Re: Y2K Issues

[eachus@spectre.mitre.org (Robert I. Eachus)]

In article <71sbsc$5q5$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> dewarr@my-dejanews.com writes:

 > That's a claim that definitely needs convincing evidence. I do not believe
 > for a moment that it was true. Please cite chapter and printed
 > verse on this. 

    What you want Robert?  The point I made is self-evident.  Banks
fixed their systems to work for mortgages thirty years ago, and some
of those same banks had Y2K problems in the last few years.  Any bank
that was in the mortgage business thirty years ago, and had Y2K fixes
to make recently proves my point, and there were an awful lot of them.

  To make it much more personal, I worked on a bank system in the
sixties to get it ready for mortgages that expired in 2000 or later
(for First Pennsylvania Bank).  Actually I worked for the contractor
that maintained the software not the bank.  We had some pretty
horrendous testing problems because OS360 was not 1970! compliant--it
internally stored the year in one digit (actually four bits) and
rolling from 9 to A caused all sorts of problems.  IBM did get a 1970
compliant version out in 1969, but some Europeans didn't get it in
time.

  Anyway, when all this was over, I asked the bank VP in charge of
data processing what he was going to do about some Y2K problems we had
noticed.  He said, "I'm going to let my successor's successor worry
about it.  I'll be long gone.  Besides, this software will probably
all be replaced by then."

    Neither he or First Pennsylvania survived long enough to see Y2K,
so I guess he made the right decision.

    But I do know of banks that really got serious about Y2K issues in
the 1970's, and I also know personally one bank President who told me
he intended to sell the bank when the time came, and he did.  (Nashua
Federal Savings Bank, sold to Bay Banks who then merged with Bank
Boston...)
--

					Robert I. Eachus

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