Re: ECU viruses

[Brett Dikeman <quattro@arthur.malebolge.com>]

>Thanks for the reply, Orin. Some didn't take the question as seriously as
>you.

Most of the problem is that a large percentage of people blow the problem
way, way out of proportion.

For example, one national news agency showed pictures of a prenatal infant
on life support, and yakked about how in the year 2000 this equipment could
all stop working(implying certain doom for the little guy hooked up to it.)
Funny thing(correct me if I'm wrong) but I know of few IV drip units and
lung machines that know what year(or even month) it is...Total load of
crap, mostly designed to make people panic.  I'm sure the millions of
consultants popping up to "deal" with the "problem" are loving it.
Wouldn't suprise me if clocks start getting labeled "Year 2000 compliant!"

So was the comment they made that coffee makers store dates(including
current year) in them.  Mine sure doesn't; it only knows the time, not the
date.  Even if it did, why wouldn't it make my coffee at 6am "1900" as it
had in "1998"?


Some ECUs may store dates, but here's the thing; most likely, the rollback
to 1901 won't mean a thing to your car; it just keeps on chugging.  May
cause problems/confusion when the diagnostic unit gets plugged in and gets
reports from before the machine/car was made, but your car won't grind to a
stop when January 1st hits.

Frankly, as an owner of a Macintosh, I don't have to worry about the "year
2000 problem" at all.  Why? Every single Macintosh since the Plus has
stored all 4 digits of the date, probably because Apple still expected
their machines to be in use when 2000 hits.  They're probably right, too,
seeing as even very old IIsi's are still in use today.

Some unix systems will have a problem somewhere in the year 2036(I think,
can't remember exactly.)  This is when the system time(usually stored in
seconds or ticks since a certain date(1980 I think) overflows the variable
used to contain it.

(Apologies for certain non-Audi content, but some questions must be answered.)

Brett

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Brett Dikeman
brett@pdikeman.ne.mediaone.net
~)-|
Hostes alienigeni me abduxerunt.  Qui annus est?
Te audire non possum.  Musa sapientum fixa est in aure.
Ita, scio hunc 'sig file' veterem fieri.
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