The Year 2000 and Your Wang VS™ System
A General Overview

Many experts believe that the single most important event in the computer era will take place at the stroke of midnight, on January 1, 2000. At that instant, computer systems and software that have not been readied for year 2000 use will begin to fail, and will cause the business processes that the systems and programs support to grind to a halt.

The experts are wrong!

There are systems, programs and processes that may have already begun to fail, as they deal with dates past the end of 1999.

You are running out of time

It is critical that you begin to address these issues for all of your VS-based applications today. Every day that you wait increases the costs and the risks. The estimates of cost per line to find and fix year 2000 problems will rapidly increase as scarce programmer resources are placed under contract.

Wang is Ready

Our comprehensive Year 2000 response for the VS user community includes three major components:

Century Enabled VS Software, includes the VS Operating System and century enabled releases of key Wang VS Applications.

Century Server Hardware Packages, provide latest generation CPU hardware technology to replace certain older VS systems that are not able to run Year 2000 compliant versions of the VS Operating System.

Century Readiness Services for Customer Applications provide a comprehensive multi-phase set of services that you can call upon to help you ready your own applications for use in the next century.
In addition, Wang is providing technical assistance and support to third party software vendors in the VS community in their efforts to ready these applications for the transition.

Century compliance & VS systems

All Wang systems first shipped after 1987 can be upgraded with Year 2000 compliant software. This includes the following processor families:

VS 5000 and VS 6000 including VS 6230
VS 300, VS 7000, VS 8000 and VS 9000 models
VS 10000 models and the VS 12000 Model 550
VS 12000 Models
VS 16000 Models

Unfortunately, the oldest processor models lack certain hardware capabilities required to support the year 2000 compliant operating system. These processors will need to be transitioned prior to 2000. This category includes the following models:

VS 50 and VS 80
VS 85, VS 90 and VS 100
VS 5, 15, 25, and 45
VS 6, 65 and 75E

Century Enabled Software Package

The Century Software Package (CSP) includes


Included with this release, at no added charge, are several popular Wang tools and applications:


The CSP is provided at no added charge to Current and Up to Date Wang Software Maintenance Customers. If you have a Wang Software Support contract and valid Operating System license, you can receive your Century Software upgrade at no added charge as part of your current Wang Software Maintenance agreement, as long as that agreement is current and up to date in accordance with our guidelines. This upgrade offer will expire on June 30, 1998. Customers without a contract may purchase a per-incident upgrade to this software.
Unfortunately, Wang will not be able to continue support on earlier versions of the VS Operating System. VS OS release level 7.53.00 will be the only baseline supported for Year 2000 enabled software.

Century Server Hardware

Because some of Wang's oldest VS models are unable to run the century compliant VS Operating System, Wang has created a new group of Century Server™ systems. Faster and more powerful than the traditional systems they replace, they operate with the Century Software Package and are now available as a cost effective replacement for older and smaller VS systems.

Century Readiness Services

As part of our comprehensive Year 2000 solution, Wang has established a suite of robust services to help you in all phases of your Year 2000 application preparation. In addition to Wang supplied operating system enhancements, application enhancements, system upgrades, replacement hardware, or some combination of the above, your particular Year 2000 solution will most likely require work on your own internal applications.
Wang has defined a four-step year 2000 readiness process that is appropriate to all:

Phase 1: Inventory - Identify the code and applications that reside on the system.
Phase 2: Assessment - Determine data related variables in your source code and estimate the resources required for remediation
Phase 3: Remediation - Plan and then perform all actual code changes
Phase 4: Testing - Verify that changes work as planned without impacting application

Wang has structured service offerings for phases 1 and 2. These offerings use sophisticated, purpose-built automated tools. Phase 1 inventory services, provided directly by Wang, supply you with a comprehensive hardware and software inventory of the system. The software inventory includes release levels of all installed Wang software to facilitate upgrade planning, and an inventory which identifies and types each source code file.
Phase 2 services use technology provided by Avatar Inc. The Avatar tool scans all supplied source code, and identifies probable date variables. The tool also uses sophisticated mathematical measurements to provide estimates of the resources that will be required to remediate code.

Wang is prepared to assist you with off-shore code remediation projects or project management and technical consultation if you wish to do the work yourself.

Wang has constructed dedicated Year 2000 test facilities to assist customers who need to undertake large scale integration testing before they place year 2000 enabled code into service.

The Time To Act Is Now

January 1, 2000 is not a flexible deadline. If you have an existing, valid and current Wang Software Maintenance contract, please contact us at once to arrange for necessary updates. If you do not have a Wang Software Maintenance agreement or if your agreement is not current, it is even more important that you contact us promptly so that we can help you explore your options.
If you are planning to move your applications to a new host, or to move to a completely new platform, we encourage you to explore your VS options for contingency planning.

Contact Wang Today

To begin your Year 2000 preparation, call 1-800-639-9264 and ask to speak to your Wang representative or visit our Web Site at www.wang.com. At the Wang Home Page select VS Support and follow the thread to the VS InfoCenter.

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