The Y2k Quiz (November 1998)

Tim Oxler, Year 2000 guru from St. Louis hasposted a set of 25 questions and answers concerning the Y2K problem on his web page at.Check them out, better still check out your Y2K consultants to see if they really knowtheir onions.

Hell will not break lose just on the 1^st of January 2000, several other dates are critical, some of which have already passed and wreaked their havoc already. For example way back in the 1970’s, many of those working with mainframe JCL used the parameter LABEL=RETPD=9999. To meant, "save forever" any output data tape being used and cataloged. What many failed to notice on the 16th August 1972 was that the retention period of 9,999 days expired and all Cataloged Tapes using this parameter expired, because 1972/08/16 was 9999 days before 2000/01/01. Much essential data was lost when this error occurred. A bit further in the future, on the first of July 2000 different problems may occur. This date will be, for many companies, the end of the first business week in the year 2000, and some programs (or will not) will run for the very first time on that Friday, in the company's Weekly batch processing. So the message is, do not breathe a big sigh of relief after January 1^st 2000 has passed, there are quite a few follow up dates when disaster could strike. Check them all out on http://www.teo-computer.com.