FREE ESSAY ON THE WAVE OF THE FUTURE

THE WAVE OF THE FUTURE

The wave of the future is drowning out very quickly. All the technology we have created
will bit the dust before the systems really are used. At the end of the century all
systems that have calendars to monitor systems or use calendars to show dates will shut
down all at once. Major electronic systems such as elevators, alarm systems, fax
machines, telephones, cars with computer systems will be nothing more than paper weights
or wall designs nothing more. For years computers and electronic equipment were
programmed to recognize a two digit year such as 98 for 1998. Consequently these systems
may not function correctly when a new year appear as to be a lower number than the
previous year, such as 00 for 2000. The year 2000 could be interpreted as 1900, causing
major errors, stoppages, and unpredictable results that can seriously impact a business.
The most electronically based operations would of the banking world were the date change
would effect anything from tyme accounts to interest balancing calculations. For example,
in a banking application, if the interest is calculated for a given period by subtracting
the years in two different dates, the code segment for above calculation will work if the
given dates are between 01-Jan-1900 & 31-DEC-1999. whereas, if the code is used to
calculate the difference between 01-Jan-1999 and 01-Jan-2000 the results will be
interpreted wrongly. How could the Year2000 Problem happen? this is the first question
asked by everyone who knows and hears of this problem. The Y2K problem has always been
there and programmers were aware of this problem for years. Since programmers thought
that the problem is to arise only after some decades, it was not given much importance.
Now Y2K crisis is on top of us, the issue is critical universally. From the discussion of
what is Y2K and how the problem arose,we are aware of the effect the problem will have.
From the technical point of view two things could happen because of Y2K bugs. The first
is that the system might crash . The programs will not be able to handle further
calculation related to dates with zeros stored in them and there will be system failure.
The system failure can be identified and can be rectified . The government has know about
this problem for some time now And has set up committees to solve the problem before its
too late, As a result of those committees, The Year 2000 Information and Readiness
Disclosure Act was created. The Year 2000 Information and Readiness Disclosure Act is
intended to promote the voluntary sharing of information needed to discover, avoid, or
fix problems with year 2000 calculations in our nation's software, computers, and
technology products. In all civil litigation including certain antitrust actions, the Act
limits the extent to which year 2000 statements can be the basis for liability and it
prevents certain evidentiary uses, against the maker, of a subset of such statements.
However, the Act ensures that only responsible, good faith information-sharing gets such
protection. It is difficult to locate the Year2000 Problem. So the second eventuality is
that the system will continue to perform various operations but the date calculations
might be improper while the program is getting executed. The second problem is, in a way,
more dangerous than the first because, before identification, the problem errors will
creep in the data. The data will be calculated over and over again with erroneous dates
and if the data of your system is provided to other systems then the effects of
miscalculated dates could be far reaching. The Act encourages the use of the Internet to
provide notice of all matters relating to year 2000 processing. In addition, the Act
protects against disclosure and use in civil actions year 2000 information voluntarily
provided to the government under a special data gathering request. Finally, the Act
creates a temporary exemption to the antitrust laws for sharing of year 2000 information,
unless it results in an actual agreement to boycott, allocate markets, or fix prices. Not
only will systems of everyday lives be affected, but the systems that save our lives
every day will too. the Department of Transportation led by poor management has only
upgrade 7 percent of its electronics. The DOT has only enough time to upgrade systems
that are critical to the U.S. population. But right now some systems in the U.S.
Government are guaranteed to crash and some will be immune to the change, the only
problem there is no telling which ones they are until it happens. Much of the 27 billion
dollar budget for the federal government is being used towards a solution ad labor for
fixing all the critical systems in the government. Most outside computers will be fixed
in time for a good year of testing, but the government won't be able to make that mark.
The military alone has over 1 million desktop and regular computers to fix, and officials
say that finding the people to do the labor is scarce. Also the Pentagon officials are
afraid that special weapons will crash or malfunction and go off. Repairing only the
critical systems isn't only going to help with weapons malfunctions. If a computer is
contaminated and some how interacts with a system that is fixed it can still pass on the
problem as if it was a virus. But only if the contaminated system is workable. Officials
and others that have come up with the solution are still skeptic as to wither their way
of fixing the problem will even work. IN this millennium the corrections are working and
holding strong, but they don't know if in the next millennium if it will hold or collapse
later on. So right now all they can do is fix the critical systems, work there way around
to other systems and hope that when January 1st 2000 comes there systems will survive.
But going around to all the systems and fixing there calendars and other related programs
is not the only solution to the 2000 bug. One strategy that has been on the back burner
is the fix-on-failure plan. This plan works only after the millennium hits and is like
playing Russian Roulette with five bullets in a six chamber gun. Of this strategy only
the main critical systems would be left on. The noncritical systems would be gracefully
shut down between now and December 31st 1999. But for others that have thousands of chips
that would needed to be replaced the fix-on-failure strategy works only because there is
not enough time or money to replace them. An estimate to complete a project like this is
two years and 20 to 40 million dollars. The failure rate on chips is a few per thousand,
but again you don't know which ones they are in less you test all of them. the
alternative is to wait and watch the systems crash in the new millennium. So what will
happen if a big company adopts this as a plan of action against the bug? A team of
computer technicians would have to be standing by with a box full of tools and a truck
load of chips to pounce on the problems as they occur. So what do you do with your own
2000 bug? Well for right now the only system you can fix at home is your home computer.
You can not fix a non carbureted car, phone, or microwave e.t.c. Right now the best plan
of action is to go on the internet and find a computer checking system that is floating
around the web. Then download it and see if your computer is going to crash. Most
programs are easy to download and install with little or no cost to the consumer. What
you do if your computer doesn't want to ring in the new millennium? Well if you like
taking things apart you can take your computer apart and try to reinstall a new BIOS
chip. This is the chip that stores basic information for your computer and has an
electronic calendar. But if that is not your cup of tea, then replacing the entire
circuit board that your BIOS chip is on is the next plan of action. But always consult a
professional first, if you mess up somewhere it may end up being more expensive than you
think. Another major computer glitch would be cars. Well anyone that owns a noncarbureted
system, which is just about all of us, are going to have problems. A car that is
noncarbureted means that it has a computer that runs the fuel in to the engine block. The
problem with those is the computer also remembers the last time it was tuned up and will
let the driver know when there is a mechanical problem or when it is time for its next
tune up by flashing the service engine soon light while the car is running. The calendar
also identifies years by the last two digits. So when 00 appears the computer will think
it is 1900 and that it was not been serviced in a 100 years. So to keep the systems from
damaging itself the car will just shut down until it is serviced again. Car that were
made before late 70's had the old system where you step on the gas pedal as you are
starting the car to run it. After the 70's car engineers designed a system that as you
turned the key a computer would inject the right amount of gas into the pistons
eliminating the ?flooding? problem of giving too much gas. Right now as far as my boss
and I the new 99's have been altered in the assembly line and have the new chips for the
millennium installed.
In conclusion the wave of the future in some ways will drown itself out while others
reach the beach. Some computer systems will survive the new beginning but others will
crash and if they are critical systems, will cause world wide chaos. But hope lures in
the dark because eventually the problem will be solved one way or another.