- Borderlands Sciences Research Foundation
would welcome ANY offering of a specific example of embedded system failure.
-
- What I mean by this is that I want to
see an example of a device COMPLETELY malfunctioning because it is date
sensitive? In other words, the device must CEASE TO FUNCTION period, and
we at BSRF must be able to verify it for ourselves."
-
- Please pass this info on to myself and
Michael Theoroux at: info@borderlands.com
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- Borderlands Y2k challenge page at http://www.borderlands.com/y2k/Challengeupdate.htm
-
- Charles Polanski
-
-
-
-
- From: Mark Frautschi <frautsch@tmn.com
Date: Wednesday, March 03, 1999 6:40 AM
Subject: Re: Can you respond to the Borderlands challenge?
-
- Dear Charles Polanski and Michael Theoroux,
-
- I appreciate the intent of your request
for a DOCUMENTED (e.g. confirmed by the manufacturer) example of an embedded
system that ceases to function completely as a result of a Year-2000 bug.
I define such a condition as a "catastrophic failure", where
the catastrophe is limited to the device and does not necessarily apply
to the outside world.
-
- I am unable to answer your challenge.
The following will only partially fulfill your request. I apologize if
I only add to the partial answers you have already amassed.
-
- In his 18 December 1998 presentation
to the U.S. Chemical & Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, Jordan
Corn of the Rohm and Haas Chemical Company said that in investigating the
y2k compliance in the embedded systems of their plants that they had uncovered
only one instance of a catastrophic failure. If you quote me or Jordan
Corn, please emphasize that this was catastrophic for the DEVICE ONLY,
and presented NO SAFETY HAZARD WHATSOEVER to the workers in the plant.
-
- Jordan Corn did not give a description
of the device or its manufacturer. He told me privately that he had to
work to get his presentation approved by the Rohm and Haas legal staff
even at this level of specificity.
-
- You can read Jordan Corn's PowerPoint
presentation and listen to his delivery at the Board's web pages: http://www.cshib.gov/1999/news/n9907.htm (The CSHIB is in the final stages of editing
the Senate report on the meeting and it should be available on the web
this month.)
-
- If you would like to inform Jordan Corn
of your quest I would be happy to provide his contact information. (I am
sending him a blind copy of this letter.) I strongly doubt that he would
be able to help your directly by providing the specific manufacturer, device
and failure description and documentation that you seek. However, he may
know of other instances where this information is publicly available outside
of his company.
-
- ____________
-
- I have been told that a few older Sony
Handycams "lock up" if you advance the date and that this information
was on Sony's web pages. In an effort to provide you with a link I went
to http://www.world.sony.com/ (the only site with a search feature I could
find) and looked for 'y2k'. I found http://www.sel.sony.com/SEL/consumer/handycam/other/faq.html which included:
-
- 8. Are Sony Handycam camcorders Y2K compliant?
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- All Sony Handycam camcorder products
are year 2000 compliant. You should not experience any problems with your
Sony Handycam as a result of the new millennium. Furthermore, all Sony
Handycam camcorders introduced as early as 1984 will not experience any
problems displaying the year 2000.
-
- ...which disputes this claim.
-
- ______________
-
- I have had several conversations with
embedded systems remediators (including several CEOs) who provide stories
similar to Jordans Corn's. What is unusual about Jordan Corn and Rohm &
Haas is the extraordinary willingness that they have demonstrated to provide
the sort of credibility for the existence of catastrophic failures while
at the same time being responsible to their staff and stockholders by not
inviting lawsuits.
-
- I think that ultimately we may find that
the documentation of catastrophic failures is rare (to nonexistent) because
the incidence of these severe failures is low and due to the large concern
for legal liability. This is why stories like the 27 April 1998 Fortune
article mention that GM's robots froze and stopped working (sounds like
a catastrophic failure) without mentioning the manufacturer of the robot.
(Actually, the failure would be with the controller, not the robot itself.)
http://www.pathfinder.com/fortune/1998/980427/imt.html If you guess that the manufacturer was GE-Fanuc,
and go to their web page, http://www.fanuc.co.jp/ewhatsnew/ey2000.htm it gives information about CNC controllers (not
assembly robot controllers) which "have the possibility" of the
Y2k problem. (The U.S. GE-Fanuc site: http://www.gefanuc.com/ was down this morning. You may wish to check
it later.)
-
- Please let me know if this has been of
use.
-
- Mark Frautschi
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