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The Y2K Bug And A Few Other Worries The Year 2000 bug is not the only bug that computer users have to worry about as we approach the end of the millennium. There are other problems lurking in the background as well. By BOB DYBALL & GREG SWAIN Suppose someone mentioned these dates: 1st January 1999, 21st August 1999, 29th February 2000, 1st July 2000 and 18th January 2038? Would they mean anything to you? No? –then how about an easy one? What about the 31st December 1999? Of course, the latter will immediately evoke a response. It’s the end of the century and the end of the millennium; a time for parties and revelry. OK purists, the 31st December 2000 is really the end of the millennium (not 31st December 1999) but guess when the big party is going to be held. The rollover from the year 1999 to the year 4  Silicon Chip 2000 seems far more significant than from 2000 to 2001, so let’s not be too pedantic. It will also be far more significant to those who own and operate computers. The concern is that not all computers will continue to operate correctly when the year 2000 ticks over, due to hardware and/or software limitations. Indeed, if you listened to some of the doom and gloom merchants, you could be forgiven for wondering if the Earth will stop spinning at midnight of the 31st December, 1999. Certainly, if you work as a computer programmer, you could well be left wondering if the patches you’ve put in place in the computer system will do the job when the year 2000 ticks over. Some IT (information technology) workers in critical industries may even have to remain at work on 31st December 1999 to monitor the rollover, just in case problems are encountered. However, there are a few other dates that are likely to cause problems as we approach the year 2000 and in the years immediately afterwards. Let’s find out what those dates are and what effect they might have on our computer systems. 1st January 1999 The first critical date that might cause problems is 1st January 1999. Yes that’s right, 1999! This year sees the introduction of a new currency – the “Euro” – in the European Union, although the coins and notes aren’t due for release until 2002. If you deal with Europe or European currencies and need to handle the Euro, then you may have to upgrade your software to handle this new currency. This could include both your operating system, plus other software such as spreadsheets, accountancy packages and even word processors. According to Microsoft’s website, Windows 98 already has support for the Euro and Windows NT5 will have it when it’s finally released. Meanwhile, users with NT4 can update using the “NT4 Service Pack 4” or the “NT4 Euro Update Pack”. Windows 95 users should also check the Micro­soft website for a special update patch. In addition, replacements for the Comic Sans MS and Monotype.com fonts with the Euro symbol, as well as some of the more common True Type fonts (Arial, Courier New and Times New Roman), are available by following the links from the Euro section of Microsoft’s website. Registered MS Office users may also download an updated Euro-ready Tahoma font. However, even if you have the correct fonts, this won’t make your software work in Euros. Check with your software supplier to find out what will best suit your needs or whether you can upgrade existing software. But do you really need to update? As with most things, look before you leap. If you don’t deal in Euros, then there’s no need to act. Instead, you can wait and take care of the problem as your software is progressively upgraded in the normal manner. As a matter of interest, estimates of costs to companies and banks in Europe range from 25% of the year Fig.1: Microsoft’s year 2000 website includes detailed compliance information on operating systems and applications. It also includes Y2K fixes that can be downloaded and applied to problem programs. Fig.2: the Microsoft year 2000 web site has links to numerous “Year 2000 Tools” that can be used to assess Microsoft products. There are also links to numerous third party suppliers with Y2K diagnostic utilities, some of which can be downloaded for free. 2000 costs to as much as two or three times the cost of year 2000 conversion. 21st August 1999 What’s the significance of this seemingly innocuous date? Well, this date is the week zero rollover for GPS Fig.3: Dell’s website has some excellent material on the Y2K problem. There’s a complete product list of Dell machines, a number of Y2K test tools that can be downloaded, and a several easy-to-follow articles on the Y2K problem. navigation sys­tems. In greater detail, the 21st August 1999 is the last day of week 1023 of the GPS system. However, the system was only de­signed to count from 0 to 1023 in the first place. This means that on the 22nd August 1999, the Fig.4: if you have a Dell computer, you can check its Y2K status and, if necessary, download a BIOS update or software patch. January 1999  5 What About Apple Computers? If you’ve got an Apple Mac, you can afford to be a little smug here. According to Apple, the Mac OS (operating