INTRODUCTION

The steps presented below focus on a step-by-step strategy for testing your PC's system BIOS for being ready for the Year 2000. This phase of Year 2000 testing is only one small step in solving Year 2000 problems. But it is "where the tire hits the road" so to speak, because the consequences of not having a Year 2000 Ready BIOS are serious in that other programs, including the operating system itself, depend on the BIOS to obtain real-time-clock (RTC) information from CMOS for accurate date/time processing. For a good synopsis of this and other Year 2000 problems please see: ftp://www.year2000.com/pub/year2000/y2kfaq.txt
http://www.mitre.org/research/y2k/docs/IEEE_Y2K.pdf and
http://www.tamu.edu/cis/teams/yr2k/tips.application.testing.html
The 1988 FIPS Standard for date representation and interchange is given at:
http://www.itl.nist.gov/div897/pubs/fip4-1.htm

The URL ftp://ftp.cac.psu.edu/pub/year2000 contains Year 2000 information and a subdirectory of files that enable the creation of a Boot Diskette that can be used (as shown beginning in Section I below) to test your PC's BIOS and hardware clock for Year 2000 readiness. We use the term "Year 2000 Ready" since there is no universally accepted definition of "Year 2000 Compliant;" to see comprehensive attempts to define this term, visit: http://www.mitre.org/research/cots/COMPLIANCE_INFO.html
Year 2000 IEEE terminology standards (glossary of jargon) may be found at http://www.computer.org/standard/pasc/y2draft.htm

We describe what we mean in this manuscript by a "Year 2000 Ready " PC component as follows:

1. It will operate correctly with the date set to the year 2000, 2001, 2002,Ö, at least through year 2009. This is considered a bare minimum and is explicitly tested by the NSTL (National Software Testing Laboratory) software cited below. Several vendors define "compliance" using later dates (e.g., 2079, 2099, 3197).
2. It will recognize the four-digit millenium date as 2000 and not 1900.
3. If it is "Rollover" ready, the date will automatically be set to the Year 2000 when that time comes. If a component is not "Rollover" ready, manual action must be taken after the Year 2000 begins (see Step VI below).
4. Since the Year 2000 is a leap year, the component needs to recognize which years are leap years and which are not correctly. This includes the Year 2000, and all leap years in that century up through at least year 2009.

 
GENERAL TESTING PROCEDURE ñ SUMMARY

A general testing procedure may be summarized as follows:

1. Create a Year 2000 Boot Diskette for your PC system.
2. Copy PSU/NSTL files to this Boot Diskette.
3. File protect that Boot Diskette
4. Run the Year 2000 Test.
5. Interpret the results of the Year 2000 Test
6. Required Actions for Manually Setting Date after Year 2000
7. Other Tests - Collaborate and Corroborate

I.    CREATE A YEAR 2000 BOOT DISKETTE FOR YOUR PC SYSTEM
1) Windows 95 or Windows NT
Locate a virus free PC running Windows 95 and create a Startup Disk as follows:

1. Click START/Settings/Control Panel and double-click the "Add/Remove Software" Icon.
2. Put a diskette in drive A: and click the Startup Disk tab.
3. Go to Step II below.

Assuming you are running a Year 2000 Ready DOS system, make a Boot Diskette as follows:

1. Put a diskette in drive A:
2. Issue the DOS command: FORMAT A: /s which will create a DOS Boot Diskette.
3. Go to Step II below.

