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Inc. Technology readers react to articles from Inc. Technology #4, 1997, including Leigh Buchanan's "Zero-Zero Hour" and Joshua Macht's "It Takes a Cybervillage."

Oops...Out of Time

Some readers thought our coverage of small companies' year 2000 (Y2K) problems was on target:

As the president of a small import/export company, I was convinced that all we had to do to fix our year 2000 problems was to purchase some new hardware or software. But now your articles regarding the issue, coupled with a letter my company received from one of our major customers, a Fortune 500 company, have me concerned.

The letter instructed us to address four areas of compliance: physical (the presence of post-1999 dates must not cause errors); internal logic (the manipulation of post-1999 dates must not cause errors); external logic (post-1999 dates must be able to be manipulated between applications); and leap year (use of the date February 29, 2000, must not cause errors).

Because of my company's size (less than $10 million in sales), we do not use electronic data interchange, so I didn't think we would have to generate any system modifications. But if all suppliers to this large company are required to address the issue, the problem will have to be managed carefully for our business to continue to grow.

William F. Harvey
President
Har-Met International
Doylestown, Pa.
harmet8@aol.com

Others thought it was incomplete...

The statement is always made that programmers were saving space by using only two bytes for dates. In fact, they could store a number up to the value 65,536 in those two bytes. Unfortunately, they chose an inefficient storage mechanism (character instead of binary), partially because it was easier for them. Had they used binary, this would not be a problem for another 63,000 years. Moreover, there is no need to store data based upon the time elapsed since Christ's birth. Why not the time elapsed since the earliest date likely to be used in the system?

In defense of programmers, they are often discouraged from making decisions. Had they been given more freedom to think, they might have prevented this problem.

John Grumbine
President
Innovative Computing
Altoona, Pa.
innocomp@nb.net

...or overblown:

The Y2K issue went away in the desktop world and in part of the midrange computer world when we went to 32-bit software in 1995. The newer software can handle four positions for the year code, making 2000 an acceptable number.

In view of that fact, I am uncertain why anyone would want to hold on to an idea that there is a massive problem when you can simply advance the clock in your computer and watch the result.

The real issue lies with mainframe computers that are capable of supporting only two digits for the year code.

Tim Hoffman
LAN/WAN Consultant Alida Connection
Nashua, N.H.
tim@alidatrain.com

And a number took us to task for not loudly proclaiming the Mac's blamelessness. (For more on the Mac and the millennium, visit www.inc.com/issue/tech198.):

Once again I find myself taking issue with a story in the media that does not disseminate all the information. My five-branch photography studio has been relying on Macintosh technology for more than a decade to run the majority of our enterprise. The cross-platform capability, ease of use and training, built-in networking capability, and large application library have paid for the investment several times over. The Mac has not and will not suffer from the year 2000 dilemma that we hear so much about. How come your article failed to mention this?

Kevin Morrison
Operations Manager
Dorian Studio
Spokane, Wash.
kamorrison@aol.com

Uber Alleys

Many readers of associate editor Joshua Macht's " It Takes a Cybervillage" had their own nominations for the next Silicon Alley:

As a former Austinian and a current Bostonian, I expected to see blurbs about Boston and Austin in your recent article on cybervillages.

Boston's cyberdistrict is home to a dozen start-ups, and there are a dozen other major players nearby (Viaweb, nCipher, and Open Market, to name just a few). Austin is ramping up on both the software and service sides of the house.

Robert Johnston
Director
Massachusetts Electronic Commerce Association
Boston
bobj@meca.net

Others had critiques of ours:

I thought the point of your article was that the successful "technology" cities are the ones that meld a variety of diverse interests and talents of their citizens to form infrastructures capable of competing in high tech--cities that expect and extract the best from all their constituents. Therefore, the selection of Boulder is surprising.

You state that the city is "a cultural oasis where smart, mostly white men and women sit in the sun." This doesn't sound like a city that is going to attract the best talent. Why should coveted Asian Indian software and technology entrepreneurs want to set up shop there when Silicon Valley offers the cosmopolitan "oasis"? Why should other Asians, Latinos, and African Americans want to do the same? You use the words "liberal" and "smart" when you talk about Boulder, but where are they? Now, if Indians are sipping lattes in the Boulder sun, maybe...

Prakash Patel, M.D.
Associate
Sheer & Co.
Branford, Conn.
prakapatel@aol.com

Crossed-Wires Department
Robert Frasca works for WiseWire, not Galt Technologies, as reported in the Contents of the last issue (1997, No. 4). Also in that issue, the photos of Richard Pollock and Chris Fletcher were switched in Microcases. We regret the errors.

Please E-mail correspondence to editors@inc.com. Or fax it to 800-335-3348. Or mail it to Inc. Technology, Letters Editor, 38 Commercial Wharf, Boston, MA 02110-3883.