Year 2000: The Clock is Ticking
Dateline: 1/5/98
Updated 3/2/99

What's the Y2K Problem?

In simple terms, there's a problem with dates in many of the software applications developed in about the past 40 years. Programmers had to be conservative with storage space, because the large, relatively inexpensive storage devices we have today were not available. One of the things programmers did to conserve space, was to program applications to assume the number 19 in Twentieth Century dates. These applications use only the last two digits of the year, as in the format MM/DD/YY. To applications programmed in this way, the year 1962 is the number 62, the year 1973 is the number 73, and so on. Even some older computer hardware components are programmed in this way, such as the Basic Input/Output System or BIOS chip in all PCs.

Although it started years ago, it's spilled over into recent times, too. While it's understandable that 40 years ago, programmers probably figured their software wouldn't still be in use today, it was incredibly shortsighted to continue it into more recent times. When the party is over on New Year's Eve 1999, all affected computers will assume 00 in 2000 is the year 1900, a hundred years off! This will wreak havoc with date-sensitive hardware, applications and databases that are not year 2000 compliant, such as at banks, government agencies, credit card companies, airports, and just about everywhere in our computer-dependent world. Even your own PC, applications and computer-controlled, home appliances may be affected. Some computers may crash, and the power may even go out. To hear about the potential power company problem, listen to it with the free RealPlayer.

The good news is, it's fixable. The bad news is, human error.

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Copyright © 1998, J. Steven Niznik. All Rights Reserved.
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