Several customers have inquired recently about Hewlett-Packard's plans for moving the HP 3000 and MPE/iX into the Year 2000. This transition poses some major challenges for both Hewlett-Packard and its customers, due to the way in which computers have historically manipulated and stored dates. HP realizes that this challenge requires immediate attention, and hopes that our customers recognize the urgency of this issue as well.
After assessing the internal clocks on all HP 3000 PA-RISC servers that will be under HP support in the Year 2000, HP has determined that these platforms are NOT effected by the Year 2000 rollover. The HP 3000 Series 925, 935 and 949 were not certified since these servers will be obsolete in November, 1998.
HP has assessed the MPE/iX operating system and its related subsystems to determine all Year 2000 issues, and plans to address these issues. By the end of 1997 HP expects to release a version of MPE/iX that will support the Year 2000 and beyond. This version of MPE/iX, like all previous versions, will be backwards compatible with all HP 3000 PA-RISC servers, providing investment protection so customers can quickly and easily take advantage of the new features of the operating system without having to upgrade to a newer HP 3000 server.
Below are the highlights of the user interface changes that are planned for MPE/iX.
MPE/iX Intrinsics
The CALENDAR intrinsic is the most widely used intrinsic for retrieving
dates. The CALENDAR intrinsic is safe until the Year 2027, so no changes
are currently planned.
The following intrinsics accept/return dates in CALENDAR format:
ALMANAC CALENDAR DBINFO FFILEINFO FLABELINFO FMTCALENDAR FMTDATE JOBINFO NLFMTCALENDAR POSIX date routines
The NLINFO intrinsic supports the ISO 8601:1988 standard (YYYY-MM-DD) date display format.
NLS intrinsics, which currently return a two-digit year, will continue to return a two-digit year in the Year 2000 and beyond (i.e., 00 = 2000).
CI Commands
The following CI commands will be enhanced to handle a four-digit year in
addition to continuing to support a two-digit year:
:STREAM ; DATE=mm/dd/yy :FILE ; LABEL=expirationdate :SETCLOCK date-spec :LISTSPF/SPOOLF ; SELEQ=[date=mm/dd/yy] :STORE/RESTORE/VSTORE ; DATE=mm/dd/yy[yy]Two-digit year fields will be interpreted using the YY:Split method (i.e., 00 .. 49 = 2000 .. 2049 and 50 .. 99 = 1950 .. 1999).
Commands that currently display two-digit years will continue to display two-digit years in the Year 2000 and beyond.
CI Variables
HPYEAR will continue to return a two-digit year in the Year 2000 and beyond
(i.e., 00 = 2000). HPDATEF and HPINTRODATE both use FMTCALENDAR, which is
Year 2027 safe.
VPlus
Two new intrinsics called VGETYYYYMMDD and VPUTYYYYMMDD will be created to
handle four-digit years. A new ARB data type called YYYYMD will be created.
This will correspond to an eight-byte ASCII date value in YMD format.
Date output will be formatted with four-digit years if the target field is wide enough to receive the date, and the application specifies this action using a new JCW called VSETNEXTCENTURY.
If the VSETNEXTCENTURY JCW is set appropriately, two-digit years will be interpreted using the YY:Split method (i.e., 00 .. 49 = 2000 .. 2049 and 50 ... 99 = 1950 .. 1999).
By default, VPLUS will continue to output dates in the Year 2000 and beyond as they are output today.
Applications
Customers must also begin to assess their own applications and databases,
and create a plan to address the Year 2000 issue.
Database tool vendors such as Adager, Bradmark (DBGENERAL), and Robelle (SUPRTOOL) are enhancing their products to assist customers with transforming data so that their systems can store Year 2000 dates correctly. Currently, there are no plans to enhance HP DBChange Plus to address Year 2000 date transformations; however, the product will continue to function properly in the Year 2000 and beyond.