I was on a task force at my institution and worked for almost a year and a half on this Y2K issue...we tested our applications, and we had the major one for our institution that was a homegrown mainframe MUMPS application originally written in 1978 that was definitely going to have issues, and we were easily able to replicate the issues, it would have affected everything, billing, scheduling...everything.
If we hadn’t gone through all we did, it would have been catastrophic for us.
We had to do a lot of major work to remediate those issues, so...when the time came, nothing happened. I am sure that, to those who weren’t immersed in it outside of IT, it was a great big huge nothing-burger, but to me, I suffered greatly with analysis and testing for a long time.
Being in Healthcare, we had to be certain we had the bases covered on it.
Yup—the Y2K issue was very real, and it was a bunch of hard working folks who turned it into a nothingburger.
Most folks these days are cargo cultists who have no clue how the real world works.
Hmmm...interesting...
OK, maybe you were dealing with something different than I was, Unix servers or something?
I was in a computer repair shop, learning the trade. We tested the typical stand alone home computer and basic small LAN server running NT with about a half dozen Windows workstations, various versions and DOS, so we had every Windows OS in existence and DOS 6.22 running on the network.
DOS
Windows 3.11
Windows 95
Windows 98
Windows NT
XP and win2000 didn’t exist yet.
We found one issue.
We set up a computer with win 98, the most common home user OS, two ways. Installed with the date set to 2099 instead of 1999, installed with the date set normal, but Dec 30 1999. Both worked perfect, but the rest of the computers on our network refused to open documents created on the one dated 2099, that date didn’t exist yet. We did the same with Win 3 and 95 too.
Even DOS worked fine, even though the 2 digit date system was supposed to make it crash and the whole world was going to hell in a handbasket in seconds...didn’t happen. The only thing the DOS 6 machine did was not open documents dated 2099. It didn’t seem to try and reset to the year 0 and refuse to function, even though we tried to make it happen.
We installed several times using different versions of Windows, and turned the machine off, let it sit there a few hours until it THOUGHT the date was Jan 1, 2000, it was actually sept 1999, (BIOS dates set accordingly too) and had no problems, every time the computer booted up and ran as if nothing happened.
We let it sit there running until it changed over to Jan1, 2000, same thing, nothing went wrong. That was every Windows OS in existence at the time, and DOS.
The one and only problem we found, was computers set with a BIOS and Windows date in 1999, would not open documents or files created on one that had a BIOS and Windows date of 2099, a century later, I can’t remember the exact error message, but it basically didn’t recognize the date, because it didn’t exist yet, it wouldnt open a file created a century in the future. It may have simply said unable to open file.
Printers, network gaming, transferring files all worked. We could even transfer files created a century in the future, from any computer workstation or the NT server to any other, just couldn’t open them. You could create a text document on any computer dated basically any time, and it would print on the shared printers. Copy and Paste files from any computer to any other, including the server, no matter what the date. The computers installed in 1999 just wouldn’t open files created in 2099, that was the one and only problem we found. I got online and poked around for info and even downloaded files on a computer dated Jan 2099. Just couldn’t open those files on any other machine.
But that was Windows, not Unix or Linux, I didn’t try Linux until several years later so I have no idea how it performed. Never have even seen Unix...
I remember there definitely were some problems with certain system applications. So it did not come and go without any problems at all.
“Nothing” happened because people like YOU made sure nothing happened. People miss that point sometimes... A belated ‘thanks’ rlmorel.
I had the exact same experiences, but as a contractor I wouldn’t exactly say I “suffered” through them... I worked a TON but I made a ton of money.
# If we hadn’t gone through all we did, it would have been catastrophic for us.
Agreed. See my previous post.
We had the same. The locally built patient database that predated the current owners of the hospital had the two digit date code issue. Testing showed it would fail, and lose data because of it. Our local IT director was the original programmer, so he brought three or four boxes of paper from his garage, spent three days studying the notes, and thirty minutes editing code. No problems after that! We spent New Year’s eve at work, playing Quake on a local server, and eating pizza. Zero Y2k issues.