The Millennium Bug

or

What is special about the Year 2000?

Denis W Payne

The Millennium Bug - or Y2K problem - we've all heard about it, but just what is it going to do to us?

Why have we got it - well, do you always write the year as 1998, or 1999?  No, probably not, you abbreviate it to 98 or 99. Computer programmers have done the same, and in the early days this saved a great deal of money - perhaps more than the fixes are now costing. But, if you try to do arithmetic with these abbreviated numbers, it doesn't work. 2000-1999 is 1, but 00-99 is not!

If you're in business, this could be absolutely critical and if you haven't yet planned and solved the problem (or are well on the way to doing so) you need professional advice fast.

The real problems are not in the computers that we can see. Most professional organisations are not only solving (or have solved) the problems for these, but are also employing people over the Millennium weekend to fix anything they've missed.

It's the computers we can't see - the chips in our cars, traffic light controllers, services (water, gas, electricity) distribution that will be "interesting". Some will be year date sensitive, and some will be missed.

The situation will get clearer and better understood as time passes - best advice at the moment is that services (gas, water etc) should be OK, and that there's no need to stock up on food, water etc (no more than is necessary to have a good time, and plan for potential bad weather).

If you are worried about specific appliances, most manufacturers will know, and be able to tell you what, if anything, will go wrong. Most, notwithstanding the rumours, won't - so your microwave, cooker, washing machine and the like will continue to work! For certain, early PCs (386, 486, some Pentium) will fail, and some will fail permanently (so don't try testing them!). Back them up!