Granted, some of our electronic devices will fail, but with what impact? The time has come to examine our environment and decide what actually needs to be fixed and what needs to be quietly retired.
My VCR is an older model and only accepts dates in the range 1983 to 1998. So it already fails the date test, now, in 1999. Does this affect the operation of the device or its ability to function correctly? In a word, No. A VCR only needs to know what day of the week it is. So I set it to the correct day of the week sometime in 1983. The actual date is immaterial. The VCR now works fine.
Similarly, when power goes off unexpectedly and eventually comes on again, my microwave blinks at me and will not work until I enter some date. Any date will do. I very seldom cook stuff in the microwave for longer than twenty four hours. In fact thirty minutes is usually the top limit.
There are many of us who find it useful or essential that incoming faxes are date stamped with the time of arrival of a fax. Now we know that many commercial fax machines get confused when February 29 2000 rolls around. The solution? On March 1 2000, reset to the correct date.
Our swimming pool filter timer is an elctromechanical device which knows nothing about dates. Days of the week, yes, dates, no.
Other devices such a burglar alarms, automatic grass sprinklers and the like tend to be electronic but usually work on day of week rather than absolute date.
Now none of the above can be classed as life threatening, at worst they can be called minor irritations.
But the point is that I know precisely what will go wrong in my environment because I have taken the trouble to look. And that is precisely what most people are not doing.
On the basis that an ounce of preparation is worth a pound of cure it seems simply prudent to check out the devices in your home to eliminate unwanted surprises.
The modern home contains a remarkable quantity of high tech stuff. Air conditioning, Climate Control, Access Control, PABX systems, the list is endless.
To check your household for potential Y2k buggy devices now while there is still time to do something about it would seem to be Prudent Housekeeping.
Many households now have Personal Computers. The kids play games on them and do homework. Mom and Pop might use them for wordprocessing or email or in a Small Business or Home Office.
The South African Y2k solution for Home and Small Business has been available for two years. It is free and has been tested extensively. And it allows even old hardware and software to be made "Y2k ready". It is available on the Web at http://www.cinderella.co.za Check out "The Cinderella Method". Download the free Toolkits and patches.
These procedures were produced under the aegis of WorkGroup 2 of the Computer Society Y2k SIG, a group of corporates and parastatals who started their research in 1996.
In essence it utilises the International Standards Organisation ISO8601 date format YYYY-MM-DD which is a hidden feature already built into all PC's. You merely have to implement the fixes and use four digit years in spreadsheets and databases and 90% of Y2k problems disappear.
For those who have an absolute psychological need to spend money there are various "Y2k products" in the R300 - R500 price range. Just be warned, there are no "Silver Bullets". You still have to make procedural changes and decisions on which applications to keep and which to trash. There is no one program which fixes everything. There is no free lunch, you have to do your homework.
Assuming evrybody has now got to the stage of checking all household equipment and PC's and finding out what works and does not, let us examine the impacts of infrastructure that are beyond the scope of individual control.
Electricity, Water, Food, Telecommunications, Transport, Banking and the Supply Chains. All of which are interconnected. One goes down, they all go down.
This is where we get into the topic of National Risk and potentials for Economic damage. This is where the money is being spent.
Government now gets involved and organisations such as the National Y2k Decision Support Center and the various private sector Y2k groups (such as the CSSA Y2k SIG and the Year 2000 Forum) come into play.
As the Awareness campaign has demonstrated, the SA Government is taking Y2k seriously.
Now we have to start taking certain things on trust and develop a pragmatic attitude to this problem, on a national basis.
And obviously we need to be economical is our use of resources, we cannot afford to throw money at this thing, or even worse, waste what resources we do have. The original estimated cost to the country was R30 billion. Global experience is that original cost estimates were too low and fixing is more expensive than first thought.
In the US there is a strong movement towards Community Action. Groups of ratepayers get together and write letters to local Mayors to get statements of compliance. In some areas joint actions in creating Contingency plans are taking place.
For example, if there is a risk of temporary Water outage, are water trucks available to ship supplies in from elsewhere?
There was example in Sandton a few years ago where a major sewer was damaged and Port-a-Potties had to be set up and timetables established, by street, to accomodate the natural functions of the citzenry.
It is these "Contingency Plans" to provide emergency services in case of outage that are causing so many grey hairs.
Obviously, the simplest approach is to ensure that the primary service is never disrupted. But maybe it makes sense that local governments should have emergency fallback plans anyhow to cater for floods and other natural disasters.
At this moment Eskom is confident of their ability to generate power. But 50 of the 800 odd local governments may not be able to transmit that power to their users.
The trend is that Y2k is no longer a technical problem relating only to computers but a political and management challenge in safeguarding essential infrastructure.
This is an usnusal state of affairs. Only in times of all-out war do these questions arise, and the populace then understands the need for action.
