WRP63

Cory Hamasaki's DC Y2K Weather Report V2, # 7
"February 9, 1998 - 690 days to go." WRP63
EARLY EDITION
(c) 1997, 1998 Cory Hamasaki - I grant permission to distribute and
reproduce this article as long as this entire document is reproduced in
its entirety including this notice. I do not grant permission to
a commercial publisher to reprint this in print media.

As seen in
USENET:comp.software.year-2000
http://www.elmbronze.demon.co.uk/year2000/
http://www.kiyoinc.com/HHResCo.html

Please fax or email copies of this to your geek pals, especially those
idiots who keep sending you lightbulb, blonde, or Bill Gates jokes,
and urban legends like the Arizona rocket car story.

If you have a Y2K webpage, feel free to host the Weather Reports.

Don't forget- April 2, 3 1998, Geek Out.
Project Dumbass needs you.

1. Reader's Mailbox - Ham Chatter
2. Screaming to start at FAA
3. Murder at DC Cancer Hospital
4. Update on Starbuck Murder
5. Worshington Post Classifieds
6. ALC 8, calling and returning.
7. CCCC - Big Bird.

----------- Reader's Mailbox - Ham Chatter ----------
> Cory...
>
> I've been a long-time lurker on c.s.y2k although I delurked long enough to
> vote a 4.5 in the last update on The EndTimes. It WILL be BAD...no doubt in
> my mind.

I'm voting 4.0 and hoping for 3.0.

> My reason for posting to you: you mentioned 70cm repeaters with solar power.
> I'm thinking along the same lines. BUT...since you are prone to tongue in
> cheek humor I can't always tell if you are serious or pulling our
> collective legs.

No, this is serious. The reason is, 1) we have almost two years left, 2) It would be a
low cost thing for hams to go 70cm (and 2 meter too) solar.

HF is another matter. But even HF solar or gas generator could help a lot. We'd have to
work to get the ARRL and the RACES types to back solar, maybe they could issue a nice
certificate to all clubs who have solar power or give DXCC, WAS, WAC QRP solar
endorsements. They'd have to publicize it, get people working on it.

I found a solar source:

QRV Solar Power Supply - Keeps your repeater on the air 'round the clock or
powers your 100W HF station 60 hours a month. $299.95. < I think they mean
5-10 hours of transmitting SSB ICAS, 50 hours of receiving, I doubt they mean
100W Key down CCS for 60 hours a month. If so, you'd want at least 3 of these
to run an emergency station. > Antennas West, Box 50062, Provo, UT 84605,
(801) 373-8425

If you're out in the extreme boonies, this will give you enough power to run a
couple small florescent lights, some radios, as long as the batteries will
hold a charge.

>
> I've been a ham since 1953 getting my Novice at age 12. You sound like you
> may be an equally old fart considering your senior moments. :)

not as old, I was licensed in 1963 as WH6FHN, now AH6GI. I'm 51 but gaining on you fast.

> Lots of hams post to c.s.y2k, and as you know, many of the guys who built
> the 'net are hams. Have you considered the formation of a Y2K-specific net
> on maybe 75 and 20? The purpose being to rally folks together to establish a
> solar-powered repeater system AND the sharing of Y2K-related info specific
> to commo links but covering all aspects of pre- and post- Y2K survival. I
> can't see much rebirth after Y2K without ham-based commo because of the
> telco collapse.

That's a possiblity. I don't have the space to put up an antenna for 75 but
20 or 15 are possibilities. I have a TH3jr tucked behind the rose trellis.

> I have started my survival planning. My small group of folks are planning a
> Y2K Victory garden this year---all open-pollenated seeds, of course!---to
> get into the swing of it and learn the difficulties. Fortunately, I don't
> have to move. I already live on the ultimate survival farm with water, fish,
> animals and plenty of tillable land. Much too close to a NUKE plant but with
> 411 of the damn things world-wide I can't get away from them.

Y2K is a voluntary effort according to de Jager. You may have appointed yourself to be the
official solar ham Y2K spokesperson.

My pal's farm has a spring feeding a creek but it's just a trickle, no fish,
not enough head to generate electricity.

