On 21 Mar 98 at 21:39, Earl Truss wrote:

> One problem I run into all the time in Access is the "pivot year"
> problem.  If one is not careful with formatting dates, when someone
> enters a two-digit year, Access will interpret dates before "30" as
> being in the 21st century instead of the 20th century.  This is
> always a headache for me when dealing with birth dates ...

  This introduces THREE points that everyone who reads "Y2K doomsday"
scenarios in the popular press should be aware of:

1.  There are a great many systems which use two-digit years, but
have a pivot date like this, and so will encounter undesired
behaviour in 2030 or 2040 and NOT 2000.  [But see #2 in the case of
this particular application.]

2.  Systems that deal with human birthdates (including, for instance,
insurance and Social Security), if they use two-digit years, are
broken NOW, and not two years hence.  There are Americans alive now
who were born in 1897.

3.  Errors due to non-Y2K-compliant systems can only be in terms of
getting the century wrong.  Last year, a member of Congress claimed
that systems like the DMV or SSI might mistake 25-year-olds for
75-year-olds and vice versa (amongst a list of other improbable
consequences...); this CAN'T happen.

  It's appropriate for organizations to review their systems for
proper function.  But I don't think panic amongst the general public
is called for.