Yes, Cardinal Technology, one of the High Priests of Y2k is amazed. He is so out of touch with how deep the web implementation of major sectors of business and gov. that it is little wonder he was "unable to find enough statements about completed Y2k work......." and it was little wonder he was so completely WRONG.

This can also be directly attributed to the "down time in the REAL WORLD" for the 3 years he devoted to misleading people about Y2k with books, MLM schemes and Videos for the masses.

But then he did learn ............how to manipulate Forums on the web with a few planted statements supplemented by the links endlessly repeated by his Chosen Censors.

http://www.yourdon.com/tyr/issues/0123.html To me, it's pretty amazing that the Supreme Court has a web site, and that it's actually updated on a regular basis. Yes, I know that everyone has a web site these days, but I still have a mental picture of a stodgy old institution that uses quill pens and parchment. When I checked the web site on the evening of December 10th, the "Florida Election Cases" link was prominently posted on the top-level page, as you can see from the small replica on the right. And when you click on that link, you'll see a complete list of all the filings, you'll see all of the petitions, opposing statements, replies, and other documents filed with the court -- including the "emergency application for stay in No. 00-504, Bush v. Gore," and the opposing statement by Mr. Gore. Even a decade ago, citizens didn't have access to this kind of detailed, well-organized, up-to-the-minute information.

-- Anonymous, January 14, 2001

Answers

But then he did learn ............how to manipulate Forums on the web with a few planted statements supplemented by the links endlessly repeated by his Chosen Censors.

In your own special way, cpr, you sound a lot like like a conspiracy theorist.

-- Anonymous, January 14, 2001

So, tell us, "TIME", .......the TimeBomb 2000 Ver. I.00 ... was not MANIPULATED at first to sell ToasToast-Eddy's COMIC BOOK and then by the survivalists/doomsters to push their agenda??

-- Anonymous, January 15, 2001

CPR,

Did you *really* buy his book???? How much did you pay for it?

Frank

-- Anonymous, January 16, 2001

You may poke fun at CPR all you wish, but that post IS illuminating.

Why? Because it shows what I was trying to get across back in 99: that Yourdon, Hamasaki, et. al., were WAY behind the times. It wasn't bad enough that they believed the computers were even CAPABLE of causing the collapse that they envisioned; they were convinced that business was still using the ancient mainframes that he and 'Saki cut their teeth on in the early days.

This is a related revelation. That Yourdon should be amazed at something this fundamental -- shoot, during the election circus, many of us here routinely searched the various court and government sites for information, didn't we? -- is illuminating, to say the least.

-- Anonymous, January 16, 2001

I think that's a lot of the reason why Hamasaki, Yourdon, and other people who should have known better made such a big deal out of Y2K. In IT, if you stand still for too long your career is pretty much over. For someone who's still stuck in the 70's, Y2K was a great opportunity to become relevant again, make some money, and look like a hero. The temptation to ignore common sense must have been overwhelming.

-- Anonymous, January 16, 2001

Actually, Stephen, you may (or may not) be surprised to discover that a good number of rather large businesses STILL use those "ancient mainframes". But what Ed and Company forgot to take into account was **perpetual maintenance**.

I remember working on a large project back in 1994-1996. It was dead-smack in the middle of the "Everyone's Going To Client/Server; Mainframes Be Damned" Age. Funny thing there; at the end of 1994 (I think), IBM was **DELUGED** with so many mainframe orders, they were backlogged something like six months.

Oops.

(IOW, if ain't broke, don't fix it.)

-- Anonymous, January 16, 2001

Patricia is absolutely right about the great client-server fad of the mid 90s, which labelled the whole mainframe technology as "ancient". That was hogshit.

About people on permanent maintance, everybody knew about that. The question of course was whether they could be expected to cope with Y2K. In some organizations, yes, and in others, no way.

-- Anonymous, January 16, 2001

Actually, Stephen, you may (or may not) be surprised to discover that a good number of rather large businesses STILL use those "ancient mainframes".

Ah, yeah, we've discussed this before. Step one is to define "mainframe." You'll find that you and I don't quite define it the way that they do. :)

Of course many businesses are still using the mainframe/workstation paradigm. Of course many are still buying large mainframes. My contentions are that (a), not nearly as many as people like Cory seem to believe (industry figures indicate clearly that for each large system sold by IBM, Compaq and Dell sold several trainloads of PC-based network systems -- at higher net profit, mind you) and (b) the "mainframes" that Cory speaks of, in particular, *WERE* obsolete about two decades ago.

But what Ed and Company forgot to take into account was **perpetual maintenance**.

Of course. But that came from their bias -- particularly on Hamasaki's part. Having been downsized, he was convinced that the "kids" who took his job couldn't possibly "solve" Y2K. They wouldn't know HOW to do that maintenance. Therefore, (conclusion reached), Y2K was going to be Bad.

What he ignored was that, in the interim, all sorts of new software tools and hardware began appearing. Plus, these "kids" weren't quite as stupid as he thought(hoped).

It also didn't help that, when 'Saki *did* give PCs a second glance, he was an OS/2 adherent. IBM basically stopped growing and innovating in that OS many, many years ago. OS/2 adherents, as a group, are generally about as optimistic toward the future as, say, the Mac-only crowd. :)

What Ed's followers never realized was that he made his living telling the old (tired and bitter) IT types what they wanted to hear -- that the end of an era was at hand, that they were being replaced by kids who "charged half as much and lied twice as well" (that's a quote), etc., etc.

For Y2K, Ed simply changed his target audience to an even more gullible breed for a while. The basic tune never changed.

-- Anonymous, January 17, 2001

Peter,

I'm not so sure that I'd dismiss it as porcine fecal matter[g]; really, it was mostly just a BUNCH of hype and sales spin from Microsoft, Novell and the PC hardware vendors to convince Fortune 500's that the PC was ready for Prime Time. It wasn't, not at the time. :)

I still believe that the server/client model will win in the long run (I can show you industry figures to demonstrate that it seems to be winning NOW, at least), because when cake comes to slice, 100 separate processors (ie, separate standalone PCs), each executing a local copy of a program, can always be made faster and more efficient than One Big Central Processor executing 100 instances in the same machine, then distributing data to the workstation/terminals.

(Do I get a prize for the most incomprehensible, geekified paragraph in this thread?[g])

But FIRST, Microsoft and Novell (and the hardware people) had to get all the bugs out ... :)

-- Anonymous, January 17, 2001

Stephen:

I backed up Patricia because she made a dead-on accurate observation about the great client-server vs. mainframe controversy of the mid 90s.

Having said that, I don't see where the question of hardware platform has much to do with anything wrt Y2K.

-- Anonymous, January 17, 2001

Peter,

It doesn't. I was just chatting with Trish, mostly a way to exercise my fingers while sipping the morning brew. :)

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2001