"This really could have screwed up our lives, and you know, a whole bunch of little geeks saved us."
- Paul Saffo. Director of the Institute for the Future in Menlo Park, California, in an interview with American RadioWorks
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It was a fear fest of epic proportions. Magazine headlines predicted that the end of the world would shortly befall us. They told harrowing tales of feral computer systems going awry the minute the clock struck midnight on January 1st, 2000--planes would fall from the sky, power grids would fail, the global economy would crash, nuclear power plants would go into meltdown mode, lines of communication would be cut, and the contents of bank accounts would vanish.
"I cannot be optimistic...It's clear we can't solve the whole problem, so we have to allow some systems to die so mission-critical systems can work... Pay attention to the things that are vulnerable in your life and make contingency plans.... Don't panic, but don't spend too much time sleeping, either."
- Senator Robert Bennett, then-Chairman of the Senate's Special Committee on the Year 2000 Problem, Y2K Citizens Action Guide
The cause of all this excitement was the purported Y2K bug. In response to dealing with computers that were about as capable as the iPhone, programmers prided themselves on being thrifty with their code to ensure it didn’t stress memory or capacity. One way to do this was to skip putting a “19” in front of the year and use only the last two numerals. And why not? These programs would be long retired by the time 2000 rolled around.
However, not only were many expired programs, operating systems, and applications still chugging away as 2000 crept around the corner, they were also running critical systems like power grids, government agencies and financial systems, hospitals and airports, elevators and public transportation. And so, the race was on to fix the code before the bug bit.
Often the fix was a simple patch, but in some cases, programmers struggled to figure out what little time bombs lurked in ancient and undocumented code. Around the world, attempts to squash the bug are estimated to have cost over $300 billion.
Mac users were mostly immune as the system software was programmed to accept dates as far into the future as 29940. Assuming third-party applications didn’t go nuts, Macs would be fine. Apple happily pointed this out by airing a commercial during the 1999 Superbowl featuring the poster boy for naughty computers, Space Odyssey’s HAL.
What's All the Fuss About?
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Y2K - The Modern-Day Chicken Little
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I remember this all too well. Back in 1998, when this whole issue was starting to make the news, I was on the deacon board at my church. Of the 7 member board, 2 of us were in the IT world. At that time, I had been an IT consultant for 8 years, heavily involved in mainframe programming. The other member of the board was also a mainframe consultant, with about 15 years experience. The pastor of our church, who was also the head of the board, wanted to address the Y2K issue with as little panic as possible, yet with enough preparation "just in case". Knowing that the 2 of us were in the IT world, he pulled us aside and asked what our opinions were of the whole Y2K "crisis". Of course, my opinion was that there was absolutely nothing to worry about. Based on everything that I has seen so far, I did not forsee there being any issues beyond minor glitches, which are very common at any year-end time. However, the other guy had the exact opposite opinion, and he chose to go with the chicken little mentality. Unfortunately, the pastor decided to side with the chicken little side, and proceeded to form committees to prepare for the worst. He wanted to give the appearance that we as a church were proactively preparing for the worst, therefore there would be nothing to fear. Meanwhile, he went about having his home furnace converted to run off of propane, install a propane tank, install a generator, and also converted his house to run off the generator if need be. He also began stockpiling bottled water and canned goods. Yet, we were not to "fall into this trap" and not panic and trust God. I threw my hands up in the air, and just sat back in meeting after meeting as they discussed and planned for the worst. They quickly realized asking my opinion on various things was a waste of time, since my answer was always the same. "This is all over-kill. Things are going to be just fine!" Well, as an old friend of mine once said, "A man of integrity expects to be believed, and when he is not, he lets time prove him right." Needless to say, on 1/1/2000, we had a church full of people that had way too much bottled water, canned goods, and generators. And I still had all my money. LOL!
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