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.
I was at CA in 93 (I really had to concentrate to type 93 instead of 1993) when Charles Wang announced privately to employees that "It would take at least 10 years to remediate all of our software and that's if we wanted to."
Having fixed my share of bad code, I am sure that charlatans and scammers took advantage of many uninformed and disorganized businesses but for the most part it was a real BIG problem.
I learned to work and pray HARD for humanity and my prayers were answered.
7
I was in the IT business at the time, and I knew it was another Global Warming type of scare. Sure, there were issues, but they were easily handled. I knew the hype was not real, and made a lot of money and enemies that year when in fact, nothing happened.
AMEN! The reason nothing happen is because business spent thousands of man hours and millions to upgrade. Kind of like towns people spending hours and money and sand bagging a levee, which holds a flood back and keeps the levee from being topped and then complaining that the town didn’t get flooded!
i do indeed remember ... i was intimately involved in y2k planning at my corporation ... the scare-tactic publicity forced a WHOLE BUNCH of complacent fat-ass corporate IT types up off their fat asses to direct their troops to deal with the problem BEFORE the clock rolled to 2000 ... this is one case where scare tactics helped to prevent the thing it was scaring people about ... it’s completely disingenuous to claim i hindsight that there never was a problem and that the scare tactics were therefore nothing but hollow alarmism ...
I understand. What ticked me off at the time was how much we were charged for the fixes. I worked in a power plant at the time and the supplier for our digital control system (DCS) got a cool million for the fix. The system was sole-sourced so we were boxed in for what probably cost them no more than $10K to fix.
>>It was a scam just like Climate change. They had everyone scared and many people made a lot of money.<<
Y2K was good, “Climate Change” is coming on strong, but for the all time money-flushing scams Sarbaines-Oxley (aka the Consultancy-full-employment act) is ankles, legs, torso, shoulders, and heads above the rest.
I worked on SoX implementations (I am a technical resource for large financial and HR systems) and after about a month figured out about 100 different ways to get past it.
Please, someone answer my question...
What incredibly noteworthy event happened after y2k, only 2-3 months later? Global effect?
Bitt, you and your crew should play along. I’ll explain where the Swamp got their money.
Are you stalling because you may face ridicule?
What part of “answer my question” don’t you understand?
The Lakers made the playoffs. And?
I was afraid my car wouldn’t start the morning of Jan 1. Took a few extra cranks which I think overrode the y2k issue and it started.
Risk was a function of mother’s age which was not calculated properly. Probably calculated from birth date.
Ok, not playing with dick heads.
I make 6 figs many times over. The worlds largest financial institution tried to sue me out of existence in 2009, and lost.
If you’re going to be like that then piss up a rope.
You folks, perhaps some q folks do, have the slightest clue how corrupt the Clintons are and the rest of the Swamp. I know as it pertains to Wall Street. y2k was a big, and incredibly well played scam that served the swamp.
I was with Motherola near that time and they were pretty serious about getting all systems checked.
2001 or 2000?
I recall that the DOJ sued Microsoft over Internet Explorer that set off a huge Nasdaq selloff, but that was in March 2000 while Clinton was POTUS, not 2001.
I had a light bulb blow out in my living room.
Correct answer. ThanQs!
Yes, after 6 raging years, much of it based on massively accelerated revenues from Y2k spending, tech stocks fall 80% collectively in less than one year. The decline starts almost as soon as y2k has passed with a whimper. This also drags down the entire “growth” sector of the market, but value stocks finish actually with impressive gains for the year 2000.
Next question, WHY did these stocks fall so much? 2 primary reasons I’m looking for...
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