Posted on 08/11/2018 12:29:20 PM PDT by SamAdams76
I was remembering today the big Y2K scare we had during the late 1990s. Does anybody remember that? All the computers in the world were to shut down at midnight January 1, 2000 because apparently the computers would not be able to recognize "2000" as a valid year and go haywire, thinking it was 1900 instead.
As with many conspiracies, there was a grain of truth to this. There were many software programs at the time that had to be re-programmed to accept 2000 as a valid year. My wife was a COBOL programmer at the time and she had a few banner years as a contractor, fixing this bug. One one project, they were paying her nearly $150/hr.
I remember many Freepers here that were stocking up on canned goods and such, expecting the modern world to come to a sudden halt, forcing us back to a more agrarian way of life.
I was a Y2K skeptic but I do remember my heart skipping a beat as we turned the clock to midnight on December 31, 1999.
A lot of people thought Clinton was going to use the chaos to suspend the Constitution and stick around for a third term.
IMHO, he would have if he thought he would have been able to get away with it.
It was also a retirement plan for COBOL programmers. You know who you are, you bums...
The media hyped it and scared everyone. At the stroke of midnight, they were in the streets watching for the end of the world.
The world didn’t end at midnight in New York, and the media assured the world that nothing would happen, forgetting that there are 24 separate midnights throughout the world.
I remember the panicky ads, telling us to subscribe to the prepper magazines. I didn’t subscribe, just in case the world did end it would have been a waste of money.
” So in 1999 the 9 incremented to the next ascii character, which is I think a quote of something that. It is illegal in a filename.”
That is not how dates were processed.
My employer probably spent $2M+ to avoid Y2K catastrophe. I still think it all was a big scam. Off the top of my head, the only bigger scam is climate change.
A blackout in NYC in the 1970s initially cause by a tree branch across wires in upstate NY led to three days of looting and rioting...
That is how fragile civilization is in a big city.
“Why would anyone EVER divide by zero? “
What does that have to do with y2k?
Wait until you see my upcoming thread on seedless watermelon.
“I sure do. It was a scam just like Climate change. They had everyone scared and many people made a lot of money.”
DUDE, it was a real problem.
I never really thought I’d have the occasion to ever post this anywhere again. To the tune of High Anxiety....
Y Anxiety
As the millennium drew near,
Y Anxiety,
It’s you that they feared.
Some were afraid to fly,
Said you’d crash the world,
But then you fizzled and they soon got bored!
Y Anxiety!
It’s always the same....
Oooh, ‘xiety ...
It’s you that they flamed!
It’s very clear to me,
I never bought it to begin,
Y Anxiety,
— And remember folks, be good to your panics: there’s always 2012 —
You can’t win!
“I still think it all was a big scam. “
Obviously you know nothing about the y2k problem ...
I am not going to be able to find proof 18 years later but ...
1979 was 79, the next year added 1 to 9, reset to 0, and carried thje 2nd digit getting 80. same with 89 to 90, but with 99 it went to :0
This was this function that was either part of the cb80/lk80 package or early dos. aka cbasic circa 1980s
It still runs today on my XP as long as i set the clock back. Once the program initializes, I can restore the clock while I run it.
Ah, you haven’t noticed the loop yet.
Judge Crater, Amelia Earhart, and Jimmy Hoffa all talked about seedless watermelon. And where are they now? Well you might ask...
You have been warned.
The big worry in our IT department was missing a legacy program that ran once in a blue moon and potentially screwed up billing.
It was no scam from the programming side. The scare tactics were another thing.
I remember in particular the poster "Jethro Tull". He was adamant that civilization would come to an end and was bragging on all the generators and fuel he had stockpiled at his house.
I used to tease him that we would all find him, because his generator and lights would attract us to his house like moths to a porch light. Then he'd say how he would take his shotgun and shoot us all. Such a nice guy!
I'll ping him to this reply but I think he's long gone - just like all those COBOL jobs that put my wife in the big bucks for a while.
I was working on a Y2K conversion at a big bank in a big city. We got a call one day that another bank across town wasn't gonna make it in time. They then merged with that bank where I was working. That's how they fixed their Y2K problem. The pro sports arena in the city quickly changed names.
That problem for the most part wasn't with PCs. That was mostly promoted to sell survival products to the sheeple.
” with 99 it went to :0”
Nope. Date functions did it work that way. Date functions would store 2000 as “00” which the computer could not determine it was 2000.
I was just beginning development that year. We fixed a few bugs and crossed our fingers. All turned out fine.
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