it
> *never* hurts in the slightest to have cash in hand. (besides, I don't
> like buying
> things on credit- I'm a cash and carry man, myself! ;->
>
> > agreed about the govt. and mass hysteria. My point is that mass hysteria
> > occurs because people are NOT self reliant and they know it. I'm also concerned
> > that entities like Keelynet may no longer be available to everyone if grid
> > sections go down.
>
> If they do go down, it won't be for long and the phone system will not
> be
> likely to go down. I'm sure that if there's power down here in the
> Dallas
> area, Keelynet will come back as at least a BBS- come hell or high
> water.
> (Suffice it to say, there's enough people here in Dallas to make it a
> point
> to keep the communication lines for our researches going- myself
> included.)
>
> > stupid companies abound everywhere. most firms are run at the top from patronage
> > not competence. I know. I recently worked for one of the largest firms in America,
> > a fortune 500 company thats run by a very wealthy family. I have seen first hand...
> > the crap that goes down. I was allowed into some fairly high level meetings with TOP
> > people involved with global IT operations. IF anything, I am convinced they are so far behind
> > Y2K compliancy and have no idea how bad off they are...well...it wont be pretty. But then
> > next to their other screw ups that were literally 'criminal' well.... it made Y2K look like a cake
> > walk. The hilarious thing is that the main guy in this 'family' is heralded across the country
> > as a visionary, american cowboy hero, rah rah sis boom bah entrepreneurial wizard in control of
> > his destiny and a boon to society and american apple pie yadayada... from what I saw behind the scenes
> > this guy seemed like simply a crook with no sense of ethics. But then look at how well crooks lie,
> > like Clinton for instance?
>
> Yeah, I know where you're coming from. And, the stupidity factor is
> what has me
> purchasing a 2kW light plant for myself. It's one of the few remaining
> things I
> lack.
>
> > > It'll be from people rioting and looting in the
> > > streets
> >
> > yup... it'll be from the ones who never took the time to think for themselves
> > and just relied on what 'daddy' said.
>
> You know, that's basically the same thinking I've got in this matter.
>
> > Right, and Frank... I'm more than willing to acknowledge that your particular
> > brand of the truth is one I should buy into.... all I ask is that you offer
> > some sort of hard evidence that says there's nothing substantial to worry about.
>
> I'll work on it. What I'm basing this all on is my personal and
> professional
> experience. I know a lot about computers and software (Or, at least
> that's
> what everyone that knows me, including my employer, accuses me of! ;->
> and I know
> that the Y2K problem is larger than the "there is no problem" crowd is
> claiming
> and it's way smaller than the "this is going to be the end of
> civilization as
> we know it" crowd is claiming it to be. This whole Y2K thing is just as
> Jerry's
> labeling it as- it's a distraction for the majority of the populace so
> that they
> don't focus on the really important problems that we need to face.
>
> > Fairy tales go both ways.... they are either stories of monsters or of princes
> > and princesses and fluffy wuffy bunnies and happily ever after ending tales.
> > But they are both still 'fairy tales'.
>
> My bet is that reality is somewhere in the middle. It _always_ is.
>
> --
> Frank Earl
>
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