Nana Akua Sarkodie-Mensah, Catherine

Melendez

In 1999, people around the world believed that on January 1, 2000 our lives would be changed forever. They alleged that computers would fail, electricity would turn off, and running water, heat, and all of the luxuries we use every day would be no more.

What they thought would happen...

In 1999, computer memory space was very expensive. Early core memory cost one dollar

per bit. We saved space using two digits for the date instead of four. (instead of 1999, we used

99). The fear was, that in 2000, computers would be unable to recognize the difference between 2000 and 1900. As a result of this,

people assumed every computer in the world would crash

Security experts feared cyber terrorists were plotting to attack computer systems around the world.

Government agencies took extreme precautions such as shutting down databases and government related websites.

What they thought would happen…

• Invented Financial Computer

• 1960’s-1970’s

• Economic Modeling Programs

• Partially blamed himself for Y2K

Alan Greenspan

“I'm one of the culprits who created this problem. I used to write those programs back in the 1960s and 1970s, and was proud of the fact that I was able to squeeze a few elements of space out of my program by not having to put a 19 before the year. Back then, it was very important. We used to spend a lot of time running through various mathematical exercises before we started to write our programs so that they could be very clearly delimited with respect to space and the use of capacity. It never entered our minds that those programs would have lasted for more than a few years. As a consequence, they are very poorly documented. If I were to go back and look at some of the programs I wrote 30 years ago, I would have one terribly difficult time working my way through step-by-step.” —Alan Greenspan, 1998

What they thought would happen…

While some people were genuinely scared, others made jokes about y2k. Here is a Nike

commercial which aired in 1999.

Personal Experience

Family felt panic TEOTWAWKI People had “bunker” with

caned food and water supply.

No celebration on New Years.

Family believed that the high way would be affected.

Y2K believed to be more like a terrorist attack.

Y2K Entertainment

All major industries

Utilities Banking Manufacturing Telecom ( phones, radios, etc.) Airlines

Who Would Be Affected

COBOL: Programing language developed in 1959 that’s still used today that deals with date math. Dates in COBOL usually stored in three different locations , a month, a day, and a year.

Became the number one choice as a business language programing during the 60’s 70’s and 80’s.

EXAMPLE: When using a credit card with expiration date of 2000 and it’s 1999 your card will get rejected. The system will read that 99 (today) is greater than 2000 therefore making your credit card of 2000 expired.

IT companies all over the world spent billions on trying to locate and fix the bug.

On final day companies were running on backup computers.

How it Works

No major problems were reported Many switched from a 4 digit

As a result of all the precautions taken to prepare the world for the y2k bug, computer systems were actually improved.

The time and money it took to prevent the bug actually went to good use because they invested in new technologies in order to prevent system failures.

Y2K opened the doors to offshoring jobs. Overseas they found programmers not only for cheaper but

better than America had to offer in order to fix Y2K bug.

What Really Happened

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9142555/Y2K_The_good_the_bad_and_the_crazy

http://www.y2ktimebomb.com/ http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/fe

atures/y2k/

http://homepages.wmich.edu/~rea/Y2K/FAQ.html

Bibliography