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Date
Y2K
By Jane Runyon
What was the very last event to happen in the 1990s? It was an event
people had to wait until after midnight on January 1, 2000, to see. The
name given to the event was Y2K. And it all had to do with whether
computers would be able to realize that a new century had begun.
Y2K has also been called the millennium bug or the Y2K bug. The Y
stands for the word year. The 2 is, of course, the number 2. The K
comes from the Greek prefix for thousand, kilo. When you put these
together, you get Year 2 Thousand, or the year 2000.
Computers have only been in general use since the middle of the 1900s. When the programs were created for these
computers, the programmers didn't think much about the coming of the new millennium. Dates for computers were
programmed into the computers using two digits. For instance, 1963 was programmed as 63. It was much more
convenient and used less memory space to do this. Humans can distinguish dates stated this way easily. If someone
told them that an event happened in 63, humans knew that the event happened in 1963. Computers aren't naturally
able to distinguish that, though. If information was entered into a computer about an event that was going to
happen in 2007, the computer automatically assumed that the event had already happened in 1907.
The first person to bring a possible problem with computer programming of dates to the public was a man named
Bob Bemer. In 1958, he was working on a software program that would trace family histories, called genealogies.
For twenty years he tried to get other programmers to listen to his concerns. They weren't interested in listening.
They were more interested in saving storage space in the computers and figured everything would work out on its
own.
By the middle of the 1990s, others began to realize that the programs that were currently in computers might not
be able to cope with the two digits, 00, when they appeared on January 1, 2000. Magazine articles were written on
the subject, but little was done. It wasn't until the last few years of the decade that panic started to set in.
When programmers started to see that a problem might be looming in front of them, they realized that they had not
just one but two problems. For many years, if the exact date of a transaction or program operation was unknown,
the date 9/9/99 was often put into the computer file to signify that the date was unknown. The code numbers 9999
were often put at the end of a file to show that the end of the file had been reached. What was going to happen on
September 9, 1999? This date can be written as 9/9/99. Would the computer start acting on files with unknown
dates? Would files be ended on this date?
Another problem also surfaced. Computers are programmed to change dates and months. Every four years there is
a leap year when we observe an extra calendar day. A year is a leap year if it is divisible by four but not divisible
by 100 unless it is also divisible by 400. The year 1600 was a leap year. The years 1700, 1800, and 1900 were not
leap years. The year 2000 was a leap year. Would computers recognize that?
You might say, "Why is this so important?" Many businesses use computers to keep track of when loans are due
or the expiration dates on products. If the computer cannot recognize the year, the number of days in that year, or
even the file certain transactions are in, then all business might be lost. What if the phone company ended a file
when it shouldn't? All phone service might cease. The same was true for power plants and factory schedules. What
if files were lost at a bank or credit service? What about hospital records? Suddenly the problem started sounding
more serious.
Steps were taken by many companies to make sure that no failures in the system would occur. Computer programs
were reprogrammed to try to catch the "glitch" before it became a real problem. January 1, 2000, came with
millions of people holding their breaths. Would everything come to a screeching halt when the clock struck
midnight? Would the lights go out all over the world? Would communications between countries cease to exist?
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Midnight came to Japan before it came to America. The eyes of computer technicians all over the country were
glued to computer systems. A few minor problems occurred but nothing monumental. A few alarm systems were
triggered. A monitoring system failed at midnight, but it was quickly fixed. In Australia, some bus-ticket validation
machines stopped working. In the United States, the Naval Observatory officially listed the year as 19100. The
date at France's weather service was 01/01/19100 on their computers. The vast majority of computer systems
survived the threat.
The argument is still debated as to whether the steps taken to solve the problem before it happened were effective.
Some computer technicians maintain that there was no real problem ever. We will never know for sure the answer
to that question.
Y2K
Questions
1. Y2K stands for the year 2000.
A. true
B. false
2. How many digits did computer programmers use to show years before the year 2000?
A. three
B. four
C. one
D. two
3. What code was used to show the end of a file before the year 2000?
A. fini
B. the end
C. 9999
D. 9/9/99
4. What problems did technicians foresee could happen if computers failed?
5. How did computer technicians go about averting a problem?
A. They installed new programs to stop the problem.
B. They shut down all computers for one hour.
C. They crossed their fingers and hoped for the best.
D. They rebooted all computers.
6. Who was the first person to bring the Y2K problem to the attention of the public?
A. Bill Gates
B. Mac Intosh
C. Dr. George Yates
D. Bob Bemer
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7. What does the "k" in Y2K stand for?
A. kit
B. krypton
C. kilo or thousand
D. kleptomania
Do you know how computers work? Why were people worried about computers in the 1990s?
It seems silly now, but suppose computers did completely stop working at some point in the future. What kinds
of problems can you imagine might happen? Explain.