[WEB4LIB] RE: Y2K and 486's

[Darryl Friesen]

> All of our 486s have failed our Y2K tests and are being replaced.  To
replicate
> our test, go to a DOS prompt and change the date to 12/31/1999 and set the
time
> to 23:58.  Turn the computer off and wait two minutes.  Turn the comptuer
on and
> check the date.  If it is Y2K compliant, it will say 1/1/2000. Our 486s
have
> reported back 1/1/1986.
>
> Before you conclude that it is indeed Y2K compliant, do this again for a
leap
> year test to see if it knows February 29, 2000.

But, do they function properly if the date is manually set to 2000?  We have
a ton of IBM ValuePoint 486's that fail the rollover test, but will keep the
date and time if set properly in the BIOS.  So really they're only somewhat
non-compliant [they're at least 5 years old so we're ditching them anyway,
but that's beside the point :) ]

I suspect this is the case for many older machines.  If you can spend the
time to reset all the clocks after January (and February if they have a leap
year problem too) they should work OK.

If anyone hasn't already done it, I'd recommend running one of those Y2K
software tools to test your PC.  Here's a couple.  There's undoubtedly more:

Y2KTest - SafetyNet Inc.

http://hotfiles.zdnet.com/cgi-bin/texis/swlib/hotfiles/info.html?fcode=000QY
H

YMARK2000 PC Test - National Software Testing Lab (US)
    http://www.nstl.com/html/nstl_y2k.html


- Darryl

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  Darryl Friesen, B.Sc.                        Darryl.Friesen at usask.ca
  Programmer/Analyst                            http://gollum.usask.ca/
  Consulting & Development, Computing Services
  University of Saskatchewan                   "The Truth Is Out There"
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