December 1998
Wow, these are really exciting days at CompuVision. Our dial-up access is blazingly fast with no busy signals. We are supporting all the latest standards including ISDN, 56K digital modems and multilink PPP. We are gaining more and more subscribers every day and striving to serve them better each day. Our base of business accounts with routed subnets, dedicated access accounts and proxy servers is growing. As a matter of fact the CompuVision staff has even taken on a rosy glow lately. In the midst of this glowing report, there are a few things we need to work on to make better and we want you to help us determine what to work on first! Our web developers have just completed our first web based survey form. It’s short, it’s simple and it gives you a way to give us some feedback about what you like and dislike about our service. In the long run it makes everything better for everyone who is a CompuVision customer. Since we are a technology company, you will not get a paper survey. We know how we feel about paper, but we need to know how you feel about paper…. As a matter of fact one of the things the survey will ask is how you feel about the paper you are getting in the mail right now! Soon we will have the technology to do e-mail billing, but we are not sure if you want it. So, give us your feed back on this and a variety of other topics. Just surf on over to our survey site.In addition to the excitement here at CompuVision, there are many other exciting developments taking place in the computing world! PC computing power is coming together with Internet computing power to form some extremely powerful tools. We have databases that interface with the web. These databases enable us to manage information or to conduct sales transactions over the Internet. Microsoft’s Office 2000 will provide an even closer tie with Internet and Intranet standards and technologies. At CompuVision we provide business network integration services in addition to our Internet service. It is the mission of our technical and sales staff to help businesses install information systems which provide the right information to the right people at the right time, so those individuals can take the right action on the behalf of their business. CompuVision works with many businesses in South Texas and all over the world to help them implement systems in support of their business processes and strategic growth.
We all hope that we are prepared for the biggest "non-event" ever. This article is the first of a multi-part article, which explains the basic issues concerning the PC and the year 2000 problem. The PC has 6 main layers of exposure to Year 2000 problems.
In this newsletter we will cover part of the Hardware issues. Much of the information in this article was taken from the Microsoft site referenced at the end of this article.
Hardware. The most common hardware problem is associated with the BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) of the PC. The BIOS is responsible for providing the basic information which the computer needs to boot. It also contains one of the critical clocks used by the PC. The most common hardware problem presented by the Year 2000 has to do with the proper roll of the first two digits of the century portion of the date from "19" to "20." For a BIOS that is affected by this problem, it is possible to properly function once the date is properly set to 2000. The difficulty is in getting it there. The PC real-time clock keeps track of the time and date. The BIOS receives time/date information from the real-time clock in a two-digit century format. The BIOS then adds the necessary bits to store the date in four digits. When the date changes from "99" to "00" but the century bits do not change from "19" to "20," the operating system sees 1900 instead of 2000. Microsoft operating systems do not recognize 1900 and automatically reset the system clock to 1980, our base date. The change of date suddenly to 1980 is one of the best ways to identify this iteration of the BIOS problem. By understanding what the error result will be, organizations will be able to identify problem machines quickly. Once the broken machines are identified, repair of those systems can begin.
A BIOS fix has been inserted into the newer Microsoft Operating Systems to help alleviate this problem. Windows NT 3.51(sp5), Windows NT 4.0, Windows 98 and Windows NT 5.0 all have logic built into them that will recognize 1900 as an error case and will automatically compensate by setting the date to 2000. The Microsoft BIOS correction mechanism will only correct the most common BIOS issue described above.
There are other BIOS problems that we do not compensate for. For example, some BIOSs revert back to 1900 every time the system reboots. For all of the year 2000, the Microsoft fix will set the clock to 2000 every boot. When that system reaches 2001 and it resets itself to 1901, Microsoft’s fix will not recognize it as a Year 2000 problem and will revert back to the base date of 1980. Other BIOSs have error handling built into them that resets a 1900 date before our operating system begins to interact with the BIOS. If that date is a valid date, such as 1993, then the Microsoft operating system will assume that it is correct. Microsoft recommends that all BIOS platforms be identified and tested to ensure functionality beyond 2000. For more information on this topic, watch for our next newsletter.
http://www.microsoft.com/year2000
This web site is the culmination of a project which began last September when Mike Dietert, the General Manager of the New Braunfels Smokehouse, enthusiastically declared "Well, we’ve gotta do it some time". Since then, our E-Commerce team has put the New Braunfels Smokehouse in the Electronic Commerce business. Their site made its debut in October and ever since then the orders have been rolling in. One of the great things about these orders is they don’t require as much effort to process as a phone in order. Today Mike is extremely pleased with the service. "We get many favorable comments from our customers about our new Web Site. These favorable comments always turn into more orders for us", said Dietert.
The New Braunfels Smokehouse has been in business since 1945. Originally, the Smokehouse was the place where neighboring farmers and ranchers brought their own meats for curing and smoking. Over time their cured meats grew in popularity, so they began to sell them by mail. They now ship their hickory smoked meats and gourmet foods all over the United States and CompuVision and the Internet has become a valued resource for the New Braunfels Smokehouse as well as their customers.
This year the combined staffs of CompuVision and the New Braunfels Smokehouse invite you to shop on the Internet. Just surf on over to http://www.nbsmokehouse.com and order some of that great food for you or your friends this holiday season.
Happy Surfing!
First Edition ~ Second Edition ~ Third Edition
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