Why are people concerned about PLDs in conjunction with Y2K?
Many people believe that a large number of devices that utilize PLDS will fail when the year 2000 rolls around since PLDS may contain date sensitive code. In particular programmable devices like VCRS, Coffee Makers, Security Systems, etc. are susceptable to this type of problem. If the PLD is date sensitive and was not set up to deal with 8 digit dates (discussed earlier), then a number of different things may happen, 1) the device may simply fail to operate; 2) the device may report the incorrect day of the week (if it thinks the year is 1900); 3) The device may fail to operate as expected (coffee maker doesn’t come on in the morning). Thus, there is the potential for a lot of problems with this type of thing but I don’t think any of it is earth shattering (although if my coffee maker stops working there is going to be a serious problem). The other side of this coin is that PLD devices are used in large production systems that manage things like power plants and food processing machin
