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.
Yes.
I still have everything from 1999 and earlier backed-up on floppy disks.
I work for a computer system manufacturer who has systems around the world. We worked hard to make sure our systems were compliant and helped the customers working on their mainframe applications.
When the New Year came, we held a 24 hour party at our facilities in Phoenix. We would connect monitors to each of the customer systems when their turn for midnight rolled around. There were no "events", but we ate a lot of pizza.
We also had TV screens set up to watch the New Years in various locations like the Eiffel Tower, in Paris.
Yep. They just used two half bytes for the last numbers in the date. The “19” in “19XX” was assumed.
So after 99 was 00.
Fun fact, Apple computers didn’t use 1900 as their start point. The oldest Macs won’t face any problems till, IIRC, 2040.
Rereading your post I see that you may have been the developer of your program?
If so, what you did was mighty strange coding!
Oh really? Tell me one thing that was screwed up by Y2K.
I two programs that ceased to function on 1/1/00.
Resetting the clock on win98 allowed me to temporarily use them until I changed the clock back.
Eighteen years later the point is moot.
“Fun fact, Apple computers didn’t use 1900 as their start point. “
Neither did Windows.
You are mostly correct. The biggest problem was with records that need to be sorted chronologically, such as financial transactions. When 99 became 00, the newer transactions were out of sequence and treated as older when returned by the sort routines.
“Oh really? Tell me one thing that was screwed up by Y2K.”
DUDE, dedicated people fixed the problem before it could cause a problem.
It was a good thing Time Traveler John Titor warned everyone about this.
Although he said that the fact that we fixed it prevented WW3, and WW3 (in his view) cleansed the country and bought people closer together- and eliminated the big government.
This is the dos window output today ...
C:\45MASTER>45-new
Current file extension: REC
9/16/94 45-NEW
List Date = 6 26 5
Options:
? list last 12 look-ups
x-y(-z) where, x is artist #
y is file letter
(z is single #)
Opening: ;80811.DJL
*** Error encountered ***ME 0
file$ J A(J) A(J+1) ARTX.REC K B(K) B(K+1) TITX.REC REC.PTR
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
C:\45MASTER>
Without source code I have to fake the system clock
After I make the year 1999 ...
C:\45MASTER>45-new
Current file extension: REC
9/16/94 45-NEW
List Date = 6 26 5
Options:
? list last 12 look-ups
x-y(-z) where, x is artist #
y is file letter
(z is single #)
Opening: 990811.DJL
Title?
Time Tempo Title Artist Master Disp CD
Title?
Viola
y2k caused billions, perhaps trillions in damage. Most people don’t know that or realize why.
A scandalously corrupt event meant to benefit Clinton and his cronies.
It set off an economic shock wave that was fake and met by Fed action, creating unintended consequences that totally disrupted the production/supply chain.
We may finally be leaving the financial volatility that it created.
That must have been awesome! I wish I had thought of that.
Now you got me snickering.
As people have pointed out, it was an old issue concerning legacy systems and programs. The problem just wasn’t one of what would happen if someone’s PC somehow crashed. Even the no slot clock on my Apple 2e still works.
In Sheffield, United Kingdom, incorrect risk assessments for Down syndrome were sent to 154 pregnant women and two abortions were carried out as a direct result of a Y2K bug (miscalculation of the mother’s age). Four babies with Down syndrome were also born to mothers who had been told they were in the low-risk group.[30]
In Ishikawa, Japan, radiation-monitoring equipment failed at midnight; however, officials stated there was no risk to the public.[31]
In Onagawa, Japan, an alarm sounded at a nuclear power plant at two minutes after midnight.[31]
In Japan, at two minutes past midnight, Osaka Media Port, a telecommunications carrier, found errors in the date management part of the company’s network. The problem was fixed by 02:43 and no services were disrupted.[32]
In Japan, NTT Mobile Communications Network (NTT DoCoMo), Japan’s largest cellular operator, reported on 1 January 2000, that some models of mobile telephones were deleting new messages received, rather than the older messages, as the memory filled up.[32]
In Australia, bus ticket validation machines in two states failed to operate.[29]
In the United States, 150 Delaware Lottery racino slot machines stopped working.[29]
In the United States, the US Naval Observatory, which runs the master clock that keeps the country’s official time, gave the date on its website as 1 Jan 19100.[33]
In France, the national weather forecasting service, Météo-France, said a Y2K bug made the date on a webpage show a map with Saturday’s weather forecast as “01/01/19100”.[29]
Wiki
That’s odd
I work for a utility and the government made us spend millions going through all of our equipment to make sure that it did not have a Y2K bug
We had to file a report listing every piece of equipment its computer,the software and what was done to correct any flawed software all the way down to firmware
I lost some respect for him that day because he pontificated about a subject he knew very little about that I was an expert in.
Are you serious ?
“It was also a retirement plan for COBOL programmers. You know who you are, you bums...”
We had to make changes and recompile several thousand programs. I was sent to our facilities world wide to recalibrate equipment. We had to inventory everything with a date and contact companies. Then we had to do it again to confirm the information provided was correct. Cost the company 30 million dollars.
Right after new year they fired the CEO and CIO for spending all that money. I was sitting in the board meeting when it happened. I was listening to these idiots go on and on about nothing happening and what did we buy for 30 million dollars. Knowing what I was about to say would probably get me fired, I raised my hand, stood up and said, “You paid 30 million so nothing would happen. And we accomplished our plan flawlessly. The CIO and CEO should be praised, not fired. What did you expect would happen?”
Regardless, they were fired, I was fired a couple of weeks later by the new CIO. My former CIO brought me onboard with a higher salary.
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