Point your Web browser to the URL ftp://ftp.cac.psu.edu/pub/year2000/PSU-NSTL and download files in this subdirectory and copy them to the newly created Startup Diskette as follows
 

                SUBDIRECTORY TABLE OF CONTENTS
 

FILE	TYPE	DESCRIPTION
2000.exe	BINARY	NSTL Year 2000 BIOS test program
autoexec.bat	ASCII	Displays directions for 2000.exe
readme.txt	ASCII	NSTL notes on Year 2000 testing
00-index.txt	ASCII	Subdirectory Table of Contents

 
Note that NSTLís program 2000.exe (called YMARK2000) and other pertinent information on the Year 2000 problem may be found at: http://www.nstl.com/html/ymark_2000.html
If you have questions about this program, NSTL asks that you contact the CAC Helpdesk, not NSTL. While we have found that the YMARK2000 program, 2000.exe works on all of the PCís weíve tested at CAC (scores of them), note that "NSTL does not guarantee accuracy, adequacy or completeness of the services provided in connection with this program. NSTL makes no warranties, express or implied, as to results to be obtained by any person or entity from use of the contents of the program. NSTL makes no express or implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose of any product mentioned in this program."
 

Make sure both (square) holes on the 1.44M Diskette are open.
 

1. Insert this Boot Diskette in Drive A.
2. Reboot the System by pressing Alt-Ctrl-Del or by powering off, then on. Make sure that the system boots from Drive A; if so, you will see lines displayed telling how to run the Year 2000 test. If not, then read your PC's owner's manual on how to run your PC's SETUP (BIOS Setup) and set the Boot sequence first attempt to boot from Drive A.
3. Follow the instructions displayed after boot-up completes. The AUTOEXEC.BAT file causes these instructions to display. We suggest that you display and/or print the README.TXT file.
4. Run the Year 2000 test by issuing the DOS command: 2000

DO NOT interrupt the test (the running of 2000.exe). Let the test complete; it takes about four minutes to run. If you interrupt it, your current date and time will not be set as they were before the test.
5. Remove the Year 2000 Boot Diskette from Drive A.
6. When the 2000.exe program is finished and the DOS prompt, A:\>, displays, issue the DOS command: DATE and then press Enter to make sure the PC's current DATE (before Year 2000) is correct. If not, correct it by issuing DATE mm-dd-1998, where mm is the month number (1-12) and dd is the day of the month.

1. If you see a message that the BIOS is fully Year 2000 Compliant or Ready, then you need do nothing further regarding the BIOS; in this case the date will roll over automatically. Go to Step VII below.
2. If you see a message that "Progression to Year 2000 fails" (Automatic Rollover fails) but that "Manual transition to Year 2000 is supported," then go to Step VI below.
3. If you see any other message indicating that your PCís BIOS does not have a "standard" date format, or that the hardware clock is not a Motorola MC146818 chip, for example, then you may need to upgrade your PCís BIOS (sometimes called "Flashing the BIOS"), and/or take other actions. Flashing the BIOS is not a task for novices since even a failure in flashing a BIOS with the correct BIOS upgrade can render the PC unusable. For more information on BIOS upgrades see http://www.winfiles.com/drivers/bios.html ,

http://www.firmware.com/gwfaq.htm ,
http://support.intel.com/design/motherbd/genbios.htm,
http://www.sysopt.com/bios.html, and
http://www.mitre.org/research/cots/FLASHBIOS.html

If, your PC does not support automatic progression to Year 2000 but does support manual transition, then after 1 January 2000 you need to set this PCís date manually. To do this you need to boot from this Boot Diskette again after the Year 2000 and manually set the date with a DOS DATE command. If after Year 2000 you attempt to boot from your fixed disk instead, the operating system (e.g., Win95), once started with an invalid date, may damage the file system dates and even applications data. That is an invalid date resulting from a failure to automatically rollover to Year 2000 can cause serious problems. So in this case, any time after the Year 2000, you need take the following action:

1. Follow Steps IV.a and IV.b above. Better yet,  when powering off your PC for the last time before the Year 2000, put the boot disk (created in Step I above) in Drive A: of your PC. Then when you arrive at work after January 1, 2000, your PC will automatically boot from this floppy diskette when the PC is powered up; and thus you will be reminded to follow Steps (b) through (e) below.
2. Issue the DOS command: DATE
3. Enter the correct date after the Year 2000 as: mm-dd-2000; e.g., on Monday, January 3, 2000 issue the command: DATE 01-03-2000
4. Check the computer time by issuing the command: TIME
5. Enter the correct time as: hh:mm where hh and mm are current hour and minute in 24 hour notation; e.g., at 1 p.m. you would issue: TIME 13:00. By the way, computer clocks are not nearly as accurate as most wristwatches. Computer clocks are typically off between 5 and 30 seconds per day. So you should check the PC's TIME at reasonable intervals and reset the time. This can be done automatically via an Internet Connection; see the Penn State Web page, http://www.otc.psu.edu/data/ntp.html for more information and links to software to set the time and date. Here we recommend the free Windows 95/NT client, Netdate, available from: http://www.cam.org/~oneguy

Before Year 2000, you will need to check all of your PC's application software and your data for being "Year 2000 compliant." One way to do this is to run each application and click on it's pull-down menu item, HELP/About; this will show the application name and version number. Then make a table of the applications and version numbers. Visit the respective vendors' Web pages dealing with each application being Year 2000 compliant. Use each of your PC applications now and examine your data for date dependent fields and values; you may have to redesign the data to make the year fields four digits. Finally, apply the Year 2000 experience of others.

Note that Microsoft claims that Microsoft Operating Systems: Windows 95, Windows NT, and Windows 3.1x are Year 2000 Ready, and that Microsoft Office 95, 97, and 98 applications are Year 2000 Ready; there is some disagreement on various Internet forums on these claims. Regarding Windows 3.1x, note that it runs under DOS (either MS-DOS or IBM PC-DOS) and that DOS may require "Manual" date intervention (see Step VI above).

Vendors of the statistical programs, Minitab, SPSS, and SAS indicate that the latest versions are Year 2000 Ready. Some software vendor Web pages and other general Web pages dealing Year 2000 software issues follow.

Microsoft Pages on Year 2000:
http://www.microsoft.com/cio/articles/year2000faq.htm
http://www.microsoft.com/CIO/Articles/RELATED_Y2K_LINKS.htm
http://www.microsoft.com/ithome/topics/year2k/default.htm

IBM Pages on Year 2000:
http://www.software.ibm.com/year2000/resource.html
http://www.s390.ibm.com/stories/year2000/

General Spread Sheet Programs:
http://homepages.iol.ie/~pobeirne/y2ksprds.htm

General Data Base Programs:
http://homepages.iol.ie/~pobeirne/y2kxbase.htm

Statistical Programs
http://www.sas.com/software/year2000/
http://www.minitab.com/support/minitips/mt48.htm
http://www.spss.com/search?NS-search-page=results&NS-collection=All_Documents&NS-query=2000

General PC Applications Testing Results - Lists & Charts:
http://www.monmouth.army.mil/y2k/y2khome.htm
http://www.mitre.org/research/cots/COMPLIANCE_CAT.html
http://www.cnet.com/Content/Features/Dlife/Millbug/ss09.html
http://www.wa.gov/dis/2000/6_survey.htm
http://www.hqisec.army.mil/y2kweb/y2kresults.html (Y2K compliant BIOSís)
http://www.year2000.com/NFinfo.html

Excellent Generic Year 2000 Pages:
http://members.aol.com/yr2ktools/testing.html
http://www.itpolicy.gsa.gov/mks/yr2000/y201toc1.htm

Good Collections of Year 2000 WWW links:
http://kode.net/~ggirod/bookmark.html
http://y2k.policyworks.gov/
 
Date Algorithms for Programmers that span previous and next milleniums:
ftp://ftp.cac.psu.edu/pub/year2000/DateSubs.txt

 
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author gratefully acknowledges NSTL (McGraw-Hill Publishers) for making YMARK2000 free and for permission to make it available on our local FTP server; Prof. Chet Smith, Bill Verity, Dr. Peggy Smith of the CAC, Pete Weiss and Ken Blythe of OAS for reviewing this document and sharing links and other information. And Tom Minsker for solving some technical problems related to design of this manuscript.