Yes, the Y2K Victory garden, I grew my summer vegetables at the townhouse,
don't have as much sun in the new house but I like growing my own food. I
haven't gotten into this non-hybred seed stuff, I used to buy a couple flats
of assorted plants like any good urban farmer. I had the best results when I
prepped the soil, got out all the rocks, mixed in lots of compost and manure.

The farm is different, we have acres of open field, a mountain of
steaming compost that my pal turns with a diesel frontloader. We have two
seasons before Y2K.

This year, we'll try a half acre, strictly an experiment.

> Sorry to ramble...but I wanted to reach out and ask your thoughts on
> creating a commo network before...instead of attempting it during or after
> The Collapse.
>
> What think you? Know of any movement toward such a net?

No, you're it. Start it up yourself, call CQ and start yakking. If you do
start a regular net, drop me a note and I'll promote the freq and time in the
WRPs.

You'll want to get the civil emergency guys involved. You're right though,
if the power and phones go out, we're it.

>
> Bernie

---------- Screaming to start at FAA ----------

Here is the full text of the Post's article from their server at
http://www.washingtonpost.com, they have a text search engine a couple clicks
down. I invoke both Fair Use doctrine and the Hamasaki Topology principle,
which states that if they put it on the net, my computer is just a 'cache'
between their computer and your eyes. If this bothers you, please delete your
copy after reading it. Then it is topographicly the same as if you read it
directly off their server.

As usual <my clueless comments> but this is so funny in itself that you'll
cry, laugh, and pee in your pants.

FAA Lags in Fixing Crucial Systems

By Rajiv Chandrasekaran and Stephen Barr
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, February 5, 1998; Page A15

The Federal Aviation Administration's efforts to repair its computers so they will
work in the year 2000 are significantly behind schedule, raising the possibility of
flight delays and cancellations, congressional officials were warned yesterday.

<Who's scaremongering, who's hyping now... Is it :dave, scott, pam, DD? Oh,
it's the United States Transportation Department's Inspector General.... oops,
sor-reee.>

As of this past Monday, only 29 percent of the FAA's 430 "mission critical" computer
systems had been fully fixed, according to the Transportation Department's
inspector general. Testing to determine which systems are affected by the date
glitch has not yet been completed, seven months after a White House-imposed
deadline, Inspector General Kenneth M. Mead said in testimony before a joint
hearing of two House subcommittees yesterday.

<hmmm, 29 percent out of 430, is this good news? Only seven months late...
Oh, but they're not done yet. halp-halp! And you thought the Sci-Fi channel
was scary, watch congressional testimory on Y2K for a real scare. Do you
denial-heads get it yet? They're talking about failures in air traffic
safety systems. It's not us Y2K'ers, it's the Transportation Department's
Inspector General.>

"FAA's progress in making its systems ready for the year 2000 has been too slow,"
Joel C. Willemssen, the General Accounting Office's information systems director,
told the House panels. "At its current pace, it will not make it in time."

<Joel, you clueless oaf, the planes are safe, they can just look out the
window, use their radar, at least that's what a bunch of experts said on
c.s.y2k a few months ago.>

The GAO, the watchdog arm of Congress, also warned that the FAA does not have
adequate contingency plans in case some of its computers fail or are not fixed in
time. In a report released yesterday, the GAO said air travel could be interrupted
for the first days, weeks and even months of the year 2000 if the FAA does not
increase its pace of repairs.

<m-m-m-m-m-months? Uh-oh? 747 and DC-10 freighters haul food to Hawaii.
Eggs, chickens, yes, some comes by refrigerator ship but a lot of food comes
by air. So much so that 747's deadhead back to California. How do I know?
The Pacific Business News had an article about it.>

Almost half of the FAA's 430 mission-critical systems run the nation's air traffic
control services. All of those machines have been tested, but 40 percent of them
have not been repaired, according to the agency.

Fixing them is shaping up to be a Herculean task. The air traffic systems have more
than 23 million lines of computer code that are written in 50 different languages,
some of them long obsolete and now known by only a handful of technicians.