But there is a degree of uncertainty with Y2k. Nobody actually knows what the impact will be or if there will indeed be any impact at all.
The prevailing attitude amongst the general populace is of disbelief or disinterest. And it is generally true that the man in the street or consumers in general will not be directly involved. The risks to the general public are indirect.
However a debate is raging in the US and UK on hoarding. Should one stockpile food and water or not? It appears to be a personal decision, but apparently it is better to stock up gradually rather than leaving it all to the last minute.
An interesting real life case cropped up recently. A consumer wanted a written guarantee from the suppliers of his luxury motor car, VCR and other household appliances.
On the face of it, a very reasonable and logical request. In fact, writing to your suppliers and demanding this type of guarantee is the approach recommended by many Y2k gurus.
The technique is sometimes referred to as the "paper storm".
But there is a problem. The Legal advisers of the suppliers have determined that there is too much risk involved in making such "compliance statements" and that the supplier should say nothing that could be construed as admitting liability.
So the requests for written guarantees were refused. The now irate customer reported these incidents to our local consumer watchdog, Isobel Jones, and made it her problem.
In my opinion this letter writing thing is a total waste of time. The replies (if you receive any) are so vague as to be useless. And even worse the information supplied is often incorrect. (Lies, damn lies, and Y2k compliance statements). Generally, to be successful in a legal sense, you have to prove that an actual loss has occurred. Books are now being written on this subject. Lance Michalson of Hofmeyrs has recently published a booklet on the legal implications of Y2k in terms of SA law. Talk to a lawyer who knows about this stuff.
The only safe method is for the user to test the equipment for themselves and make their own decision as to compliance. This testing would of course be best done by the SABS, but they have not got around to that as yet.
I can hardly wait for Isobel Jones to become aware of the fact that "non-compliant" machines and software are still being sold today. It will be interesting to see how she handles the "placebo" solutions that are being sold as "Y2k fixes".
I have tested products that I use myself and have found them acceptable. The supplier however classes them as "non-compliant" because this serves the twofold purpose of letting the supplier off the liability hook and persuading you to "upgrade" to the next version, which is seldom free (and unfortunately seldom compliant).
These are not simple issues. You cannot blame the Lawyers for licking their lips in anticipation. As Peter de Jager says, "Lawyers think of Y2k as better then cigarettes made of asbestos".
The whole question of "disclosure" has become problematical worldwide. Because of the potential legal consequences of Y2k (guesstimated at 1 Trillion dollars) companies have clammed up about the status of their products and internal plans.
The Johannesburg Stock Exchange requires listed companies to make written disclosure of Y2k exposures in Company reports. The US SEC requires detailed reporting of expenditure and risk.
However, in the majority of cases these "disclosures" are meaningless boilerplate.
The US has passed legislation (The Year 2000 Disclosure of Information Act) but it appears that it has not achieved the required sharing of information. Companies are still tight-lipped about their Y2k status.
There is some information that is now being made available, usually on web sites, giving brief information on product compliance. But you have to track this stuff down, a very time consuming exercise. Databases summarising compliance status are appearing.
Which brings us to another problem and that is what does "compliant " mean. The term is undefined and can mean whatever you want it to mean. There was a movement some time ago to have a local variant of the British Definition of Compliance gazetted as a SA standard practice so that there would at least be some common definition for legal purposes. This caused such a furore amongst local suppliers, who considered it too draconian, that the whole thing was dropped.
The Cinderella definition is so strict that no existing products can be classed as "compliant", the best that most can achieve is "ready". On the other hand, if new products could be produced that matched the Cinderella definition, our problems would disappear swiftly.
It is vital to check all new acquistions for Y2k readiness. Just because something is new, do not think for a moment that it is thus automatically "compatible".
One of the byproducts of the "Disclosure" problem is the difficulty of estimating "Country Readiness". How else can we measure what (if any) progress is being made, and whcih industry sectors are most at risk? The NYDSC set up a structure for reporting this information but Companies are not wiling to supply the information. Government Departments are in the process of a regular reportback to Cabinet via the NYDSC, but no similar structure exists for the Private Sector.
Possibly a voluntary report of status, coordinated by by one of the newspapers might be the way to go. But Companies seem not to want to let the public know how they are doing. Maybe the Gartner Group might be persuaded to assist in developing this "Country Readiness" Index.
On the other hand, A Y2k "Register" scam was detected recently. So at least the Ungodly are doing their Y2k homework.
I personally do not understand why Government do not just mandate the Department of Statistics to gather this information. They have the legal authority to do it, and the mechanisms for bringing defaulters into line.
So how is this all going to end? My personal view is that South Africans are complacently sitting on their butts swilling beer and watching cricket and to hell with what the future holds.
We certainly live in interesting times.
Chris Anderson April 1999