By JAMES SPEAR
spear@du2.byu.edu
Are you wondering if your computer systems are year 2000 compliant? Are you wondering exactly what that means?
It hasn't been until recently that memory and file storage for computers has been so inexpensive. Over the past few decades, computer programmers hoping to save a little space in computer memory left the century numbers out of computer clocks and date routines. For example, instead of a computer knowing the date is January 20, 1998 ... it would read and store that same date as 01/20/98. Notice the 19 is missing from the 98. This is fine for now because all computers just believe that the 19 of 1998 is assumed. But consider what happens on January 1, 2000. Computers that are not year 2000 compliant will not realize the change in century numbers and will assume it is the year 1900.
'Many computers will not even do that,' said Jim Mealey, a computer science major at BYU. 'A lot of computers will reset to the year 1974 ... This was the year they standardized the on-board computer clock.'
If your company or organization hasn't started asking these questions, it may already be too late, according many computer specialists.
One consultant warned, 'The alternative to addressing the year 2000 (problem) will be going out of business.'
While BYU probably won't have to worry about going out of business, every department on campus will have to make sure they are prepared.
The system administrators at the McDonald Health Center are well on their way to ensuring the MHC is completely year 2000 compliant.
What would happen if the health center wasn't 2000 ready? Matt French, a business management major from St. George and one of the system administrators for the health center said there definitely would be some big problems.
'Anything dealing with dates would be messed up,' French said. 'Scheduling appointments, patient birth dates, lab dates, x-ray dates, even billing dates.'
To be ready for the new century, French and others at the MHC are finalizing plans to purchase three new medical software packages that will serve different aspects of the facility. Included is a lab package, a pharmacy package and a general medical package. The file server, which works in tandem with the other medical packages, will also have to be replaced to be 2000 compliant.
In addition to the new software that will be purchased, many of the computers that serve these packages across the health center network will also have to be replaced. I think concern (of the year 2000 problem) is very realistic,' French said. 'In the financial world, if businesses are not 2000 compliant they could go bankrupt in a matter of days.'
Another potential problem system administrators at the MHC are facing are machines at the health center with built in computers. Computer processors inside lab equipment are called embedded systems because they are not meant to be upgraded or accessed. They do one job. They process information, lab tests of all kinds. They then send the processed information directly to the file system over the network. It is still uncertain if some of these machines are 2000 compliant. While most 2000 bugs can be resolved on computers by upgrading only the software, embedded machines offer little or no way to upgrade. One major lab machine at the MHC called the Opera is one machine in question. Costing approximately $100,000 French hopes this machine is 2000 compliant.
By years end, the MHC plans to have all the new software packages and computer systems in place. Any lab machines with embedded systems in them that are not 2000 compliant will also be fixed or replaced before that fateful January day in the year 2000.