<50? I guess they have some real fun languages like PAL, Spitbol, Jovial,
autocoder, MarkIV, I don't think I could name 50, Does Release 3 CLIST
language count as separate from Release 2 and Release 1?>

Repairing the remaining 40 percent also is likely to be much tougher than what's
been accomplished thus far. Those that already have been fixed "were the easy
ones that had no date processing function," said Mead, the IG.

<What!!!! They counted fixing the ones that didn't need fixing as successes.>

The FAA's administrator, Jane F. Garvey, promised the House subcommittees that
the agency is speeding up its efforts. "We are behind, and that is unacceptable,"
Garvey told the Science Committee's subcommittee on technology and the
Government Reform and Oversight Committee's subcommittee on government
management, information and technology.

But Garvey said the extra time for testing has given the agency "an accurate picture
of what we need to make the air traffic control system [year-2000] compliant."

"Renovation efforts are now underway and we expect this to go more quickly
because we conducted a comprehensive assessment," she said.

The date problem stems from the fact that many computer systems use a two-digit
dating system that assumes that 1 and 9 are the first two digits of the year. Without
specialized reprogramming, the systems will recognize "00" not as 2000 but 1900, a
glitch that could cause the computers either to stop working or to start generating
erroneous data.

<yeah-yeah, now that Y2K has been in People Magazine (Feb 9), 73 Magazine
(Feb 1998), Popular Mechanics (Jan 1998), Money (Feb 1998), the Washington
Post almost every day, you can stop explaining what a two digit year is.
What? We have to wait until Glamor, Car and Driver, and World Wrestling do a
Y2K article? OK>

Facing similar delays at other federal agencies, President Clinton yesterday
created a White House council to coordinate efforts to fix the problem and
appointed John A. Koskinen, a former Office of Management and Budget official,
to head the group.

Garvey maintained that the safety of commercial air travel will not be affected by
the computer problem.

Garvey, however, didn't rule out the possibility that flights might be disrupted, but
said suggestions of widespread flight cancellations or delays on the ground are a
"slight exaggeration." She said she will meet with representatives of the airline
industry on Feb. 9.

lt;Slight exaggeration, a-huh, it's happy-talk time, I love you, you love me,
we're a hap-py fa-mi-ly. Come on, everyone, rock from side to side with me,
sing, sing louder, I LOVE YOU, YOU LOVE ME.... I hope one of the airline
industry reps has a cream pie.... >

A spokesman for the Air Transport Association, a trade organization representing
U.S. airlines, said the group is encouraged by the FAA's recently redoubled efforts.
"We feel cautiously optimistic about the FAA's progress," said spokesman David A.
Fuscus.

Despite the promises to speed up the repairs, Mead criticized the FAA's November
1999 deadline to finish all the work, which is eight months later than OMB and the
department recommend. "I would say that is too close a call," he said.

<Mead, it's not that the date is too close a call, it's that the date is
bogus.>

Mead also questioned the FAA's strategy to both repair and replace critical "host
computers" at 20 Air Route Traffic Control Centers that are used to receive data
from radar systems and integrate that information into a picture for air traffic
controllers.

The manufacturer of the host computers, International Business Machines Corp.,
has warned that it doesn't have the "appropriate skills and tools" to de-bug the
machines because they are more than 20 years old.

Although the FAA already has identified at least one date-related problem with the
host computers' cooling system -- which, if not fixed, could cause the machines to
fail -- the agency has opted to try to repair them. At the same time, it plans to replace
some of them.

<Please, please don't ASS-U-ME. I do a fine job for myself. Mull
this over... ...as best you can, the ATC computers have a Y2K date flaw in
their cooling systems. If these are not fixed or replaced, the ATC host
systems will not work after Y2K. These are the machines that IBM says it
can't fix because "it doesn't have the 'appropriate skills and tools'". This
is the company that can write its logo by moving individual atoms, built the
computer the beat the world's chess champion, that demo'ed a 1,000 mHz
microprocessor. ...and it doesn't have the skills and tools! I sure as heck
won't argue that I could fix it or that it's just hype.>

But Mead warned yesterday that replacing the machines would be a risky
contingency plan. Replacement "sounds simple, however, the reality is that
rehosting a highly sophisticated and customized system like the Air Traffic Control
System is a complex undertaking," he wrote in a report. "The last time the FAA
[replaced] these mainframe computers, the process took about three years."

