Funny, I don't see GPS on the list. Airplanes flew before GPS, they'll fly after it.
There's always VOR/NDB/ILS, etc.
I remember everyone was all concerned at Y2K.
Not sure this is as big. But then again, I don't think anywhere NEAR as many people are concerned about this.
Just to note.
I doubt if it will be a problem. And I co-wrote a book on GPS which predates Miller’s by three years (GPS Declassified).
Will there be a made for TV movie? I liked the one on Y2K. An airliner and panicky passengers in the air but cannot tell where and how to land due to blacked out computers in plane and on ground at airport. Good scenes.
Today the key scenes would be girl trying to contact guy on Facebook and Twitter but shut off and then comes back on and now uncovers that he has been two timing her, thinking he wouldn’t get caught.
Too scary, so “for mature audiences.”
I think very few people would be fooled into thinking they're driving off the coast of Nigeria (unless you're a Democrat then that could be an issue).
Y2K turned out to be a nothingburger despite all the pundits proclaiming otherwise. There was concern about “imbedded chips” in oil equipement, clocks, and everything imaginable. The Christian pundits were everywhere but nothing came of it. This is hogwash—just an attempt at notoriety. Please get back to me the day after.
Y2K was a stupid hoax but, it did finally teach a few friends about being prepared.
So, do we set the clocks ahead an hour, or back an hour?
Shouldn’t be a problem - the pilots will just take out their maps and navigate the old way.
...oh, never mind.
Funny, I don't see GPS on the list. Airplanes flew before GPS, they'll fly after it.
There's always VOR/NDB/ILS, etc.
That was an adventure...Ad block says it blocked 31 ads on that page. Took forever to get everything sorted out and load...not going to tom’s guide again.
Anyway, this means my old GPS might be no more good, won’t hurt much though, I rarely use it. Plugs into lighter type.
I was learning computer repair during Y2K. While that night happened, I was actually at an AF Base across the Potomac from the Capitol, watching two small planes fly around.
We set up a couple of computers to test everything out. One Windows 98, the latest OS at the time, and a couple running DOS, win95 and Win 3.11. The only problem we had was the win98 machine was set to think it was actually Oct 2099 instead of 1999, everything else on the network refused to open files created on that computer, the date didn’t exist yet.
Otherwise, even DOS on an old 286 worked fine. Not a problem anywhere, just the one issue, which was understandable. Transfer a file created on 10/21/2099 to a computer with the date set 10/21/1999 and it just wouldn’t open that file, date hadn’t happened yet.
We set up a DOS and windows machine to change the date while the date changed from 1999 to 2000 at midnight. No problems. Let it change while it was up and running, no problems. Set one up 100 years in the future...that was the only way we could get it to show us a problem. Everything else was fine, we played network games against that machine. Surfed online. Printed out files. Remote printing. Just that one thing was all we could find, and we tried every scenario we could think of.
The problem there was different, of course. People had been using a 2 digit date format for years. Oct 21, 1999 was 10/21/99. Not 1999, just 99. So what does the computer do when it rolls over to 2000? Go back to the year 00? Computers hadn’t been programmed to recognize the difference. It turned out it was a nothingburger though, everything just plodded right along...a bit slower of course, the fastest CPU at that time was the mighty Pentium 233MMX...64MB RAM to add to it would set you back a C note...biggest hard drive in existence was about 4.3GB...We were freakin out over the new Matrox PCI video card with 2MB memory...
now dat was a screemin’ machine ya know...My personal machine was a 233MMX, 64MB RAM, Matrox video and 2.8GB Hard drive, Creative Labs Sound Blaster 16...I think it had an 8 speed CD ROM...Can’t remember the monitor, 15” CRT...
Gee, wonder how those of us who have thousands of hours of flying time before GPS ever managed to get from A to B?
The GPS problem will spur as many disasters as the Y2K problem did.
Remember all of those?
Neither do I.
GPS is totally vulnerable to spectrum jamming radio signals. It even drops in lightening storms. I would NEVER get in a driver less car. They are worthless.
On the gps satellites the week number for the oldest and most common signal is represented with 10 bits. This means the week number rolls over at 1024 weeks, or about every 19 and a half years. The second occurrence of this is next month. So it’s already happened once before.
It’s not a problem unless the GPS receiver can’t handle the rollover and most are able to do so out of the box or with a software upgrade. So it’s really up to each receiver vender to handle it.
If your phone suddenly stops working next month, you know what to complain to tech support about. 😝
"I sit in a cubicle and I update bank software for the 2000 switch."
I quit fling almost 20 years ago and do not even read the periodicals anymore, but I am certain that as of yore the modern high performance aircraft have multiple systems.
Not just two of everything, but multiple nav systems.
Here is a link that gives an overview:
/http://www.aviainfo.gov.mv/downloads/operations/pbn/pbn_p1_c2.pdf
GPS is just a icing on the cake. You coud turn the GPS off and still navigate to any point in the world and land on a CAT II or III airport.
That link looks strange, so a short note.
Most all modern aircraft have nav systems known as VOR, Distance masuring, Loran, and the old standby, ADF
The big iron will have inertial navigation systems and inertial reference systems.
There are several more, but this makes the point.
Plus even with total nav system failure, there is ATC radar and excellent ratio communication between the controllers and the aircraft....and military airports can put the wheels on the runway with radar and pilot communication only and can do so when the ducks are afraid to even walk.
The guy that wrote the article has no idea what he is talking about in-so-far as aviation goes.
This security “expert” is a moron. Even if GPS worldwide takes a dump that day, unless it takes out transponders and radars, too, I don’t see anything beyond a minor glitch.
Bookmark
Well...
If it is “Y2K-like”...
Then no problem.
At all.
As a professional programmer I have to ask: what idiot decided that 10 bits should be the maximum value stored in the counter? Most digital computers store data in 8-bit increments ie: 8 bits, 16 bits, 32 bits, 64 bits.
I guess my question is this: was the complexity of managing a partial word (10 bits vs 16 bits) and inherently limiting the value worth it? I cannot believe that. If the extra 6 bits was actually needed for another purpose I am sure they could be found elsewhere in the data storage.
Y2K was the same thing really ... some programmers decided to save some space an so they dropped the century from date definitions. I could understand that back in the 70s but today? In a terabyte storage world, this is ridiculous.
BTW, Linux 32-bit systems are set to roll over Jan 19, 2038 at 03:14:08. It is safe to say that by then no computer will be a 32-bit based system. The 64-bit systems coming online today will roll over in about 292 billion years from now. As I am close to retiring I find it safe to say that it is unlikely to be a problem I will face.