system) has always correctly handled dates between 1st January 1904 and 6th February 2040. What’s more, the current Mac OS date and time utilities correctly handle dates between 30,081 BC and 29,940 AD. Apple also state that all applications which use the Mac OS date and time utilities will have no problems when the year 2000 rolls around. However, there could be GPS satellites will be broad­ casting that it is week 0. Some GPS ground systems will just stop working, having severe problems with the rollover. Others may need only a simple modification, often back at the factory, to make sure that they continue working properly and display 22nd August 1999 instead of 6th January 1980, or something worse. Most GPS systems made over the last couple of years should have no problems but be sure to check with your supplier that yours will work properly. If you have a GPS mapping system for your computer, it might also pay to check with the supplier (as well as the supplier of the GPS) for any updates. 9th September 1999: 9/9/99 This could be a real sleeper in some applications. That’s because software writers occasionally used 9/9/99 to indicate unknown information. Basically, this was a date that was never supposed to happen during the life of the program. It means that some applica­tions will fail before the year 2000 is reached. 31st December 1999: Y2K Bug Given the publicity, there must be few people who haven’t heard the “Year 2000 Bug”, also known as the “Millennium Bug” and the “Y2K Bug”. It refers to the fact that many computer systems will not roll over correctly from 31st December 1999 to 1st Janu­ary 2000, but will roll over to 1900 or 1980 instead. The older the computer, the more 6  Silicon Chip problems with applica­tions that don’t do this. Once again, it’s best to check with the company that supplies the software. One issue affecting the Apple Mac is that the Date and Time control panel only allows the year to be set in the range from 19202019. However, it’s possible to set dates beyond 2019 using the SetDateTime toolbox. There are a few other issues and owners are best advised to visit the Apple website for further details. likely it is that it has the Y2K bug. Many applications will break down as well and again, the older the application, the more likely it is that it will suffer year 2000 problems. So how did it begin? Basically, the problem can be traced back to the early days of computing and the practice of using only two digits to represent the year. That practice, possibly introduced to save storage space, was Embedded Controllers It’s not only computers that could strike problems in the year 2000. Many of today’s so-called “high-tech.” systems contain embedded controllers and these are commonly used in medical equipment, car computers, traffic lights, industrial process control, office equipment, PABXs, airconditioning plants, build­ing access controls and alarm systems, to name just a few. Of course, only some of these controllers are date depend­ent but those that are could cause problems in the year 2000 if not replaced or modified. The effects, of course, will depend on the equipment. In some cases, the equipment will continue to operate normally (although it will report the wrong date) but in other cases, the equipment could malfunction or cease working altogether. subsequently carried over into the age of the PC. If you “dig down” into the hardware of a PC, you’ll find a real-time clock (RTC) chip. This RTC keeps track of the time and date and updates the CMOS memory which is backed up by an onboard battery when the machine is off. The year information in the CMOS is passed on to the system BIOS in 2-digit format each time the machine boots. What happens is that the BIOS receives the 2-digit count from the RTC, adds this to 1980 (Microsoft’s base date) and stores the year as four digits (eg, 1980 + 18 = 1998). This all works fine until we get to the year 2000. At this point, the RTC rolls the year from 99 to 00 but the century field remains fixed at 19. As a result, the RTC rolls over to 1st January 1900 instead of 1st January 2000. The next step depends on the system BIOS itself or more specifically, on what type of BIOS is built into the PC. When the machine is rebooted, some BIOSes will simply reflect what is in the system clock and will show 0101-1900. Other BIOSes will interpret year 00 as 01-01-1980. As a result, the system rolls over from either 1999 to 1980 or from 1999 to 1900. However, there’s a complicating factor. Microsoft operating systems (Windows and DOS 6.22) don’t recognise 1900 as a valid date. Instead, when the operating system boots, it automatically resets the system clock to 4th January 1980; or at least, this is what happens with DOS 6.22, Windows 3.1x and Windows 95. Windows 98, Windows NT 3.51 (Service Pack 5) and Windows NT 4 behave differently. According to Microsoft, these operating systems include a BIOS “fix” which automatically resets the year 1900 to 2000. However, some BIOSes will revert to 1900 every time the system reboots. In that case, Microsoft’s BIOS fix will only work until the year 2001 is