<Yeppers, Replacement sounds simple; you have a problem, just solve it, how
simple.>

</ Fair Use doctrine quotes.>
</ clueless comments from the king of cluelessness, cory hamasaki >

------------ Murder at DC Cancer Hospital -------------

Feb 5, 1998, gunman kills local boxer, wounds 5 innocent bystanders. The
boxer, a local thug himself, with one murder conviction and under
investigation for two other murders, was shot in front of a horrified
crowd of patients and hospital workers.

------------ Update on Starbuck Murder ---------------

Starbucks is reopening the coffee shop where three young workers were killed
execution style. A mural will commemorate the shooting.

------------ Worshington Post Classifieds -------------

The second technology job promotion of 1998 was today, February 8, 1998. In
addition to the approximately 20 full pages (47 half pages with some editorial
content offered by self-serving recuiters and HR departments.) There was
another 10 or so full pages of computer jobs in the regular section and the
business - professional opportunities. Total? 20+10 = 30 pages, not the all
time high.

Run your searches at http://www.washingtonpost.com

The self-serving recruiters and HR departments are really getting hard to
stomach, and with my gut, that's saying a lot. There was some tripe about
money not being as important as having a good time with the gang at work or
working on 'cutting edge' technology. Excuse me? What's cutting edge, JAVA?
HTML? TCP/IP? or is it DFSDS, VTAM, CICS, and HLASM? Can't tell, can you?

Well, neither can I, but at least I know that I'm clueless, where as, the
HR-drones and recruiter-droids are in La-la-land. Here's a hint, I was
shocked to learn that T-C-A-M, that's Telecommunications Access Method runs
the NY financial community. Shocked! I've written TCAM message handlers and
I thought that TCAM was replaced by VTAM decades ago.

Now just because there is an insane demand for IT experts, especially legacy
systems people with enterprise scale experience, that doesn't mean we should
be rude or disrespectful... even though all of us were either rightsized or
know someone who was rightsized in the last 15 years. When I tell you to say
"stick 'em up." don't actually say it. Say something like, I'm currently
receiving and considering offers in the $xxx/hour range and I will evaluate
the entire package and give your offer full consideration. If there is
anything that you wish to bring to my attention, please do so. Say "Stick 'em
up." when you get off the phone.

What's hard to swallow is the self-serving recruiters and HR departments
saying that they will hold grudges against people who turn them down abruptly
or accept and then reject their offer. You shouldn't do that but if you do,
they won't be around the next time you come calling, and anyway, most of the
big corps have had incredible layoffs over the last 15 years. The
self-serving recruiters and HR droids should look at their own pot before
calling us kettles black.

If at all possible, bypass them. I haven't gotten a job through a recruiter
or HR since... the late 1970's. Since then, all jobs have been geek-to-geek.
I'll get a call from a pal who knows me and knows what I do, we talk on the
phone, meet for lunch, strike a deal, and then have his HR department clean up
the paperwork. Even in the dark years, the mid 1980s to early 1990s, the
jobs have been geek-to-geek.

--------------- ALC 8 ----------------------

calling and returning.

IEFBR14, means

IEF - the prefix of the operating system. The module IEFSD095 is the
subroutine that produces the large letters on the printers for job names.

BR 14 - means Branch Register, Register 14. OK so it should have been
BRR14

There's the standard; when a module is called by the operating system, R15
contains the entry point address and R14 contains the address that the module
should return to.

Register 13 contains the address of a savearea; the savearea, 18 full words
(a full word is 32 bits, 4 bytes) is used by the callee to save the registers
of the caller. 16 registers but 18 register sized slots? Two slots are used
to 'chain' the saveareas, one points to the previous save area and one to the
next, if and when the module calls yet another module. R13 isn't saved
with the others. Its slot is 'reserved for PL/I'.

