STL Time Machine Report #21 - Monday 22 June 1998 (1998-06-22) Some new problems are showing up in Group 3 testing. One batch program reads a control card with a date of "12/31/1999", calculates the next calendar day (using the Y2K compliant date subprogram) and then muffs the conversion back, generating "01/01/1900" as the next business day. This one was fixed as an override to the Y2K test facility, and the production fix has been added to the support schedule. Some setup problems were still occurring, even after the dry run testing. A more serious problem has surfaced. Log files generated by a Unix computer and dated after 12/31/1999 are falling into the bit bucket somewhere on the mainframe. This problem is open, but it appears that these log records are being lost by a system that is not scheduled to be installed into the Time Machine until Mid-July. If that proves to be true, then there may have been a problem planning the testing, since a lot of downstream batch systems need this data in order to test. This could delay testing of several batch systems. These systems will need to run automated, without intervention, when external testing begins. Upgrades. 1967 was the summer of love. 1998 will be the summer of upgrades. In the next two weeks we start upgrading production CICS regions. Overall, we have about 90 CICS regions to be upgraded to CICS 4.1, which is the minimum release IBM will guarantee is Y2K complaint. Another COBOL problem. I had a call on Friday from an experienced programmer. He's now working for another company on an application that we sold off. They're still in our building and their jobs still run on our mainframe. They needed to recompile a production program, and it's an old OS/VS COBOL program and the compile failed because none of the copybooks were included, and they couldn't understand why. I knew right away what was wrong. OS/VS COBOL cannot read a PDS (partitioned data set) with a blocksize greater than 16,000 bytes, and that's what the message was telling them. After looking at the JCL, I learned that the test copybook library was created with a blocksize that is a multiple of 80 and greater than 27,000 bytes. In the old days they used Panvalet. They would either use a ++INCLUDE statement to expand the entire COBOL program into the job reader queue, or they would prepend a jobstep to ++WRITE the COBOL source code to a temporary sequential file that had a blocksize of 16,000 bytes or less. So the new compile process will not support OS/VS COBOL unless they change the blocksize of the copybook PDS. I suggested they convert the program to COBOL II, but it turns out that it does a lot of printing, and it uses AFTER POSITIONING all over the place. "AFTER POSITIONING" is not supported in COBOL II, so they're screwed that way, too. Oh, it can be converted all right, but it will take a lot longer and require more testing. Center for Strategic and International Studies. If you don't want to shell out 90 bucks for the video, download the transcript for free at: http://www.csis.org/html/y2ktran.html It's powerful stuff (and thanks to Harlan Smith who posted this URL most recently). Print it out and pass it along. I plan on adding this link to my web pages. Another PHM Story. Well, it seems my buddy with the PHM has a new problem. The PHM's boss, the CIO, is beginning to wonder why they don't have a Y2K budget. So the CIO is calling a meeting with several department managers, technical people, and the PHM, in order to get the straight poop. Now several attendees fear the retribution of the PHM, so my buddy is wondering, how can he tell the CIO what the real problems are without risking his job? As of 1998-06-07, My countdown now reads: 132 days until 1998-11-01 (Beta Test begins) 193 days until 1999-01-01 (External Testing begins) 558 days until 2000-01-01 (Rollover) Previous Year 2000 Time Machine Reports are available at: http://home.att.net/~arnold.trembley/tmr.htm STANDARD DISCLAIMER: I am NOT an official corporate spokesperson. My opinions should not be held against my benevolent employer. -- Arnold Trembley http://home.att.net/~arnold.trembley/ "Y2K? Because Centuries Happen!"