reached. When that happens and the system BIOS rolls over to 1901, the fix will not work and the operating system will revert to 1980. Now let’s inject an air of reality here. Generally, it’s older machines that have BIOSes with this type of problem. You’re not likely to be running Windows NT or Windows 98 on a 486 and if you are, it’s probably time for an upgrade anyway. Check Out These Websites The Year 2000 Problem www.mi crosoft.com/year2000/ Mi crosoft's year 2000 websi te. Lots of information on operating systems and appli cations plus numerous links to various dianosti c utili ti es, etc. www.novel l.com/year2000/ Information on Novell products and Y2K compatibi li ty. www.year2000.com Lots of i nformation on the Y2K probl em plus links to manufacturers. www.y2k.gov.au/ The NSW Government's year 2000 information websi te. Lots of information plus links to other state government websi tes and the Commonweal th Government's websi te. www.sba.gov/y2k/ Year 2000 website for the US Government Small Business Administration. www.bug2000.co.uk The Bri tish Government's Action 2000 websi te. www.garynorth.com/ The Year The Earth Stands Stil l - an interesting vi ewpoint on the year 2000 problem. Read i t wyou're sti ll compl acent. Some Use ufl Y2K Diagnostic Utilities www.ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/saphena/year2000/ Saphena Computing's DOSCHK.EXE diagnosti c utili ty. www.precise.co.uk/T2000.htm Preci se Publi shing's Y2000RTC.zip diagnosti c uti li ty. www.nstl.com/html /nstl_ymark2000.htm NSTL's YMARK2000 diagnosti c utili ty. www.RighTime.com RighTime's Test2000 diagnosti c utili ty. Computers Suppliers & Y2K Lets you check your Dell system for compliance. Bi os updates and dri vers can be downloaded wnecessary. www.del l /com/ap/au/year2000/index.htm www.gateway.com/year2000/ www.ibm.com/IBM/year2000/ www.compaq.com/year2000/ Euro Information www.europa.eu.int/euro European Union's official Euro websi te. www.mi crosoft.com/euro Mi crosoft's Euro websi te. www.bitstream.com/news/what/pi Bitstream Fonts Euro websi te. Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) Navigation System www.amsa.gov.au/ns/dgps/eow.htm Austral ian Mari time Safety Authori ty. www.navcen.uscg.mil /gps/geninfo/y2k/defaul t.htm GPS date rollover issues pl us a list of GPS manufacturers. www.navcen.uscg.mil US Coast Guard Navi gation Information Centre. Donating Old PCs To Schools www.typequick.com.au Note that if a non-compliant machine is left running during the rollover, the DOS date will be updated correctly to 01-01-2000. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that all applica­tions will work correctly. Some applications take the date from the BIOS rather than from the operating system. Typequick's link to put business in contact wi th school s that need PCs. What’s more, if the BIOS date reverts to 01-01-1900 or 01-01-1980, the operating system date will also be incorrect when the machine is next booted. However, if you manually correct the date in the CMOS setup, many machines will maintain the correct setting from that point on and even re-booting will not cause any problems. The Award 4.50g BIOS can pose particular problems. Some versions of this BIOS will not allow any year that’s less than “94”, which means that 1900 becomes 1994 and 2000, 2001, 2002, etc become 2094. This January 1999  7 Fig.5: DOSCHK.EXE is a small utility that can automatically test your PC for Y2K compliance. It starts by saving the current date and time, then resets the time to 5 seconds before midnight on 31/12/1999. Fig.6: next, the program counts down to midnight on 31/12/1999. An on-screen display shows the progress. Fig.7: finally, the program displays the results and offers advice on a fix. As can be seen, this PC has gone back to 1900-01-01. means that the machine will roll over from 1999 to 1994 and you cannot correct the situation by manually resetting the BIOS clock. Although many RTCs in recent machines are still technically non-compliant, a “fix” is incorporated into the BIOS to overcome the Y2K problem. Basically, the BIOS corrects the date in the CMOS at bootup time and this is subsequently passed on to the operating system. Most (but not all) of the later Pentium ma­chines fall into this category and so will correctly roll-over to the year 2000. In greater detail, the CMOS RTC almost always fails to increment from 1999 to 2000 (except for the very latest RTCs) but this usually doesn’t matter – very few programs access it direct­ly (and these would now usually be considered obsolete). What does matter is that the BIOS fixes the problem so that 8  Silicon Chip both the BIOS and operating system dates are correct. Testing your system So how can you check to see if your system rolls over to the year 2000 correctly? Again look before you leap; if you rush in and change the date and time on your PC to a few minutes before the year 2000, there could be unforeseen consequences. For example, if you have a program that is only registered for a certain period of time, it may stop working. In addition, anything that schedules events, including e-mail