|
I reprint this posting from Karl Feilder, who is one of the best-known y2k figures in the PC world. He did what the reporters did not do: he talked to the boy and his father.
I was inundated with e-mail messages asking me about this story. I hate to get e-mail messages about silver bullets. I ask on my Home Page that people not send them. I say so in my automated form letter. But every time the press picks up another one, people who desperately hope that y2k will go away send me the report. I will say it again: all such stories are false. There is no silver bullet.
Here is Feilder's report (Sept. 17):
* * * * * *
I have spoken to the young boy, and to his father at length
I have also been quoted today in the New Zealand Herald (one of the original sources of the CNN story) and Channel 9 news in Australia setting the record straight - specifically :
1. This young chap has no product - just a working piece of code.
2. The code has yet to be tested independently.
3. The code is only claimed by it's author to fix the hardware BIOS problems.
4. The majority of PC problems are to do with software and data - that hardware issue is simple to diagnose and fix - the software issues are neither.
5. There are at least half a dozen BIOS fixers available and what he has done, whilst taking a new (unproven) approach has negligible improvement over the current products - some of which are easily downloadable from the net. . . .
|