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So what was up with Y2K anyway?


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So I picked up a belkin 2 port data transfer switch the other day. The box was dated 1999. I was very pleased to see I had not just purchased a worthless piece of garbage because the box had a nice little blue and yellow "year 2000 y2k compliant" logo. I was in high school back then I remember hearing all the worst case scenarios planes falling from the sky and whatnot, but obviously nothing happened. So I've heard it said that the only reason nothing happened was because we were so prepared. Is that true? I understand it was a software issue but what danger was there ever really? Never really found out for myself if there was any danger or not. But someone on here has got to know maybe even some one who worked on solving it?

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Basically to save space in early computing, programmers used only two digits to denote a year, i.e. the last two numbers - ex. 06/12/84, meaning 1984.

 

It went on like that until the early-mid 90s when people started actually paying attention to what happens when it rolled past 99 on these dates. When it rolled over to 00, computers would translate that as 1900 instead - even some computers that by then were already using four digit year codes. This was especially true when transferring dates records between computers on a network.

 

This of course was not supposed to happen, and there was a lot of concern that it would severely throw off time sensitive information such as financial transaction records and government related majiggers.

 

Fortunately nothing like that really happened by the time 2000 hit. Now whether this was because of all of the preparation that was done is up for debate, but fortunately we didn't have to find out first hand what could have happened if we didn't do anything at all.

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Given I spent six months fixing Y2K non compliant code back in 1998, I can definitely say the threat was real. Because a lot of people and time was thrown at it early enough, the fallout was quite minimal overall. And yes, a lot of it was as Donnicton explained. The problem with the fixes however, is that many of them could not be expanded (due to database structures) past saying similar to:

 

IS <two digit year> less than 30?

YES = consider 21st century

NO = consider 20th century

 

So the code will be obsolete in due time and would need to be rewritten along with completely redesigning the databases to store four digit years at all points.

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Hehe remember that guy from UK morning television, Richard from Richard and Judy, he thought everything will blackout, England will be thrown back into the dark ages, and he bought a house full of supplies, toilet rolls and wotnot. We laughed.....

 

My Psion Organiser II reverted back to some old date, still worked normally though.

Edited by high voltage
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I was also very busy back in 98 and 99 , in the MIS department of my company which had lots of legacy COBOL systems. We hired lots of contractors, mostly older guys that had retired as COBOL programmers. We used "wrappers" to cleanly upgrade 2-digit years to 4-digit years. We had to work mandatory 6-day weeks for most of 99. Being salaried, I wasn't paid 1 dime extra for all that O.T. I think I got a $100 restaurant gift card at the end of the year, whip-ee.

 

I remember the first y2k bug that stuck us was in 1996. Leap year logic in a certain program wasn't Y2k-compliant; it added 4 years to "96" (it was 1996) and got "00". This caused a tight inner loop, basically locking up an entire region of the mainframe. It took a day to find where the problem was happening (abend aid wasn't working; I had to look through "core dumps" - hex code! ugh!). But it was easy to fix of course. But this was seriously bad for the company, not having access to all the systems that ran in that region for a day. There could have been a lot of major problems with businesses had the industry not attacked it so quickly and so hard.

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Y2K for me was dealing with patches to operating systems and software. Some patches M$ didn't seem fit to provide and I actually had to use 3rd party hacks for Win 95/98/2k at times.

 

Basically, software wasn't prepared and neither were the companies that produced it. The Y2K scare actually prompted many to have disaster preparedness plans in the first place.

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A fun pastime: reading Amazon reviews of Y2K readiness books. Here's a sample:

 

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars very good, November 17, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Y2K for Women: How to Protect Your Home and Family in the Coming Crisis (Paperback)

I bought this book about a month ago and followed everything the book said.It will take awhile but I believe I will be prepared for Y2K.I took all of my husbands money to buy a power generator.I have been burying food in the backyard.I bought 30 sf freezer and have filled it with Bird Pies.I plan on going out and buying 6 months supply of drinking water next week.I know we are facing armaggedon but with the help of this great book,I think we will be one of the few survivors.

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Y2k was a joke - I totally understand the need to fix the backend systems, but anyone who thought we'd go back to the dark ages was a moron.

 

If a system didnt work - say electricity, no reason why could couldnt reset the clock back to '99 while you fixed the problem.

 

Hording toliet paper and the like....I just laughed. No Y2K bug would keep the military's guns from working if people took to the streets.

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... but obviously nothing happened. So I've heard it said that the only reason nothing happened was because we were so prepared.

Oh, stuff happened...

 

In many places, things broke...

Nothing critical that I'm aware of, but some things were missed.

 

It was basically mitigated by all the last minute (which never should have been last minute) work that was done.

Where I work, they had to hire extra COBOL programmers to go thru all the old code on the midrange to check for and fix any date issues so that they were ready for Y2K. It basically worked. I think we found a small PC app written by a contractor ages before that had some display errors..

 

Just google "y2k failures" for some light reading...

 

desiv

Edited by desiv
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Y2K...I remember that, Biggest rip off, Con Job in IT history...and just to remind people what happened in the years after Y2K, IT people kept crying buckets because they were losing their jobs (something to do which the massive OVERSPEND on IT prior to 2000 and ofcourse the internet investors losing their shirts, serves them right)

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Y2K...I remember that, Biggest rip off, Con Job in IT history..

Yes and no...

If there hadn't been the last minute (i.e. last few years) RUSH to fix those thing, it would have been a real mess...

Not world ending, but it would have been really painful...

 

Of course, none of that code should have been written that way in the first place..

A lot of this was big iron. Those guys knew there code was going to last 30 years.. That's what they always brag about!! ;-)

 

desiv

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