[Bob-san]

Most of those countries didn't have computer systems quite as old as America did though.

As I stated before the biggest problem was with code written decades before 2000.

Entirely agreed. The REAL issue in Y2K was/would have been major software vendors that folded, collapsed, liquidated, &c. prior to releasing a viable patch or workaround for popular or critical equipment. Had Microsoft folded, for whatever reason, between 1998 and 1999 and never corrected the clocks, THEN a major problem could have been in consumer and corporate versions of Windows, NT, and DOS.

[haloboy100]

So...
what exactly is Y2K? Is it like how computers can't handle the dates between the 90s and 2000's or what?
How is that a problem?

[Mongoose]

...are you serious?

...is he serious?

[haloboy100]

Is it more of a fact that I'm seriously uninformed, or the fact that Y2K wasn't a big deal to begin with?

[The E]

The problem, in a nutshell, was that in order to save memory space, software engineers in the 80s and earlier decided to store years using only two digits. They were going on the assumption that the systems they built wouldn't be in use long enough for this to be a problem, but as it turns out, that was wrong. As a result, there was a minor panic when people started to think about what would happen if the year stamp went from 99 to 00; it could potentially lead to strange errors in accounting systems and mission-critical control hardware for nuclear power stations. Not to mention possible issues in embedded controllers like the ones found in elevators. One popular scenario was control hardware throwing systems into emergency shutdown because the hardware thought it hadn't been serviced in a hundred years. Or an accounting system paying 100 years worth of interest automatically. Or automatically paying a hundred years worth of taxes.

As explained, due to several thousand people working their asses off to make sure this wouldn't happen (and of course, some people doing their job properly in the first place), none of this happened.

[haloboy100]

oh, okay. Knowing this just makes the 2012 apocalypse seem that much more fake.

[Mongoose]

Is it more of a fact that I'm seriously uninformed, or the fact that Y2K wasn't a big deal to begin with?

It's more that I have no conceivable idea how you'd never managed to hear about it in the first place. I mean, unless you're under the age of 13 or so, it's something I'd expect most Internet denizens to be intimately familiar with.  Talk/hype about it was literally everywhere when 2000 rolled around.

[haloboy100]

I only became aware of the world when I was like 10 (which would be in 2005). Before that I had no idea about any memes, internet phenomena, and the like whatsoever.

[Mongoose]

...Christ, I feel old right now.

[haloboy100]

I felt old after my first girl trouble. Imagine how I feel now.

[Mongoose]

...you've already had "girl trouble"?

Dammit, man, stop doing this to me!

[haloboy100]

Depends on what qualifies as "girl trouble". Cared too much for a girl that got creeped out too easily by it. Sad thing is after three years I'm too stubborn to recover properly from it.

[Kosh]

Most of those countries didn't have computer systems quite as old as America did though.

As I stated before the biggest problem was with code written decades before 2000.

That's a good point, but then again what about the 70% of american schools that also did nothing?

If nothing was done, the way I see it it would have caused some headaches with billing, payroll, that sort of thing that would have taken a couple of weeks to sort out, but it wouldn't have caused a lot of the other stuff that people were predicating (social collapse/unrest, planes falling out of the sky, world war 3, computers becoming completely useless, traffic lights to stop working, whatever the guy in the article suggested, etc), which in the end still makes it look a lot less formidable than the hype suggested.

[NGTM-1R]

Depends on what qualifies as "girl trouble". Cared too much for a girl that got creeped out too easily by it. Sad thing is after three years I'm too stubborn to recover properly from it.

The first time usually takes about four.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

It's more that I have no conceivable idea how you'd never managed to hear about it in the first place. I mean, unless you're under the age of 13 or so, it's something I'd expect most Internet denizens to be intimately familiar with.  Talk/hype about it was literally everywhere when 2000 rolled around.

Well, just to let you know, I started learning how to use the Internet in 2001 so .

But yeah, like haloboy here, I had no idea why it was such a huge problem back then. I've heard about it, but I didn't know what it was, understand the implications it held and, as a result, failed to appreciate the magnitude of it altogether. Even after your post, I still fail to appreciate its magnitude.

I felt old after my first girl trouble. Imagine how I feel now.

I felt old after I started having backache from walking for far too long a distance. My superior and one of my friends have both called me "uncle" at least once. Like Hell I'm an uncle, I'm only 19.

[Nuke]

I felt old after I started having backache from walking for far too long a distance. My superior and one of my friends have both called me "uncle" at least once. Like Hell I'm an uncle, I'm only 19.

i was an uncle at 17

[iamzack]

I was an aunt at 8.

Depends on what qualifies as "girl trouble". Cared too much for a girl that got creeped out too easily by it. Sad thing is after three years I'm too stubborn to recover properly from it.

Your new name is Lil Aardwolf.

[S-99]

Y2k was a big fear that i thought people didn't think all the way through. What's going to happen when you're computer hits the big 00 year? Well, another year and day of normal operation happens. Will your computer take a **** when you try to modify a file made in 99 during the year 00? No, the file you modified  just gets a new last accessed and last modified stamp of 00 instead of 99. The one thing i'd find funny is if xp had come out earlier and supported 2 digit years. That way when the clock would strike 00 then xp would say "you're a pirate, the date is wrong!, plz check out WGA!"

The only thing that really got ****ed up a little bit in the minor sense when the clocks struck 2000 was the atomic clock. Perhaps there was some more **** ups with technology, but ultimately, computers don't have sentience to be able to get confused like people were treating them would when the date goes from 99 to 00. The only time i see programs getting confused because of a date change is if that program was designed to do so, like xp (it screams bloody murder if you change the date to something in the past because of that WGA crap since ms doesn't trust their customers and treats them like they will do wrong on their part).

Probably some more stuff in y2k got ****ed, but ultimately, i didn't get very excited about it. I had a 1980's mac that had two digit year dating. I changed it to 00 manually one day, nothing happened except the computer thinking that it was the year 00.

[The E]

Y2k was a big fear that i thought people didn't think all the way through.

You mean, just like you did there?

Plz to read wikipedia before posting something stupid, kthnx. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2000_problem

EDIT: You basically said "I don't see why it was a problem, my home computer survived it just fine". You see, it wasn't about home PCs. It was about old-style mainframes and embedded systems. You know, systems that do important stuff.

[Nuke]

consider avionics. its something that absolutely has to work. otherwise you get planes falling out of the sky. in addition to atc systems, some of which are really antiquated.