Dugway Proving Ground RELATED VIDEO CNN's Greg Lefevre reports on testing techniques of the Y2K bug Windows Media 28K 80K

January 26, 1999
Web posted at: 2:48 p.m. EST (1948 GMT)

DUGWAY PROVING GROUND, Utah (CNN) -- Dugway has something to prove. First, It has to prove its proof is provable.

Forty-seven miles down the longest, straightest, dustiest, loneliest road, smack dab in the middle of Utah sits the Dugway Proving Ground. It's spread across 1,200 square miles of sand, tumbleweed, sage, rocky horizons and red sunsets that would make John Wayne proud.

Run by the U.S. Army, Dugway is where the Defense Department goes to prove its weapons work. Or to prove protections against those weapons work.

Lately it's been looking for ways to protect American soldiers ("And airmen, Marines, sailors, too," says base Commander John Como) from chemical and biological warfare.

One of their more secret and most crucial tests begins this spring and goes for a full year. That test goes straight through to New Year's Day 2000.

Dugway has to prove, to itself and to the Pentagon, that its mass of computers running that test will not lock up, or turn the wrong century after the hats and horns go silent at midnight, New Years Eve.

John Rupp likes his job as the get-it-all-together-and-make-damn-sure-the-things-work job as Test Director for Dugway's Year 2000 Compliance and Operational Readiness Exercise. Sitting at his console in Mission Control, he utters brief queries over his headset to the smaller computer centers scattered for miles across the scrubby, arid flats.

It seems that many of the computers at the facility are different. He's responsible for a variety of name brand platforms running all the disparate operating systems available.

"It makes it a very challenging job. We have a tremendous diversity of computers, of control systems, of data acquisition sensors, all of which must be Y2K compliant to continue our testing mission into the year 2000," Rupp says.

All of the computer systems and controls must be Y2K compliant to insure the safety of U.S. soldiers

What a task

The Army technicians say it's like herding 5-year-olds after recess. Each computer has a mind of its own and each is unique to its function. One regulates how much simulated poison gas to spray on a gas detector. Another taps into a detector to see how quickly it responds. Both are different machines yet both have to feed their data into the master system in a way that can be understood.

Seven-thousand personalities

Dugway has different test labs spread all over the massive reservation. Every door, camera, sentry post, trip wire, smoke sensor, gas detector, door opener, server, telephone switch and wind gauge communicates with the main system now displayed on Rupp's console. And every one operates in a different way.

The only thing they have in common is that they all know what's happening after December 31st: January 1. Rupp has made sure of that.

It is important

Col. Como, the base commander, knows that the coming tests have to be done right because soldiers' lives are at stake.

"Our focus has been primarily on defensive testing: testing of equipment that's going to defend soldiers or provide early warning to the soldiers so that we can protect them or avoid an area that might be contaminated by a chemical agent," Como says.

Last week, Dugway invited a troop of reporters to witness the test. After a long drive to the base and a short briefing, Rupp's crew set the base master clock to 365-23-30-00. 365th day, the 23rd hour (military time) and 30 minutes. No seconds.

Rupp is confident, mostly.

"We have tested all the systems individually. The really tricky part now is to ensure that they all work when their working together. And, yes it is a little intimidating," he said.

Each computer, more than 1,200 of them, and every device connected to them have been examined, cataloged, tested and tested again. Every device the base knows about has been checked.

Col. Como sounds a caution at the morning briefing, "It's not what we know that scares us. It's what we don't know."

The test is successful

What gizmo is hiding out there that the Army has overlooked?

Rupp adds, "We do have problems. We have seen problems. We have corrected the problems we have found. The trick is to make sure that we have found all the problems that are there."

Fifty-nine minutes, 59 seconds. Then without so much as a click or chime, the huge screen in Mission Control flashes 366-00-00-00. The software kicks in, converting the 366th day to 001. And the base enters the simulated New Year.

One by one the many departments out cross the desert report in. Material Test Facility -- Passed. The base Web site -- passed. Perimeter Security -- passed.

Rupp then runs the Leap Year test to be sure the base clock knows that it's really 2000, a leap year, and not 1900, which was not a leap year.

Click: February 29. Passed. It then counts up a day from February 29 to March 1. A click to February 30 would show the clock did not know February was the short month. March 01. Passed.

Jimmy White, test chief at one of the labs, was confident and relieved. "It's one more milestone we have behind us," he said.

Rupp seemed to know his equipment would pass this test: "I think Dugway is ready for the year 2000."

But he says he still plans to be right here at you-know-when just to be sure. "In approximately eleven months and two weeks we'll find out 100 percent for sure."