President's Message from Don Rima

"The sky is falling!" So goes the fairy tale of Chicken Little who was sure that impending disaster was upon him. Unlike this children's tale, the very real problems facing your systems and your business are no fairy tale and your very financial, business and personal career's existence will hinge on how you face it and, hopefully, defeat it.

This month we are VERY happy to present David Slater, Y2K coordinator from the Toronto Lab. Even if you've started your systems conversion, you will want to attend this evening's presentation. Even if you have finished you will want to come to gloat! (just kidding but we would love to have some input from those who have finished. There will not be any Y2K sessions at the JAM this year. ..we don't think we can do better than this.

And to make things even more interesting we're adding a special invitation to your company's executives. See the box below for details.

A special thanks and the WAM White Star for Bravery above and beyond the call of duty goes to Rick Clements and Butch Keasler for their presentation on migrating to V4R2. For those who were not there, Rick and Butch filled in at the last minute. Our thanks too to the folks from United Payors and Providers who added some "real life" . You guys did it right, and our thanks go out to you.

The JAM's in the bag! Check it out on the web page at www.wash-midrange.org. If you're a past attendee, you've already been sent your invitation...if you've never been, consider this to be my invitation to you to spend one of the most power packed information days learning the latest from the greatest....December 4, in College Park....

IF you are a member and you bring your CFO/CEO/or Other Executive

AND you RSVP by 4:00 p.m. on July 17,

WAM will pay for your Boss!!!

(There are no exceptions to the two codicils above.)

Year 2000! Technical Tools

No matter what your current Y2k status, THIS IS A MUST SEE!

We are pleased to bring, direct from the Toronto AS/400 Labs, David Slater. David is worldwide Campaign Manager for AS/400 Application Development Products responsible for the AS/400 Year 2000 presentations/campaigns in the US, Europe, Latin America, and Asia/Pacific.

David has 20 years service with IBM Canada within the Manufacturing and Development organization. He spent the last 11 years in the AS/400 AD Product Development. For 3 years he was the RPG Development Manager responsible for developing and shipping ILE RPG which incorporates the new RPG IV language definition and the new ILE programming model.

Tuesday - July 21, 1998 - 18:00

Tyson's Westpark
8401 Westpark Drive
Tyson's Corner, Virginia

(Parking is FREE !)

Board Meeting Immediately After !

18:00 Buffet - - 19:00 Speaker - - 20:30 Adjournment

It's a Westpark Picnic! Fried chicken, pork barbeque with kaiser rolls, cole slaw, tater salad, Black bean and corn salsa with tortilla chips, corn-on-the-cob, watermelon slices!

RSVP (by Friday 07/17) to Peter 703/834-3706 or 1stplace@crosslink.net

$25.00/non-member

IBM Provides Y2K Readiness Database

http://www.yr2k.raleigh.ibm.com

WAM Board of Directors

President: Don Rima 703/742-3744 F) 703/742-0448 dr2@access.digex.com
Past President: Jack Fugiel 301/489-1103 F) 301/474-1609 fugielj@wdni.com
Secretary: Peter Maher 703/834-3706 F) 703/834-3707 1stplace@crosslink.net
Treasurer: K B Soni 301/590-7121 F) 301/590-0213 kbsoni@aol.com
Newsletter Editor: Tom Jones 301/515-4438 F) - - twjones@erols.com
Director: John Blum 410/265-1300 F) - - jblum@mail.bcpl.lib.md.us
Director: Pam Johnson 703/978-5212 F) 703/978-5360 pjohnson@i-t-works-inc.com
Director: Paul Lambert 410/381-6396 F) - - pg_lambert@prodigy.com
Director: John Rodrigues 703/519-1569 F) 703/683-5100 majobo@aol.com

Sponsor New WAM Members - - Win $100 Gift Certificate

To qualify for the drawing, please ensure that you let John Rodrigues know the name and telephone number of each new WAM member that you have sponsored. John can be reached at 703/519-1569 or at majobo@aol.com. (This promotion is effective April 1, 1998.)

This great idea was developed by John Rodrigues as a means of delivering more value to our members. Thanks John!

U P C O M I N G E V E N T S

Treasurer's Message

If you have already renewed your membership for 1998 you may skip this message. However, if you have not renewed so far, I urge you to renew immediately and certainly before July 31, 1998. Our membership is on a calendar year basis and as such, all 1997 memberships expired on 12/31/97.

As a paid member for 1998, you will be able to attend JAM'98 at the member price - a saving of $45. You will be able to get this member price for yourself as well as for anyone else in your organization who will be attending JAM along with you. In other words, membership pays for itself on this account alone if you have two persons attending JAM'98. However, to qualify for member rates for JAM'98 you must be a member as of July 31, 1998. Memberships received beyond that date will be for the 1999 calendar year.

As you all know by now, the membership dues structure was changed effective January 1, 1998. The annual dues now are $100 and this amount includes the cost of attending the monthly meetings throughout the year. You no longer need to pay an additional $25 to attend each meeting and there are still four monthly meetings left in 1998.

Please renew your 1998 membership as soon as possible, if you have not already done so, by sending in your check for $100 at the earliest. The check made out to WAM may be sent to:

Washington Area Midrange
12023 Blackberry Terrace
North Potomac, MD 20878

-K B Soni

Wam 1998 Calendar

August: * * No Meeting ! * *

Sep 15: Mary McConnell, E-Commerce/V4R3.

Oct 20: * * Elections ! * * and TBA

Nov 17: T B A

Dec 4: WAM JAM

Two Digits for a Date

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale
Of the doom that is our fate.
That started when programmers used
Two digits for a date.
Two digits for a date.

Main memory was smaller then;
Hard disks were smaller, too.
"Four digits are extravagant,
So let's get by with two.
So let's get by with two."

"This works through 1999,"
The programmers did say.
"Unless we rewrite before that
It all will go away.
It all will go away."

But Management had not a clue:
"It works fine now, you bet!
A rewrite is a straight expense;
We won't do it just yet.
We won't do it just yet.

Now when 2000 rolls around
It all goes straight to @#$&,
For zero's less than ninety-nine,
As anyone can tell.
As anyone can tell.

The mail won't bring your pension check
It won't be sent to you
When you're no longer sixty-eight,
But minus thirty-two.
But minus thirty-two.

The problems we're about to face
Are frightening, for sure.
And reading every line of code's
The only certain cure.
The only certain cure.

[key change, big finish]

There's not much time,
There's too much code.
(And cobol coders, few)
When the century is finished with,
We may be finished, too.
We may be finished, too.

Eight thousand years from now I hope
That things weren't left too late,
And people aren't then lamenting
Four digits for a date.
Four digits for a date.

Yours truly,

Tom Jones, Newsletter editor.......................... Proud of his new PC
Peter Maher, WebMaster...........You'd think with 96 Megs of ram this 98 would be faster