Q:

What standard is Microware using for Year 2000 compliance?

A:

Microware is committed to the Year 2000 standard prepared by British Standards Institution (BSI) committee BDD/1/-/3.  This standard ensures compliance by providing four basic rules:

• No value for current date will cause any interruption in operation.
• Date-based functionality must behave consistently for dates prior to, during, and after the Year 2000.
• In all interfaces and data storage, the century in any date must be specified either explicitly or by unambiguous algorithms or inferencing rules.
• Year 2000 must be recognized as a leap year

Q:

Are Microware's  development tools Year 2000 compliant?

A:

All of our current development tools are Year 2000 compliant. These tools include:

• Hawk™ v1.0 or later

Our earlier development tools are Year 2000 compliant as well.  These tools include:

• FasTrak for Windows v2.2.1
• FasTrak for Unix v2.2
• Resident Toolkit v1.3

Q:

Are OS-9® and related  components Year 2000 compliant?

A:

All of our current and future OS products are being tested against the BSI Year 2000 compliance standards. The results of these tests and solutions to assure Year 2000 compliance are given in this table:

Q:

Is Ariel Year 2000 compliant?

A:

Yes, Ariel has been verified to be Year 2000 compliant.

Q:

How is Microware testing its products to verify compliance?

A:

All of Microware's current products, including the Year 2000 Solution  products, have been tested and subjected to code inspection for Year 2000 compliance  against the BSI standard. This includes Ariel, OS-9® utilities, application  time functions, and file manager time dependencies.

Q:

What do I do if I am not using one of the OS-9® versions given in  the above table?

A:

Historically, programmers were not too concerned with Year 2000  compliance. It was always felt that an upgrade would be made before approaching Year 2000.  That is why Microware ensured all of the current versions of their products are Year 2000 compliant. However, Microware also realized that many applications had been built and marketed using OS-9® for 68K version 2.4. Therefore, we have also provided a solution for this formally retired and unsupported version. If you are using an OS-9® for  68K version prior to 2.4 you will need to either upgrade to version 2.4 and  install the Year 2000 Solution for version 2.4, or upgrade to version 3.0.3, which is Year 2000 compliant.

OS-9® for X86, PPC, and ARM users will need to be on version 2.1. Maintenance subscribers can contact Microware to obtain the PCF module that assures Year 2000 compliance.

Q:

What will happen if I decide not to upgrade to an OS-9® Year 2000  compliant system?

A:

Depending on your application and its date dependencies, Year 2000 may have no effect on your application. However, the only way to be sure is to thoroughly test  your specific application.

Q:

I have updated my system for Year 2000 compliance and I still see  a two-digit year field (such as 01 for year 2001) when I use the set-time utility. Is my system Year 2000 compliant or not?

A:

When updating the necessary utilities and modules to make OS-9® Year 2000  compliant it was necessary to keep the same year format. Historically, the format  has been a two-digit year field. If we were to expand this to a four-digit year  field it could have adverse effects on your application. Therefore, we continued to use the two-digit year field. If this two-digit year field is less than 70, the  system assumes you are in century 20xx. If the two-digit year field is greater than 70, the system assumes you are in century 19xx.

Q:

How can I obtain further information on Microware's products and Year 2000 compliance?

A:

If you would like more specific Year 2000 information regarding your  Microware product, please e-mail os9@radisys.com.