Year 2000 Compliance of
Base Station, Configurator, and Field Station
Year 2000 Compliance is Version Dependent
To assess your particular situation with regard to these Cornerstone products and year 2000 compliance, you must know which version of the software you are running. To find your version number, just start your Cornerstone software and access the Help / About dialog box. Newer releases have higher version numbers. For example, 3.0.11 is newer than 3.0.10.
Version 3.0.11 - Our Newest
ASTEC is active in the continuing enhancement and evolution of Base Station, Configurator, and Field Station. Beyond adding new core features and functions to these Cornerstone models, we have an ongoing schedule for the development of new and updated interfaces to a wide variety of HART instruments, multiplexers, and calibrators from many different manufacturers. As a part of this ongoing development program, new releases also contain repairs to reported software problems.
Our most recent release of Base Station, Configurator, and Field Station software products is version 3.0.11, which began shipping in August 1998. Version 3.0.11 is the first release to include a comprehensive analysis, test and repair of all Year 2000 issues. As a part of this release we verified or made changes to insure that all dates maintained in our databases are stored in standard MS-DOS format. This format is a long integer containing the number of seconds since Jan 1, 1970. This provides time and date, with no "transition" at the year 2000 at all, through the end of the year 2035. All internal date arithmetic and decisions were checked and/or modified to make sure that all are done using this representation of date and time, thus avoiding any year 2000 transition problems.
As a part of the Year 2000 certification of version 3.0.11, we also verified or made changes throughout the software to insure that wherever a date is displayed or printed, it is consistently shown in the form "07-July-1997". This use of a full four character year avoids the problem with the potential ambiguity of a two digit year. Also, this data order and presentation format avoids any confusion regarding day and month (an international issue). Versions of the software prior to 3.0.11 did have some two digit date formatting. Those were repaired for the 3.0.11 release.
In the Year 2000 certification of the Base Station program, we discovered that some of the intelligent calibrators that interface to our software had Year 2000 problems. Clearly we do not have control over these problems or their solution. However, we did report them to the calibrator vendors with detailed descriptions of the problems. In addition, for the 3.0.11 version of Base Station, we added protection against all incorrect date responses (post millennium) that we discovered so that they do not cause any problems in the Cornerstone database.
We consider that the 3.0.11 release of Base Station, Configurator, and Field Station are fully compliant with all year 2000 issues until at least the end of the year 2035.
Version 3.0.10 and Earlier (2.0.1x, 1.4.1x)
At the time the earlier versions of these programs were developed, there was not yet widespread concern for year 2000 questions. That fact, and the expectation that Cornerstone users would upgrade to newer releases of the software when available, means that version 3.0.10 and older versions have not been tested to determine the extent of any year 2000 display or transition problems. There are no plans to conduct such tests on those outdated versions of the programs.
IF YOU HAVE A VERSION OF BASE STATION, CONFIGURATOR, OR FIELD STATION OLDER THAN 3.0.11, YOU MUST UPGRADE TO 3.0.11 TO BE ASSURED OF FULL COMPLIANCE WITH ALL YEAR 2000 ISSUES.
Repair of Any Future Year 2000 Problems
If the experience of our customers does uncover any problems with the year 2000 transition in our 3.0.11 (or newer) software, ASTEC will make the necessary changes and include them in future releases. Update releases occur regularly as part of the continuing functional enhancement of the software, and are made available to all licensees at reasonable update fees. This is consistent with our current fee based method for providing expanded capability through new and improved features.
Obtaining Updates
As a licensed Cornerstone user, you can obtain an update to the most current version of software by purchasing the update package for your installed software model and version. Upgrades of your existing database, for compatibility with the new version, are performed automatically during the update installation. Updates are reasonably priced and include many improvements and new functions that deliver expanded capabilities and additional labor cost savings.
Your Cornerstone supplier, or ASTEC directly, can provide a quotation for updating your Cornerstone software and all of the optional components that are installed on your system. To receive a quote, use the Registration Form icon to print your Registration Form. Attach the Registration Form to your request for information and pricing for an update of your Cornerstone software. If you do not have a Registration Form icon (versions earlier than 2.0.10), then use the Database/Utilities/Component List function to print a Cornerstone Components List report and send it with your request for update information. If you have more than one Cornerstone software product, or multiple operating copies of a Cornerstone product, please provide this information for each installed program.
Notice
Applied System Technologies, Inc. ("ASTEC"), may at its sole discretion provide the Year 2000 solutions described in this document in the form of patches, maintenance releases or updates, and/or new or replacement products or modules. The Year 2000 statements in this document are "Year 2000 Readiness Disclosures" under the Year 2000 Information and Readiness Disclosure Act of 1998. The statements above are provided on an "as is" basis, as a convenience for our customers and are subject to, and do not supplement, modify, or extend, the limited warranty for Cornerstone products as contained in the software license agreement between ASTEC and the customer for the applicable product. ASTEC makes no representation or warranty as to the Year 2000 compliance of other hardware, firmware, software (such as any BIOS, operating system, calibrator, or instrument), services, protocols, data, or interfaces to third-party systems, that may be used with software from ASTEC.
