Somewhere I read that next year's calendar is the same as 1972, which was also a Leap Year, as will be next year. If we set our computers and VCRs to 1971 New Year's Eve, would we keep these items from crashing at the BIG MIDNIGHT MOMENT??? Granny Holly

-- Hollaine Allen (Holly3325@juno.com), May 13, 1999

Answers

Hello Granny Holly,

Seems reasonable to me... the question is "will the TV stations be able to broadcast?" for you to record anything.

I guess you can play tapes if they can't and the power stays on.

Mike ====================================================================

-- Michael Taylor (mtdesign3@aol.com), May 13, 1999.

1972 might work for some isolated computers, but how is that going to work for the computer that figures your pension. It will think that you are not old enough to retire. The phone company will think that your call started in 1999 and end in 1972 (huhhh). Billing is a major aspect of running a business... Embedded chips... can they be turned back? Do "they" know where all of them reside? Will the computers even accept a date that old?

www.y2kkitchen.com

-- Sally Strackbein (sally@y2kkitchen.com), May 13, 1999.

We will probably do that with our home PC, but I do not expect businesses to get away with that. It will be interesting to see how much we can do at home by doing a date change.

-- winna (??@??.com), May 13, 1999.

many PC's will not accept a date prior to 1980 due to a quirk in the original BIOS. Better check your PC before you start to depend on this solution......

-- helium (heliumavid@yahoo.com), May 13, 1999.

I just tried this with my home PC and first off it kept trying to crash on me. Then I finally got the date set to I thought 1972 since I went backwards and then the date appeared as 2072 but it did work, I think...wonder what happened to 1972? not on here...

-- shellie (shellie01@hotmail.com), May 13, 1999.

well kept playing with it and anything below 1980 shows up as 20..not 19 don't know if it really hurt anything on here though. But then I am not a business..anyone know why it is doing that? Will businesses have the same problem?

-- shellie (shellie01@hotmail.com), May 13, 1999.

ok well nope it didn't work at all now i am having trouble. just restored my registry and all...dammit won't be doing that again...anyone else have luck with this or am I the only one who tried it?

-- shellie (shellie01@hotmail.com), May 13, 1999.

Shellie - your experience is why they will have problems - not all serious, not all catastrophic, some minor, some meaningless - and one or two (or four or five, or four or five hundred, or four or five thousand....) that will simply and completely shut them down until correctly traced down, eliminated, and reprogrammed.

By which time, we hope they can remain in business. And their employees remain employed. And their suppliers remain viable, and their customers able to stay in service with somebody else.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), May 13, 1999.

Robert,

I see your point...and all this time i thought it really sounded like it might work as a temporary fix. What a mess. --shellie

-- shellie (shellie01@hotmail.com), May 14, 1999.