On This Day Pre-Y2K
Confused by any of the jargon you see below? Check the Y2K Glossary!
December 31, 1999 Permalink
So here’s what’s going to happen. There will be multiple, persisting, enterprise systems failures. The big old systems will get very strange.
These will not be fixed in a few hours, days, weeks. Some will take longer than a few months to repair. In some cases, the systems will be in chaos for a year or longer. This was the case with the DoD’s DSS.
I will be freezing my rates next year. Even though I have received requests from three clients for assistance and I could increase my rates or go with the highest bidder, I will divide my hours between the clients. Two are long time loyal clients who paid top dollar during the early 1990’s when there were lots of programmers and few jobs.
If we can keep the major systems running, we have a chance to keep everything from tipping over. I’m especially worried about banking (the three incidents at Chase, the Wells Fargo problem, and the problems at DeutchBank don’t help), insurance (problems with underwriting, renewals), and warehousing, order entry, bills of lading, all problems that we’ve seen in the SAP flubs.
I’m not that worried about embeddeds. I suspect that a lot of the embedded issue falls into the same category as microwave ovens and planes falling, that is to say, polly disinformation that escaped to the wild.
If there is an embedded problem, it would be in controllers in larger machines. I’ve seen old IBM AT’s and DEC Rainbows running microbiology lab instruments. If these fail soft, produce slightly incorrect results but keep running, people will die. I saw machines doing diagnosis, identifying micro organisms, and other life critical applications.
We’ll see. The embedded problem, if it is a problem, will happen fast and will be flashy. We’ll know in a week or two.
It’s the enterprise systems that will fail over months, corrupt databases, kill organizations, put people out of work. I’m worried about the big old systems. Some big systems run daily but most are weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annual jobs.
—Cory Hamasaki, Cory Hamasaki’s DC Y2K Weather Report, 12/31/99
Well, I was all ready for y2k......got my generator, got my woodburning stove, got my stores of food, got my batteries, etc. Despite family and friends laughing at me and telling me I was crazy for preparing, I persevered and prepared anyway. Now I’m TOTALLY EMBARRASSED!!
Y2K is absolutely NOTHING!! Not even a hitch in the so-called “backward” countries like Russia. Why did we fall for this hype?? Why did we allow the people like Ed Yourdon to talk us into being prepared for this Y2K “bug” when it wasn’t anything to get prepared about, to begin with?
I feel cheated, betrayed, misused, abused, deceived and everything else!! :( I could have done a LOT of “stuff” with all the money I spent on “preparations”. What a joke! The joke’s on me and those like me!! Thanks Ed Yourdon!!!
—Gullible, Time Bomb 2000 Forums (LUSENET), 12/31/99
