Despite being a regular reader of this forum (well, not every single thread and post), I seem to have missed the gist of the OS/390 problem. Can someone explain it in 25 words, more or less?

-- Pearlie Sweetcake (storestuff@home.now), September 01, 1999

Answers

I'll try an analogy.

You have a 6 room house. You paint it once a year, 1 room at a time. It takes 2 months to paint 1 room. This December paint all 6, 1 room at a time.

-- MoVe Immediate (MVI@aol.com), September 01, 1999.

The gist seems to be

1. Y2K updates are still coming out for a commonly used mainframe operating system. Many (most?) customers do not apply these patches when they are released, since they don't automatically trust them. So they wait for a few months to see if other have any problems. So we have lots of mainframes out there with some level of Y2K problem.
2. This specific patch has something to do with a particular configuation of the OS. So perhaps it hits a broad category of sites. The details are opaque to me too (and I'm a programmer!)

-- You Know... (notme@nothere.com), September 02, 1999.

* * * 19990902 Thursday

The "gist," Pearlie:

"We've installed and tested X-number IBM "Y2K compliant" OSes over the last several years--finding Y2K "show-stopping" defects _for_ IBM at OUR OWN EXPENSE. When will ALL the Y2K defects be purged and the OS/390 reliable?"

"You Know":

You need more IT experience in the "real world," You Know?

Regards, Bob Mangus

* * *

-- Robert Mangus (rmangus@hotmail.com), September 02, 1999.

Thanks, guys.

-- Pearlie Sweetcake (storestuff@home.now), September 02, 1999.