ASSISTANT VICE CHANCELLOR -
ADMINISTRATIVE COMPUTING & TELECOMMUNICATIONS
February 4, 1998
KEY ADMINISTRATORS / KEY SUPPORT STAFF
SUBJECT: Year 2000 Countdown Alert
Last June I sent you a notice (see below) regarding the Year 2000 (Y2K) problems in the computing and information technology business. Since this is a campus-wide concern, we will be sending out periodic email alerts in order to disseminate pertinent information and to sustain awareness to this issue.
In addition to the information presented in the original notice, I would like bring to your attention the following information:
1. Y2K problems may affect not only standard computers but also other
electronic equipment such as:
- Alarm and security systems
- Automated machinery (e.g., HVAC, elevators) - Laboratory and test instruments
- Medical devices
- Telecommunication systems
These devices may have embedded programs with date-related logic
that might fail after 12/31/1999. We recommend that critical devices be identified and their vendors be contacted in order to get a written verification of Y2K compliance. Many vendors are likely to have Web sites that contain the necessary information. Examples of such sites are:
Biomedical devices: http://www.y2k.gov.au/biomed
Medical devices: http://www.fda.gov/cdrh/yr2000/ipyr2000.html
HP instruments: http://www.tmo.hp.com/tmo/feature/English/y2k.html Tektronix: http://www.tek.com/Measurement/About/yr2000
2. There are many Web sites which contain useful information regarding
Y2K issues. A keyword search on "Year 2000" would literally return thousands of sites. Since there is so much information, we have identified a few sites which may be of interest to the UCSD community:
Apple: http://www.apple.com/macos/info/2000.html Borland: http://www.borland.com/devsupport/y2000
Claris: http://www.claris.com/news/docs/year2000-c.html Cisco: http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/752/2000 Compaq: http://www.compaq.com/year2000
Corel: http://www.corel.com/2000.htm
Digital: http://ww1.digital.com/year2000 HP: http://www.hp.com/gsy/year2000 IBM: http://www.ibm.com/year2000
Intel: http://support.intel.com/support/year2000
Microsoft: http://www.microsoft.com/cio/articles/related_y2k_links.htm Novell: http://www.novell.com/p2000
SGI: http://www.sgi.com/features/1998/jan/y2k
Sun: http://www.sun.com/y2000
Texas Inst.: http://www.ti.com/corp/docs/year2000 WordPerfect: http://www.wordperfect.com/2000.htm
Y2K General: http://www.year2000.com
Y2K General: http://pw2.netcom.com/~helliott/00.htm
Y2K General: http://www.support2000.com
Ken Popp of ACT (kpopp@ucsd.edu) and Abby Zubov of Internal Audit (azubov@ucsd.edu) are available to answer questions. Specific information regarding Y2K status of central UCSD Administrative Computing and Telecommunication systems is available at: http://www-act.ucsd.edu/year2000/y2kpref.html
Please let us know if you need any further information or if you are aware of any other Y2K issues that should be communicated to the campus community.
Thank you.
Elazar C. Harel
Assistant Vice Chancellor,
Administrative Computing & Telecommunications
P.S. The Roman Numeral designation for Year 2000 is MM. Yes, I am
quite sure Disney already knows about it.
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UCSD
CAMPUS NOTICE
University of California, San Diego
ASSISTANT VICE CHANCELLOR -
ADMINISTRATIVE COMPUTING &
TELECOMMUNICATIONS
June 27, 1997
KEY ADMINISTRATORS/KEY SUPPORT STAFF
As you may have heard, the timely arrival of the next millennium is causing headaches to many of us in the computing and information technology business. The issue has become so "popular" that it now has its own nickname (Y2K) and it sprouted many new start-up companies which specialize in this area.
The primary exposure comes from the use of two digits instead of four digits for year representation within computer programs, files, and databases. For example, the year 1997 is represented as '97', the year 1999 as '99', and so on. Thus, January 1, 2000 is represented as 01/01/00 and consequently might be interpreted as January 1, 1900. This causes programs that perform arithmetic operations, comparisons, or sorting of date fields to yield incorrect results when manipulating dates of 2000 and beyond.
ACT has been addressing these issues for centrally-supported administrative computing and telecommunications systems since 1996. I am pleased to let you know that these central systems are in relatively good shape and that we expect to complete all changes and tests by the end of 1998.
However, the scope of the Year 2000 challenge goes far beyond ACT and it may directly affect you and your department. Date problems can exist in any level of hardware or software and are likely to be present in locally supported systems on campus. For example, local spreadsheets or reports may calculate erroneous age of people if they contain two digit year dates.
Given the decentralized nature of UCSD computing, it is not possible for any one department to single handedly address this problem. I encourage you to evaluate your department's exposure to Year 2000 problems and start addressing them as soon as possible. We have produced a document that describes the issues and presents some solutions. The document is
available at http://www-act.ucsd.edu/year2000/y2kpref.html on the Web and I hope that you will take the time to go through it. Additionally, you may want to take a look at the http://www.year2000.com site which has links to many other resources.
If you need any additional information, please contact our Y2K coordinator, Ken Popp (kpopp@ucsd.edu) or Abby Zubov of Internal Audit (azubov@ucsd.edu).
Elazar C. Harel
Assistant Vice Chancellor -
Administrative Computing & Telecommunications