[Paddlewise] FW: Cars that DON'T crash when the millennium arrives!

Having made my first foray onto the list with a bold post, I now retract same.


Sheepishly (not really),
Ken Lalonde

-----Original Message-----
From:	Declan McCullagh [SMTP:declan_at_well.com]
Sent:	Wednesday, April 22, 1998 4:01 PM
To:	politech_at_vorlon.mit.edu
Subject:	FC: Cars that DON'T crash when the millennium arrives!

[The problem with April Fools jokes is that, as someone just wrote to me,
that they're no longer funny on May 1. Here's a quick followup and a
correction. --Declan]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 17:53:59 -0400
From: Chip Christian <chip_at_princetontele.com>
To: declan_at_well.com
Subject: Re: FC: Cars that crash when the millennium arrives 



Date: 17 Apr 1998 02:07:19 GMT
From: thompson_at_athenet.net (Paul Thompson)
Subject: Re: Y2K and the eagle talon (RISKS-19.68)

It seems the reports of Eagle Talon/Mitsubishi Eclipse ECU controller
failures was a little premature.  Or a late April Fool.  Here is the text of
the moderator's retraction available at

ftp://talon:eclipse_at_ftp.dsm.org/Archive/980415.txt

Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 12:00:01 -0700
>From: talon-owner_at_dsm.org
To: talon-digest_at_dsm.org
Subject:   Talon Digest for 04/15/98
Sender: owner-talon_at_dsm.org
Reply-To: talon_at_dsm.org

[Well, it looks like some of you took the Y2K thing a bit too seriously.
Being the computer geek I am, I sometimes forget what is common knowledge
and what is not.  I was just a little sick of the "me too" posts on the Y2K
thing and wanted to add a little DSM content.  By the time I was done, I
once again figured out a good prank for April 1 a few days too late (happens
to me every year).

I'm getting sick of the press overstating the Y2K problem.  They often
mention "planes falling from the sky" and "intersections with all lights
green".  As if there weren't a million other possible bugs in the software
that control these insanely complex systems that could cause problems, right
here, right now.  At my day job, we have to certify that we are "Year 2000"
compliant - huge amounts of paperwork - meanwhile, we have several other
bugs in our code that we *don't* need to sign paperwork about...  Just
doesn't make too much sense to me.  A bug is a bug - how come people don't
go around talking about stack overflow problems in the same tone of voice?

A lot of the problems surrounding Y2K problems involve the abbreviation of
the year 19xx into just xx.  Bytes don't overflow at 100 or 2000.  They
overflow at 256 or 65536, etc.  Almost all computers since the invention of
Unix seem to mark time as some number of seconds past a baseline like 1970
or 1980.  These systems don't overflow years at nice round numbers - a lot
of the Microsoft DOS stuff will roll at 2036 or 2047.

As far as I know, there are currently *no* ECUs on the market that keep
track of time.  Most of them keep track of mileage if they are trying to
stamp the error codes, or maybe seconds elapsed since car started.  The
problem is that the ECU could never have any concept of what time it really
is unless the driver could update it somewhere.  Also, I have yet to see a
PC clock that didn't lose less than 3 seconds/day.  Given the temperature
extremes inside a car, I don't think it could be done easily.  Even at a
conservative 3 secs/day, you'd be +/- 3 hours at the end of ten years.  Not
really useful except for relative time.

I thought the placement of the article after a Mac/Tandy love- note would
tip people to the comment being phony.  I guess my pointing it out at the
top of the digest kinda backfired (no pun intended).  Sorry if I scared
anyone...

Best comment received: Someone wondering when the Galant VR4s
would roll since they were built in Japan...

-talon mgr]



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