An roundabout explanation for Y2k and why software will last forever:
>
>  > A useless fact (with a twist) about technology:
>  >  > The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4
>  > feet 8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number.
>  >  > Why was that gauge used? Because that's the way they built them in
>  > England, and English expatriates built the US railroads.
>  >  > Why did the English build them like that? Because the first rail
>  > lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad
>  > tramways, and that's the gauge they used.
>  >  > Why did 'they' use that gauge then? Because the people who built
>  > the
>  > tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building
>  > wagons, which used that wheel spacing.
>  >  > Okay! Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing?
>  > Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels
>  > would
>  > break on some of the old, long distance roads in England, because
>  > that's the spacing of the wheel ruts.
>  >  > So who built those old rutted roads? The first long distance roads
>  > in Europe (and England) were built by Imperial Rome for their
>  > legions. The roads have been used ever since. And the ruts? Roman
>  > war chariots first made the initial ruts, which everyone else had
>  > to
>  > match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels and wagons. Since
>  > the chariots were made for, or by Imperial Rome, they were all
>  > alike
>  > in the matter of wheel spacing.
>  >  > Thus, we have the answer to the original question. The United
>  > States
>  > standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches derives from the
>  > original specification for an Imperial Roman war chariot.
>  >  > Specifications and bureaucracies live forever. So, the next time
>  > you
>  > are handed a specification and wonder which horse's rear came up
>  > with it, you may be exactly right. Because the Imperial Roman war
>  > chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the back ends of
>  > two war-horses.
>  >  > And now, the twist to the story...
>  >  > There's an interesting extension to the story about railroad gauges
>  > and horses' behinds. When we see a Space Shuttle sitting on its
>  > launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides
>  > of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs.
>  > Thiokol makes the SRBs at their factory at Utah.  The engineers who
>  > designed the SRBs might have preferred to make them a bit fatter,
>  > but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the
>  > launch site. The railroad line from the factory had to run through
>  > a
>  > tunnel in the mountains. The SRBs had to fit through that tunnel.
>  > The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the
>  > railroad track is about as wide as two horses behinds.
>  >  > So, the major design feature of what is arguably the world's most
>  > advanced transportation system was determined by the width of a
>  > Horse's [rear]!
>  >  > Think about it!
>  >


--
Richard L Gambrell
Database Administrator and
Consultant to Computing Services at UTC

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