Why wasn't Wall Street's effort to remediate systems a failure in late March/early April? Is y2k inhrently trivial and/or solvable? How did they get all those interfacing systems, platforms, etc. to continue flawlessly, and in the midst of NY State's fiscal year rollover to boot? Was that nonevent a more accurate picture of what we will experience in "00? I don't buy the Establishment spin, I'm a preparer, I "get it" but I think we should all find out how they did it before going much further. Anyone with first-hand knowledge from the trenches on that one? --Ben

-- Ben Corson (bcorson@dmi.net), October 30, 1999

Answers

60 days,we'll wait and see

-- zoobie (zoobiezoob@yahoo.com), November 01, 1999.

Before I give up on this question, may I request input from Ed or perhaps Jennifer? If Jennifer was still working with the investment & securities firm on the Street last March & April, could she have some first-hand knowledge on this, or at least some good second-hand skinny from people fixing code at that time? Did these guys "window" everything, is that how they patched things together? Is that what passes for remediation throughout our society? Is it gonna hold? I appreciate your response, Zoobie, but I'd like to know more now than just waiting for 60 days.

-- Ben Corson (bcorson@dmi.net), November 01, 1999.

Ben,

Back in the 80s when the NYSE converted from paper to electronics, they spent a great deal of money and many weekends converting one by one each of their stands. There was a crane which would lower the prefabricated computers and screens through a huge window they removed for the purpose. I think they were able to convert two per weekend. After a year (or maybe less), they were done.

I'm sure that they have upgraded since, but the conversion from paper to computers meant that volume could run from 28,000,000 shares on a heavy day of trading in 1982 to 600,000,000 shares today.

This is probably now being dwarfed by the after hours and online trading, but the short answer is, they paid for it.

-- nothere nothere (notherethere@hotmail.com), November 05, 1999.

Nothere--Thank you, that's some interesting info. So then either the '80's installs or their subsequent upgrades were/are compliant? Key question is, is Wall Street in any way indicative of the whole economy regarding Y2k, or is it an exception? Was/is the Street uniquely pre-prepared for the rollover by these large prefab systems already being more or less compliant, so that they didn't have mind-numbingly huge mountains of legacy to remediate, unlike many other business sectors, who were caught asleep at the wheel? OR--are many other sectors of the economy just as prescient as Wall Street seems to have been? In other words, just because Wall Street apparently has made it through unscathed thus far, should that make us all feel any safer about the overall situation, or not? At this late date, as far as preparations go, for most of us, it probably makes very little difference. We have either prepared or not, mostly. But I think it's still worth asking about. What if we have all been conned by our own desire to see some big changes in this world, or stampeded by our own fears? After all, if the Internet goes down next year, who wants to ponder such questions around a campfire when the answers could have been revealed instantly by one of the Ancients who had actually worked on the project?

-- Ben Corson (bcorson@dmi.net), November 06, 1999.