delivery, could cause lots of problems. Even year 2000 compliant applications could cause problems if you move the clock forward to the year 2000, run the program, then change the clock back again. The best way to test your system is to use a bootable floppy disc (created using DOS 6.22 or later). That way, you can avoid writing any information to the hard disc, which may alter vital files. Make sure that the machine on which you create the bootable floppy is clean of viruses, then change the boot order in your BIOS (CMOS) setup to A: C: (normally it should be on C: A: or C: only, to prevent accidental infection if a virus-infected disc is left in the A: drive). Although not considered totally reliable, a manual check can give a good indication as to how your system will behave when the year 2000 ticks over. The basic procedure involves setting the system clock to one minute before midnight on 31/12/1999 and then observing what happens when the system rolls over into the year 2000. However, to properly determine the system’s be­haviour, you need to test two conditions: (1) what happens if the machine is switched off during the rollo­ver; and (2) what happens if the machine is left switched on during the rollover and then rebooted. First, boot from the floppy disc to the A: prompt and change the date and time to one minute before midnight on the December 31st 1999. You do this by first typing “date” (without the inverted commas) at the A: prompt and then typing in the new date (ie, 12-31-1999). This done, type “time” and change the time to 23:59. Note that this procedure not only changes the operating system clock but also changes the date and time in the BIOS and RTC as well. Now turn the PC off, wait a couple of minutes, then switch the machine back on and check the date, day and time in the BIOS (ie, CMOS) setup. PCs with non-compliant BIOSes will usually drop back to 01-01-1980 or to 01-01-1900 but some will go to 01-01-1994. Now exit the BIOS setup without making any changes, boot from the floppy disc and check the date – just type “date” (without the inverted commas) at the DOS prompt and hit the Enter key. If the BIOS previously indicated 01-01-1980, then this date will also be shown when you type “date” at the DOS prompt. However, if the BIOS previously reverted to 0101-1900, DOS 6.22 will change this to 4th January 1980 (04/01/1980). You can now check to see what Fig.8: Y2000RTC is another free diagnostic utility. You can either run Y2000.exe from DOS or Y2000W.EXE from Windows 3.1x or Windows 95/98. These three screen grabs show the test results from a typical 486 PC. happens when the machine is left on. Once again, boot from the floppy, change the date and time to a couple of minutes before midnight on 31st December 1999 and leave the machine running during the rollover. Now reboot the machine and check the date. If the machine is non-compliant, you will find that the DOS date will be incorrect after the reboot. Assuming a non-compliant system, try manually setting the date to the year 2000 (eg, 1/1/2000) in the BIOS setup, then switch the PC off and reboot from the floppy disc. Recheck the date in the BIOS setup, then allow the machine to boot to the A: prompt and check it again. If the year is still 2000, this means that you should only have to reboot the PC and manually alter the date in the BIOS setup once when the year 2000 arrives. After that, the machine should be OK. Finally, don’t forget to reset the date C-Time Rollover Talk to anyone with Unix, or a Unix related system, and they’ll probably be laughing while we PC and Windows users are sorting out the Y2K problem. Why? Well they usually (but not always) write software using a special date/time library (CTIME), in which dates start from 1970 and don’t run out until 18th January 2038. After that, they have a real problem, because the date resets to 1970 again! People using Unix can still have problems, as their appli­ cations might deal with dates in a 2-digit manner – so not all of them will be laughing at us. and time to the correct values before booting from the hard disc. TSRs & BIOS cards As indicated previously, some machines can revert to the year 1900 each time they are turned on. The only way around this problem is a BIOS upgrade, a TSR “fixup” routine or a new mother­board (it’s probably time to upgrade anyway). A TSR (terminate and stay resident) patch is basically a software routine that’s loaded via the autoexec.bat file when the machine boots. In operation, the TSR fix checks the date in the BIOS and applies a correction if a date prior to 1980 is returned. A TSR isn’t exactly foolproof though and might not work with some programs. It will also be lost if you reformat the hard disc drive (unless you remember to reinstall it), or can be inadvertently bypassed if you boot from a floppy disc or CD ROM. Alternatively, an add-on BIOS card which plugs into an expansion slot on the motherboard can be used to solve the problem in most machines. Its advantage is that the fix is permanent but it costs more than a TSR fix. Basically, the add-on card acts as an extension to the existing BIOS. It