That was an adventure...Ad block says it blocked 31 ads on that page. Took forever to get everything sorted out and load...not going to tom’s guide again.
Anyway, this means my old GPS might be no more good, won’t hurt much though, I rarely use it. Plugs into lighter type.
I was learning computer repair during Y2K. While that night happened, I was actually at an AF Base across the Potomac from the Capitol, watching two small planes fly around.
We set up a couple of computers to test everything out. One Windows 98, the latest OS at the time, and a couple running DOS, win95 and Win 3.11. The only problem we had was the win98 machine was set to think it was actually Oct 2099 instead of 1999, everything else on the network refused to open files created on that computer, the date didn’t exist yet.
Otherwise, even DOS on an old 286 worked fine. Not a problem anywhere, just the one issue, which was understandable. Transfer a file created on 10/21/2099 to a computer with the date set 10/21/1999 and it just wouldn’t open that file, date hadn’t happened yet.
We set up a DOS and windows machine to change the date while the date changed from 1999 to 2000 at midnight. No problems. Let it change while it was up and running, no problems. Set one up 100 years in the future...that was the only way we could get it to show us a problem. Everything else was fine, we played network games against that machine. Surfed online. Printed out files. Remote printing. Just that one thing was all we could find, and we tried every scenario we could think of.
The problem there was different, of course. People had been using a 2 digit date format for years. Oct 21, 1999 was 10/21/99. Not 1999, just 99. So what does the computer do when it rolls over to 2000? Go back to the year 00? Computers hadn’t been programmed to recognize the difference. It turned out it was a nothingburger though, everything just plodded right along...a bit slower of course, the fastest CPU at that time was the mighty Pentium 233MMX...64MB RAM to add to it would set you back a C note...biggest hard drive in existence was about 4.3GB...We were freakin out over the new Matrox PCI video card with 2MB memory...
now dat was a screemin’ machine ya know...My personal machine was a 233MMX, 64MB RAM, Matrox video and 2.8GB Hard drive, Creative Labs Sound Blaster 16...I think it had an 8 speed CD ROM...Can’t remember the monitor, 15” CRT...
In the end, Y2K was a nothing burger due to years of preparation.
I worked for a mainframe manufacturer. We started more than five years before midnight on December 31st, 1999 examining all of the hardware and software we ever sold. Had to identify all instances of two digit years and make a plan to update everything installed worldwide.
It was also a massive undertaking to educate all of our customers on what we were doing and how to inspect and repair all of their application software. Likewise to educate all of our worldwide support employees.
We wrote manuals and held classes. In many cases, customers with really old hardware and software had to upgrade or purchase new as well as update their applications. We provided features in our operating system to simulate the date and time turnover.
I spent many weekends at customer sites installing new hardware or software, or updates, or performing tests.
So while it all appeared seamless to users, it was quite traumatic within the industry. The after effect was that all large computer users were fully up-to-date and would not have to make any purchases for several years. That is what earned me a buyout and early retirement in 2001 after 37 years.
re: “People had been using a 2 digit date format for years. Oct 21, 1999 was 10/21/99. Not 1999, just 99.”
Fail.
THINK about lone re-payment schedules, little booklets that had ALL those coupons pre-printed ... somebody had all that covered FOR DECADES before Y2K ..
Geesh.