Register 1 contains the address of the parameter list. Standards are good so
there are several here. OS, TSO, and PL/I use different standards. In OS
(MVS), register 1 points to the parameter list. In TSO, it points to the
CPPL, the command processor parameter list. In PL/I, it's something else,
the ISA, DSA (I can't remember, it's 1 am, and I'm too lazy to look it up but
certainly some PL/I gearhead will pop in with the answer.) There may be more
standards for CICS, IMS, etc. The last PL/I compiler I used had the options
(INTER, ASM) that told it to generate non-PLI, OS standard linkage.

In a previous lesson, I ignored the savearea chaining as well as the return.
Although a nice discussion followed in the newsgroup.

STCK CSECT
SAVE (14,12),,STCK..&SYSDATC
BALR R12,0 INIT BASE
USING *,R12 ADDRESS
ST R13,SAVE+4 SAVE OLD SAVE
LA R13,SAVE COPY IN NEW SAVE

SAVE is a macro; in the above example, it generates a STM into the caller's
savearea. The assumption is that R13 points to the savearea that the caller
set up. The first two words of the savearea are used for forward and backward
chaining, so the generated STM is something like:

STM 14,12,12(13)

Which means store the registers, 14, 15, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11,
and 12 into words beginning at 12 bytes off of the address contained in
register 13.

This one instruction, which in the object code is:

90ECD00C

Fanned out:

90 EC D 00C

Which means

90 opcode for Store Multiple

E register 14, start
C register 12, end
D register 13, to
00C the value 12.

The 90ECD00C, appears at the start of modules, when you're reading dumps,
look for it.

The discussion in c.s.y2k pointed out that some assembler programmers use
another technique where R15, the entry point is loaded into the base register
and the Using references the module name rather than *.

The disadvantage of that technique is that it moves the initialization code
into the addressable range of the base register. S/390 base registers only
cover a 4096 byte range. The more code in the addressable range, the more
base registers you need or the more calling and returning you have to do.

While we are only dealing with perhaps a 1 percent cost, these trade offs were
decided on computers where a big one was a quarter MIPS.

EXIT DS 0H
L R13,SAVE+4 RELOAD OLD SAVE
RETURN (14,12),RC=0
EJECT
SAVE DS 18F

The RETURN is a macro. It generates an instruction to put a 0
into register 15, the return code. It generates a load multiple,

LM 14,12,12(13)

98ECD00C

The L R13,SAVE+4, before the RETURN, is required because the RETURN
assumes that R13 contains the address of the caller's savearea. That's the
one that the 90ECD00C stored the caller's registers into.

Finally the macro generates a

BR 14

07FE

07 Branch Condition Register
F Always
E to Register 14

Which is how this lesson began.

Some coders put 'eyecatchers' which are EBCDIC constants such as:

"My data starts here, I hope I can find this."

into their program data areas. And then they're confused because they can't
find it or they find two copies of it.

You don't need to do that once you understand the saveareas, registers, and
how to read object code. The goal of the WRP assembler lessons is to get you
to the point that you can debug S/390 problems using memory dumps.

We're going to need every trick in our toolbox in 690 days. If you have
access to an assembler at work, start experimenting with it. If you get a
memory dump, get out the yellow highlighters and .5 mm red pens and have at
it.

------------ CCCC ---------------------

I'm in semi-lurk mode but you should still see a post every day or two. I'll
squeeze into the Y2K chat room once a week for an hour or so, although the
gun-nuts seem to have taken over.

I glanced at this week's U.S. News and World Report at the grocery store, the
issue with Big Lou of IBM on the cover. I didn't see Y2K mentioned but
page... 48... maybe, I'm guessing.. can't remember, senior moment, had a
picture of a "Big Bird" in the middle. The article didn't give a good
explanation of Big Bird, it's the six foot tall, one arm, bright yellow,
industrial robot that looks like it should be putting bumpers on Pontiacs at a
General Motors assembly plant.

Big Bird is what IBM dreamed up. Some of our more vocal denial-head, Wee
Nees need to look hard at Big Bird.... say to themselves, if Big Bird is the
solution, what the h*ll kind of problem were they trying to solve.