works by changing the century register in the RTC to 20 if a value of less than 80 is returned from the year register. However, as with TSR fixes, a BIOS card might not work with some programs. If your motherboard has flash BIOS, you may be able to download and upgrade the BIOS yourself. Just be sure to get the correct BIOS for your particular motherboard from the man­ufacturer’s web site. A word of warning, though – updating the BIOS is not a job for the novice. If you make a mess of things, you could end up with a machine that won’t boot. Another approach is to replace the BIOS chip itself. However, that may only be feasible if your machine is less than two or three years old. Test software A more reliable (and easier) way of testing your machine is to use one of the many commercial software packages that are now available. “Check How To Manually Test Your PC For The Year 2000 Step 1: Boot from a floppy disc created using DOS 6.22 or later. Step 2: type “date” (without the inverted commas) and change the date to 31-121999. Step 3: type “time” and change the time to 23:59 (ie, to one minute before midnight). Step 4: switch off, wait for two minutes, then reapply power and enter the BIOS setup. Check the date. If the year isn’t 2000, then your machine is non-compliant. Step 5: exit the BIOS setup without saving and allow the machine to boot from the floppy disc. Step 6: type “date”. Machines with non-compliant BIOSes will usually show either January 1st 1980 or January 4th 1980. Step 7: Reset the date and time to the correct values. January 1999  9 Fig.9: File Manager will display a garbled year for files created on or after 1st January 2000 if your version of winfile.exe is dated earlier than 11/3/97. A fix is available from Microsoft but be sure to download the correct version for your operating system. 2000 PC” from Greenwich Mean Time is one such example. This comprehensive package not only checks your PC for year 2000 compliance but can also fix any BIOS problems it does find using a BIOS fix utility (for most BIOS types, that is). It can also scan your applications and data files and offer advice on fixing any problems. Other commercial Y2K auditing tools include McAfee 2000 Toolbox, OnMark 2000 Access, Norton 2000 and Express 2000 Suite. There are also lots of utilities available on the Internet for checking whether your computer will correctly roll over to the year 2000. Many of these are free for personal use and are quick and easy to use. As well as checking for year 2000 rollo­ver, many check other critical dates as well. One example is “DOSCHK.EXE” from Saphena Computing in the UK. The archived file can be downloaded from their website in less than a minute (see table for website address) and you simply copy the unzipped files to a directory on your boot floppy before running the program. Basically, the program takes the tedium out of having to manually reset the time and date and reboot the computer on several occasions. It’s also more comprehensive than the manual reboot test, since it separately tests the RTC, the BIOS and the operating system. A panel summarises the results at the end of the test (see Fig.7). Do You Really Have To Fix Year 2000 Problems? If you only use your PC at home to play games and/or for letter writing, you probably don't really need to worry about the Y2K problem. On the other hand, if the PC is used in business and to run date sensitive applications, then you really must take action to ensure Y2K compliance. If you don’t, you can run into all sorts of problems, particularly with accountancy, payroll, database and spreadsheet applications. In fact, the impact of non-compliant systems and applications 10  Silicon Chip on businesses could be extremely serious. Many businesses rely on the integrity of their data to function correctly and, unless Y2K problems are fixed, could lose money and even end up with financial difficulties. There are also the legal aspects to consider. In fact, this is a potential minefield that ranges all the way from companies taking action against suppliers to shareholders taking action against company directors that fail to adequately address Y2K issues. Another interesting millennium checker is Y2000RTC from Precise Publishing, another UK company. You can download Y2000rtc.zip (around 90KB) from their website and, after unzip­ping, run Y2000.exe from DOS or Y2000W.EXE from Windows 3.1x or Windows 95/98. Fig.8 shows the test results from a typical 486 PC. If problems are discovered, you can install a driver file which, according to Precise Publishing, solves the problem by correcting the RTC. Precise Publishing even state that it can fix the “94” problem associated with Award 4.50G BIOSes. This driver file isn’t included in the free test program but has to be purchased separately. YMARK2000 from NSTL (USA) is also well worth downloading. This interesting utility does more than just check the year 2000 rollover. It also checks for correct leap year support for the years from 2000-2009 and checks the RTC for compatibility with the Motorola MC146818 chip (if the RTC isn’t compatible, non-DOS operating