Post by thread:Y2K - Real world example

The following is copied directly from a message on the Philips microcontroller list. As may be seen, the OKI RTC chips have a 2 digit century counter (classic Y2K 2 digit rollover). While this problem would be easily handled now that the subject is "all the rage" you can bet there are some applications using these ICs which will not do so. regards Russell McMahon Copy starts here: From : Ojahan Hutajulu <spam_OUTsatunolTakeThisOuTearthling.net> I just received this release from OKI Taiwan regarding my last post (OKI rtc y2k compatibility). Ojahan ------------- Oki Electric Industry Co., Ltd Tel:+81-3-5445-6050 Fax:+81-3-5445-6063 4-10-3, Shibaura Minato-ku, Tokyo 108-8551 Japan 23, July 1998 Dear Customers, In order to support your evaluation of products and systems regarding the " Year 2000 Capability", we would like to provide you with the following information about OKI products: Potentially every OKI product that uses date data could be affected by the transition to the year 2000. For detailed explanations, we categorizes the OKI products into group A and B:, A: OKI Realtime Clock IC's The behavior of OKI Realtime Clock IC's concerning the "Year 2000 capability" can be summarized as follows, while the explanation refers expressly, but not limited to the following devices: MSM5832 MSM58321 MSM62(X)42B MSM6542 MSM6782 ML9070 1. The representation of the year in dates The year in dates is represented by the last two digits, e.g. "00" for 2000. There is no explicit or implicit distinction of the century in the device itself. This means that the date "31/12/99" is followed by "01/01/00" 2. The recognition of 2000 as a leap year The year 2000 is regarded as leap year (for MSM58321: if register D10 is set to Gregorian calendar ). This means that the date "28/02/00" is followed "29/02/00". 3. The determination of the day of the week The day of the week (Mon., Tues., Wed., ....) is obtained by incrementing a counter and not by calculation from the date. This means that it does not have a relation to the date and the actual century. As mentioned in the technical explanations in A1.-A3., OKI Realtime Clock IC's can lead to a misinterpretation of the date during the transition to the year 2000 with the result of a partly or totally failure of function. Due to this reason each customer, who is using OKI Realtime Clock IC's, has the responsibility to assure the "Year 2000 Capability" within his applications. B: Other OKI Products Regarding all other OKI products, we would like to point out that problems could arise, if the customer-specific application-software contains relevant information about the transition to the year 2000. Due to this reason only the individual customer can take the responsibility to make sure that all applications are prepared for the transition to the year 2000. Please note that all information from OKI about the "Year 2000 Capability "of its products should have the pure purpose to support our customers in their preparations for the year 2000. Any statement from OKI about the "Year 2000 Capability " of any products or any other aspect of the year 2000 transition does not modify or extend any existing warranty, license, term of use, or contract.