CCI, DRI & Novell
Multiuser Operating Systems
Year 2000 impact

There are several year 2000 related issues in older versions of Concurrent Controls Inc. Concurrent DOS and Multiuser DOS-based products. These issues also apply to the Digital Research Concurrent DOS XM, Concurrent DOS 386, and DR Multiuser DOS operating system products, and to the Novell Multiuser DOS operating system product. A summary follows, with details on CCI operating system issues on page 1 and details on DRI and Novell operating system issues beginning on page 3.

Summary

The following versions of these operating system product includes correct translation of dates past the year 2000 and correct handling of all leap years (issues I and III below) :

CCI Concurrent DOS v3.05 release 11 and later
Multiuser DOS GOLD v7.22 release 2 and later
Novell Multiuser DOS v5.11 release 6 and later (as produced by CCI)

The following versions of each operating system product includes code that will (a) workaround or (b) fix the problem BIOS's unable to handle the year 2000 (issue II detailed below) :

a)  CCI Concurrent DOS v3.06 release 7
    Multiuser DOS GOLD v7.00 release 1 and later
b)  CCI Concurrent DOS v3.07 release 7
    Multiuser DOS GOLD v7.22 release 7 and later
    Novell Multiuser DOS v5.11 release 6 (as produced by CCI)

None of the referenced operating system products produced directly by Digital Research or Novell deals correctly with any of the three issues detailed below.

You may order updates or upgrades for any Concurrent Controls products by contacting Concurrent Controls at any of the following numbers. Corrections to Digital Research and Novell products are available, for further information and pricing, please contact Carol Goodrich at extension 202.

CCI Operating Systems¹

Issue I. Bios Date Translation

Issue II. PC BIOS Year 2000 bug

The BIOS's in some computers have a year 2000 bug in them that results in the date of 12/31/1999 incrementing to 01/01/1990 instead of 01/01/2000. This is a BIOS bug, and it most likely found in a BIOS with a pre-1992 copyright date. Though the "fix" for this is to replace the computer or to set the correct date in the BIOS, a workaround for this problem was implemented in CCI Concurrent DOS v3.06 r7 (signon date of 07/22/97, first manufacture date of 09/09/94) and included in all subsequent releases of CCI Concurrent DOS and Multiuser DOS GOLD. With this code change, when the system boots, the operating system will look for a BIOS date of 1990 and just translate it to a reported date of 2000. Though the BIOS date is still wrong, applications will be told the correct date of 2000, not 1900. (note: if the BIOS is queried, the BIOS date of 1900 is passed through to the app who does the query. If the DOS, CCI Concurrent DOS, or Multiuser DOS GOLD API (application programming interface) is used to "get the date" the operating system date of 2000 will be passed back.)

This workaround has now been replaced with code that fixes the problem by updating the computer BIOS itself. This code is part of CCI Concurrent DOS v3.07 r7, Multiuser DOS GOLD v7.22 r7 and CCI's Novell Multiuser DOS v5.11 release 6. The table below lists release dates for each of those.

This problem with older PC's BIOS is obviously not an operating system bug. This correction was provided to help those customers with large installed bases, since upgrading the OS may be easier and less expensive to accomplish in many cases than upgrading the computer's BIOS.

Issue III. Leap Year Issue

The operating system date may be changed via the built in "DATE" command. However, some CCI operating system products incorrectly translate some days in leap years (usually the days February 29 through March 5). Each leap year another day is impacted, that is, 1988 has fewer problems than 2008.

The year 2000 is a leap year. Note that this is a "leap year" bug not a "year 2000 compliance" bug. However, this problem may show up during year 2000 certification testing. In 1991, this problem was corrected for the leap years 1992 and 1996 (CCI Concurrent v3.04 r1, signon of 07/31/91, first release date of 09/14/91). In 1992, this problem was corrected for all leap years (CCI Concurrent v3.05 r1, signon of 02/21/92, first release date of 03/03/92).

DRI and Novell Operating Systems²

I. BIOS Date Translation

The DRI and Novell operating system products will translate the BIOS date of 2000 as 2156. This problem is present in all DRI (Concurrent DOS, Concurrent DOS XM V5.xx and V6.XX, Concurrent DOS 386 v1.xx, 2.xx and 3.xx, DR Multiuser DOS v5.xx) and Novell (Novell Multiuser DOS V5.xx) operating system products.

II. Computer BIOS Year 2000 Bug

All DRI and Novell products don't work around older computers with BIOS that incorrectly report 1900 instead of 2000.

III. Leap Year Issue

The DATE command has leap year problems and some dates in leap years (usually the days February 29 through March 5) may be incorrectly translated. Each leap year another day is impacted, that is, 1988 has fewer problems than 2008. Novell corrected this problem in Novell Multiuser DOS V5.10; all earlier Novell/DRI versions of Multiuser DOS (V5.00, V5.01) still have it, as do all of the other DRI products.

*Novell and DRI did not publish multiple public releases, nor formal release dates for their products.

Important Notice

The information provided herein regarding the status of our products as being year 2000 ready is for informational purposes only. THE LISTING OF A PRODUCT AS BEING YEAR 2000 READY DOES NOT CONSTITUTE AN EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTY BY CONCURRENT CONTROLS INC. AND DOES NOT EXTEND OR OTHERWISE AMEND OR MODIFY THE TERM OR SCOPE OF THE ORIGINAL WARRANTY FOR THE PRODUCT OR THE OBLIGATION OF CONCURRENT CONTROLS INC., IF ANY, TO SERVICE OR REPAIR SUCH PRODUCT. All original terms of the product's license, shall continue to apply as written and shell not be affected in any way by the information provided herein.

Year 2000 statement: Rev. 1.02, 07/10/1998