systems and programs that read the clock directly may fail). In addition, YMARK2000 checks to see if the date can be set manually if the rollover to the year 2000 fails. By the way, all the above diagnostic programs test the RTC, which invariably fails except on the very latest machines. Howev­ e r, as discussed above, the CMOS RTC date is unimportant unless you have one of those rare programs that accesses it directly. It is the BIOS date that really matters. Yet another interesting diagnostic program is Test2000 from RighTime in Miami. This program first carries out a real-time BIOS rollover test. It then resets the date to 29-02-2000 and reboots the machine to see if valid year 2000 BIOS dates are retained (the BIOS retention test). The results are shown on-screen and are also written to a text file called Test2000.tst on the root directory of the hard disc. If the machine is non-compliant, Test2000.tst indicates whether the problem can be fixed using a proprietary utility program (Y2KPCPro). 29th February 2000 The year 2000 is a leap year but apparently not all systems or applications will recognise it as such and will miss the day altogether. Such systems will incorrectly roll from 28th February 2000 to 1st March 2000. The reason for this confusion is that the year 2000 is a special case that occurs once in every 400 years. The rule is that a year is a leap year if it is divisible by four but not by 100. However, there is an exception – if the year can be divided by 400, then it is a leap year. Confused? Let’s look at the year 1900. This is divisible by four and by 100 but not by 400, so it wasn’t a leap year. Howev­er, the year 2000 is divisible by 400, so it is a leap year. As a result, many sources suggest that the system be checked to ensure that it rolls correctly from the 28th to the 29th February 2000 and from there to 1st March 2000. In fact, most year 2000 diagnostic utilities automatically check the system to ensure that the leap year will be handled correctly. That said, there’s a wealth of opinion that states that the leap year problem doesn’t exist since the standard RTC automatically provides for a leap year if the year is divisible by four. This means that the year 2000 will be correctly interpreted as a leap year but it won’t hurt to check anyway. Y2K web sites There’s a wealth of information on the World Wide Web on the Y2K problem and it’s well worth visiting some of the sites listed in the accompanying panel. In addition, you will be able to obtain a list of other suspect dates. It’s also a good idea to check out the web sites for your BIOS supplier and your computer (and/or motherboard) supplier. They will have tested many more dates and times than you would normally be able to check and may have patches or BIOS updates available for older PCs. One site that’s well worth checking out is www.microsoft.com/year2000 This large site hosts detailed infor­ mation on Microsoft operating systems and applications and in­cludes Y2K fixes that you can download and apply to any problem programs. It also has links to year 2000 “White Papers”, a sec­ tion with frequently asked questions (FAQs), and links to exter­nal suppliers and companies offering Y2K diagnostic utilities. Yo u s h o u l d a l s o c h e c k o u t www.year2000.com and the NSW Government’s site at www.y2k. gov.au If, after all this, you still feel complacent about the prob- Year 2000 BIOS Card From Microgram Computers: All You Have To Do Is Plug It In The “FIX-IT 2000/CI-5050 Millennium Card” from Microgram Computers is designed to solve the year 2000 rollover problem in PCs with non-compliant BIOSes. It features it’s own real time clock (RTC) and an enhanced BIOS chip to ensure that the year 2000 rolls around correctly. The card is easy to install – it simply plugs into a spare ISA slot on your PC’s motherboard. Onboard jumpers allow you to set the I/O port and ROM BIOS addresses but in most cases the default settings will be OK. A nifty feature is an on-board lem, check out Gary North’s site: www.garynorth.com Operating systems Fortunately, Microsoft’s operating systems are either year 2000 compliant or compliant with minor issues. They all store and manipulate dates in 4-digit formats and all correctly recognise 2000 as a leap year. What this means is that Microsoft operating systems won’t break down when the year 2000 rolls around, although you may discover a few CMOS backup facility. This allows you to save the CMOS settings from the motherboard and restore them later if necessary. The settings may either be restored manually or automatically each time the system is powered up. This is designed to overcome corruption of the CMOS settings, either due to viruses or end-user mistakes. The FIX-IT 2000/CI-5050 Millennium Card costs $129 (incl. tax) and is available from Microgram Computers, Unit 1, 14 Bon Mace Close, Berkley Vale 2261. Phone (02) 4389 8444; fax (02) 4389 8388; or email sales<at>mgram.com.au. quirks. For example, the File Manager included with Windows 3.1x, Windows For Workgroups and the early releases of Windows 95 will display a garbled year for files created on