Midimusic.org.uk Computer Humour, Emergencies
4.3 Y2K
The media has latched onto the Year 2000 bug. All kinds of computer illiterate people paranoid about it.
The other day I passed by a cashier at a department store whose telephone, for some reason, wasn't working. He was trying to convince a customer that the problem wasn't caused by "the Year 2000 virus that's going to ruin all our computers."
The media has blown the Y2K problem way too far out of proportion. A few days ago (February 1999), I took my car to the car wash. This is a manual car wash -- I stand in a glassed area while the workers clean the car. The car behind me belonged to an old man who joined me in the glassed area and struck up and conversation.
- Him: "This car's yours son?"
- Me: "Yeah."
- Him: "It's got one of them electronic ignitions, right?"
- Me: "Yup."
- Him: "Think it's gonna start next year?"
- Me: "Of course, why wouldn't it?"
- Him: "Well they say that all computers and stuff are gonna die next year."
- Me: "Well how will my car know that it's the year 2000?"
- Him: "...How will what...?"
- Me: "If my car is gonna die in the year 2000, how will it know that it's the year 2000? There is nowhere in a car's electronics that you'll find reference to a date. The only thing it needs to know is the time of day to display on the radio."
- Him: (pause) "You sure?"
I have a friend who is convinced that the Y2K bug is going to kill cars dead in their tracks. No matter how many times I explain to him that there are no date-related systems running the engine, he remains unconvinced.
- Him: "Yeah, but the engine uses timing, and that has a clock in it, and all computer clocks use a date, so it's gonna be affected by the Y2K bug."
I was about to move, and I was holding a yard sale to get rid of the excess junk I had collected during four years in my old apartment. Among these was an old sewing machine. It wasn't a fancy electronic machine, but one of those old green ones made in the 70s. A lady walked up to me to ask about it. With a very stern look, she said, "Is this sewing machine Y2K compliant?"
Recently we had an order for a bunch cabling work. The customer specified that the cables must be Y2K compliant.
I was looking for something on the web once and happened across the web site of a major electronics manufacturer. I noticed a graphic at the bottom of one of their product description pages that said that the product was Y2K compliant. Exploring further, I discovered that all their product description pages had the Y2K compliant graphic, including the pages for bread slicers and can openers. What next? Y2K compliant salt and pepper shakers?
Our organization wanted all users to test for Y2K errors by having the systems set to one minute before midnight, Dec 31, 1999, and verify that there was a correct roll-over.
- User: "Something is not right here. I have been testing for Y2K roll-over, after 4 hours, I have not had one successful roll-over yet!"
- Me: "Are all the systems identical?"
- User: "No, that's what puzzles me."
- Me: "Ok, let's go through it together." (we step through the test) "Ok, now double click on the hours and change them to 11."
- User: "Eleven?? Why eleven? Aren't we supposed to set it to twelve hours, fifty nine minutes?"
- Me: "Well...midnight does come just after 11:59...."
- User: "Man, no wonder they were all failing!"
In the latter part of 1998, one of my friends became interested in the Y2K bug. I decided to print out some information to give to him. When I dropped off the copies on the way home, my friend's neighbor was also paying a visit. Eyeing the stack of papers, he asked what they were about. I quickly launched into what I thought was a brief but accurate explanation of the problem. The neighbor seemed to understand and even asked a few intelligent questions -- but then he gave me a thoughtful/worried expression and asked, "But shouldn't they be fixing the '99 bug first?"
- Me: "So what do you think of the Y2K problem?"
- My Coach: "The what?"
- Me: "The Y-2-K problem. What do you think about it?"
- My Coach: "What is Y2K?"
- Me: "Y2K, you know, the year 2000 problem?"
- My Coach: "Oh yeah, I know something about that."
- Me: "So do you think that this is going to be a big problem?"
- My Coach: "Of course not! If Bill Gates can write Windows 98 all by himself, then he's going to be able to fix the problem on time."
- Customer: "What's going to happen to my computer when the year 2000 hits? Will it just not work anymore, or what?"
- Tech Support: "Actually, the year 2000 problem is this: it seems most of the computer code up until recently had been written assuming that the first two digits in the year of any date were "19." So basically, some of these applications, when the year 2000 rolls around, will reflect "1900," rather than "2000." Of course, there weren't any computers around in the year 1900, and so your computer will simply disappear."
After looking very concerned for a few seconds and saying nothing, I reassured him I was joking.
The Year 2000 Problem as described by WXIA-TV, Atlanta, July 10, 1998:
"You open your eyes, slowly waking up. It's Saturday, January 1st, 2000. What time is it? You look at your bedside clock, but it's blank. Is the power off? You check your digital watch. It's blank, too. The coffee maker, which runs on computer microchips just like your wristwatch, doesn't work. The same for the microwave oven and the stove. Your three-year-old computer-controlled car won't start."
These were the exact words, transcribed from videotape.