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Published: Saturday, December 11, 1999

Welcome to the past

English department gets fall schedule -- for 1900

By Ian Swanson

Herald Staff Writer

When UND's English department received its fall schedule for 2000, there was only one problem.

According to the preliminary schedule, English Professor Michael Beard would be teaching a course about James Joyce in the fall of 1900 -- when Joyce was a student at the University of Dublin and 14 years before he would achieve literary fame.

The schedule gaffe was the first time English department administrative secretary Ursula Hovet had seen evidence of the much-hyped Y2K bug. "I was amused," she admitted.

For the last four years, UND has been working to eliminate potential Y2K troubles. A Y2K task force was launched in 1996, and since then thousands of programs have been tested and checked to kill Y2K bugs. Nonetheless, a few have slipped through the cracks.

"There's been things," said Dorette Kerian, interim director of UND's computer center. "We just want people to tell us about them so we can fix it."

Hard coding cited

In this case, the problem was a hard-coded "19" in the dateline of the preliminary schedule program, which is a part of the university system's higher education computer network.

The hard-coded "19" in the date caused the computer to keep the "19" when it rolled the date from fall 1999 to fall 2000. While the "99" part of the year changed to "00," the 19 remained the same.

"It was an oversight," said Kerian. "It shouldn't have been hard-coded that way."

Such hard codes are fairly rare, she said, but similar problems could be found in other programs.

Kerian emphasized that this was a display problem, not a calculation problem. Calculation problems have the potential to cause critical errors in UND's business operation. The display error on the English department schedule was an obvious error that wouldn't have confused too many students or teachers. Kerian said it was quickly fixed.

"It was a cosmetic change that got missed," said Peter Johnson, UND media relations coordinator. "It's not the kind of thing that's going to have any impact."

Johnson said there are hundreds of thousands of such cosmetic changes that need to be checked.

Backup plan

At a briefing earlier this week, UND Director of Facilities Larry Zitzow said most of UND's campus is Y2K compliant, and a backup plan is in place in case things go awry.

UND expects Y2K problems will be limited to moderate telecommunications and potential power outages. UND emergency personnel are thinking these problems could last a few days.

UND's second scenario is a worst-case scenario. That takes into account the worst Y2K fears, including loss of power and even loss of water for an extended period.

-- Homer Beanfang (Bats@inbellfry.com), December 13, 1999

Answers

For the last four years, UND has been working to eliminate potential Y2K troubles. A Y2K task force was launched in 1996, and since then thousands of programs have been tested and checked to kill Y2K bugs. Nonetheless, a few have slipped through the cracks.

That doesn't bode well for all those who only started this year or even in 1998. Many of them must have had even more complex systems and programs like maybe the IRS.

UND expects Y2K problems will be limited to moderate telecommunications and potential power outages. UND emergency personnel are thinking these problems could last a few days.

And this is what they EXPECT.

UND's second scenario is a worst-case scenario. That takes into account the worst Y2K fears, including loss of power and even loss of water for an extended period.

Interesting, that this organization which has been busy for four years seems to GI and expects some severe disruptions regardless of the work they have completed.

Mike

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