or after 1st January 2000. The year 2000, for example, displays as 19:0, while 2020 displays as 19<0. Note, however, that these are only display artefacts; the underlying system date is handled correctly. Basically, your File Manager will have the garbled date problem if your winfile.exe file is dated earlier January 1999  11 There’s Lots More To The Year 2000 Problem! This article is intended as a general guide to the Year 2000 problem only and is by no means exhaustive. Because of the wide variations that exist in computer hardware, operating systems and applications, it is impossible to offer specific advice that covers all situations. If you are involved in any sort of business that operates computers, then you cannot afford to ignore the year 2000 prob­lem. In particular, it’s vital that you seek than 11/3/97. A fix is available from the Microsoft year 2000 website – just be sure to download the correct version for your operating system, as follows: w31filup.exe for Windows 3.1x, wfwfilup.exe for Windows For Workgroups, and w95filup.exe for Windows 95. Even Windows NT Workstation 4.0 has some quirks and various fixes are available. However, the problems are all of a minor nature and most users won’t even notice them. What ever your operating system, visit the manufacturer’s web site and check out the details for yourself. Applications This is where the fun really begins. Just because your hardware is Y2K compliant, it doesn’t mean that your applications will behave as expected. professional help in overcoming year 2000 problems and that all systems and applica­ t ions be thoroughly tested well before 2000 rolls around. Please note that Silicon Chip Publications Pty Ltd makes no claims as to the reliability or completeness of the various test procedures described in this article. Nor do we make any repre­sent­ ations regarding the suitability of the diagnostics utilities referred to for your particular situation. In particular, applications that specify the year using just two digits can cause problems and that par­ticularly applies to spreadsheet, accountancy, payroll and data­base programs. As an example, if a date in a spread­ sheet is specified as 21/10/27, how is this interpreted? Is the year 1927 or 2027? It all depends on the application but the wrong result could easily make a mess of superannuation calculations or of any calculations that rely on future projections. In fact, a file can even give different results when opened in different versions of the same application. It’s important to ensure that your applications are year 2000 compatible and that the data is interpreted correctly. Many spreadsheet and data­ base programs rely on Windows itself to set the default date display format. Fig.10: many applications rely on Windows itself to set the default date display format. For this reason, it’s a good idea to set the Windows short-date display to “d/MM/yyyy” via the Regional Settings applet in the Control Panel. 12  Silicon Chip For this reason, it’s advisable to set the Windows short-date display to “d/MM/yyyy” using the Regional Settings applet in Control Panel – see Fig.10. Check with the software supplier. Do they have a certificate of compliance or some other guarantee that your software will work correctly? Do you need to upgrade? Answers to these questions are best provided by the company that produced the software. Once again, check the manufacturer’s web site for Y2K information; it may be possible to make your software compli­ant by downloading and applying patches. Often, however, it will be better to upgrade your applications to the latest versions and apply any patches (if necessary) from there, particularly for applications that are used in business. What if things don’t comply? If you’re running outdated software on an old 486 machine, it’s probably best to go for a completely new system. You might even consider donating the old 486 to a school so that students can learn valuable computer skills. The Typequick website (see panel), includes a link to help you get in touch with schools that are interested in receiving “retired” PCs. It’s not sufficient just to bring individual computers and applications up to speed. If you are in business, you must con­ sider what happens when you exchange data with others, either via a local network, via email or by some other means. You also have to consider what happens if you exchange data between different applications. Look out for all the small things –things like third party add-ons, mac­ ros and formulae in spreadsheets and other applications. These can all have problems, especially if you’ve been using a 2-digit year format. They can even cause problems with applications that are, by themselves, year 2000 compliant. Finally, it’s important to realise that there’s no magic cure-all for the Y2K problem. Each site must be tested on its own merits and the appropriate solutions implemented. But even though most of the problems are wellknown, not many of the thousands of individuals specialising in the Y2K problem will give a 100% guarantee that their solu­tions will work without SC any hiccups.