Reviving software dinosaurs: learning to decipher antiquated computer programs. (Cover Story)

From: Science News | Date: August 7, 1993| Author: Peterson, Ivars | Copyright information

The pharmacist typed in his customer's birth date: June 18, 1899. The computer responded immediately with the message: Invalid Entry.

The wry smile on the pharmacist's face told the story. Once again, the computer programmers who had written the software used for tracking prescriptions and managing a pharmacy had failed to anticipate a real-life possibility -- in this case, that a customer could have been born before the year 1900. By using only the last two digits of...

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