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  • [eerie ambience]

  • 1999.

  • A once-distant year that still sounded like science fiction was rapidly coming to a close

  • as the year 2000 approached, with massivemillennium celebrationsplanned to greet

  • the 2000s with excessive partying.

  • But looking beyond the street festivals and boundless optimism, there was an undercurrent

  • of pessimism and anxiety surrounding a computer glitch known as The Millennium Bug, The Year

  • 2000 Problem, or simply: Y2K.

  • Set to occur at the stroke of midnight, capable of instigating all manner of disruptions,

  • ranging from the mundane to the apocalyptic.

  • And yet, once the new year arrived with few newsworthy problems occurring, many assumed

  • the Y2K threat had been exaggerated, or was even an outright hoax.

  • What happened?

  • With the millennium only hours away, many people are working down to the last minute

  • to fend off the Y2K Bug.

  • It's been called the world's most important extermination job

  • eliminating the Year 2000 computer bug.

  • The federal government now has ten response centers

  • across the country staffed 'round the clock.

  • The chance of major dislocation in our economy, the major dislocation in our standard lives

  • is very low.

  • I would certainly agree that it's below 10 percent.

  • When agencies are saying they're making good progress, they're 99% compliant, they're gonna

  • be there, they have every assurance that they'll be ready in time.

  • Lemme translate that to one phrase: they're not ready yet.

  • These global issues are the direct result of an equally real human oversight many people

  • now refer to as the Y2K, or Year 2000, problem.

  • This is a problem.

  • Things are gonna be broken, the electricity may be broken.

  • We will have to be patient while it's being fixed.

  • And y'know what?

  • While it's being fixed, we might actually enjoy some family time.

  • This is LGR Tech Tales, where we take a look at noteworthy stories of technological inspiration,

  • failure, and everything in-between.

  • This episode tells the tale of the infamous Y2K Bug and the crescendo of panic that ensued.

  • So what was the Year 2000 Problem to begin with?

  • Well Y2K, or Century Date Change as it was known for a while, can be most easily described

  • as a calendar problem.

  • For decades, computer programmers abbreviated the four digits of each calendar year down

  • to the last two digits.

  • So the year 1965 would be truncated to ‘65’ for example.

  • While humans had the common sense and context to understand a two digit year, the actual

  • computers might take this at face value.

  • Meaning that the year 2000 could instead be misinterpreted by a computer as the year 1900,

  • deeming 01/01/00 to be an earlier date than 12/31/99.

  • In hindsight, this seems like an easily avoidable problem, but when this shortcut was first

  • implemented it didn’t pose any immediate threat.

  • In fact, it made complete sense!

  • Some of the first widely-used computers in the United States, like the IBM 1401 introduced

  • in 1959, were programmed using paper punch cards.

  • These punch cards were a holdover from the electro-mechanical tabulating and accounting

  • machines computers replaced, and operators of those had often punched in 6-digit date

  • codes in the interest of saving time and space.

  • So when it came time to start using computer programs instead of accounting machines, the

  • same 6-digit date code carried over as well.

  • Then once the venerable IBM System/360 came along in 1964, its operating system continued

  • using 6-digit dates to maintain backwards compatibility when emulating IBM 1400 programs.

  • These abbreviated dates also had the welcome effect of saving a couple bits of data per

  • punch card, slightly decreasing the number of cards per program and lowering memory requirements.

  • Consider that a single two kilobyte board of core memory could cost a couple thousand

  • dollars, around 1 US dollar per bit.

  • And a 5 megabyte hard disk cost tens of thousands more, so it made sense to truncate programs

  • any way possible.

  • Sure, 6-digit years were a tad vague but big deal!

  • No way anyone would be running 1960s computer programs forty years later!

  • But that’s exactly what happened, especially in the realms of government, finance, and

  • infrastructure, where bureaucracy was high and change was slow.

  • And it’s not that computer programmers didn’t think ahead, thisCentury Date Change

  • orCDCproblem as it was called, was noticed early on.

  • All the way back in 1958, computing pioneer Bob Bemer was one of the first to address

  • the issue publicly while he was an employee at IBM.

  • He was working on a genealogy program in conjunction with the Mormon Church, and their researchers

  • needed to distinguish between the years 1900, 1800, 1700, and so on.

  • Two-digit years made this impossible, so Mr. Bemer came up with a way of programming full

  • 4-digit year references in COBOL.

  • Logically, this could become a problem in the future once the year 2000 arrived, but

  • despite Mr. Bemer repeatedly voicing his concerns for years,

  • the practice of two-digit year entry continued.

  • It was considered such a non-issue that on November 1, 1968, the Federal Information

  • Processing Standards Publication 4, “The Standard For Calendar Date,” was introduced.

  • This outlined how all information exchange between US government agencies would use the

  • now-standard 6-digit date, ensuring its usage far into the future.

  • And again, this didn’t go unnoticed.

  • Another IBM employee, Peter de Jager, came to his own realization about the Year 2000

  • Problem in 1977 while testing a new banking system.

  • He recognized the looming glitch, persistently voiced concern to his bosses, and like those

  • before him was very much ignored.

  • It simply wasn’t a big enough deal yet, and fixing so much code would be costly and

  • time-consuming and nobody wanted to do that.

  • A bit more credence was finally given to the idea in 1984,

  • with the release ofComputers in Crisisby Jerome and Marilyn Murray.

  • In this book, the Murrays laid out the history of the problem, what might happen if it’s

  • left unresolved, and how to address the flaws in 6-digit date programming, complete with

  • hundreds of pages showing examples of corrected computer code.

  • Still, even as recognition of the problem rose among programmers and computer users

  • heading into the 1990s, it wasn’t until the rise of fledgling internet services that

  • the Century Date Change problem truly gained traction.

  • Arguably, a contributing factor is the term “Y2K” itself, something far more catchy

  • thanCentury Date Change.”

  • The coining of the term is usually attributed to a programmer by the name of David Eddy,

  • who first used “Y2K” to refer to the problem in an email sent on June 12, 1995, spreading

  • virally from there.

  • But beyond the catchy name, what finally made governments, companies, and the public sit

  • up and take notice of Y2K in the mid-90s?

  • The answer is simple: panic.

  • Never underestimate the power of public panic!

  • "Power outages, water outages."

  • My main worry is the energy grid.

  • And if we can't get power, we can't get water.

  • So it's something that is totally unpredictable.

  • I think there are individual banks that will probably go bankrupt.

  • There are individual credit unions that will disappear over this issue.

  • Some people will die.

  • "The sooner you start your preparations, the better your opportunity to get the supplies"

  • "you need at reasonable prices."

  • News reports, websites, TV specials, radio shows, newspaper opinion pieces.

  • The Y2K coverage grew exponentially starting in 1996 as the new millennium drew ever closer,

  • and IT professionals warned with increasing volume of the impending problems that would occur.

  • By 1997, many experts were declaring a point of no returntime bombwas approaching,

  • and who knew what chaos might ensue if things weren’t soon addressed.

  • Especially when it came to computers that were now a couple of decades old, like those

  • used in electrical grids, air traffic control, social security, emergency response systems,

  • banking and financial institutions, hospitals and hospice centers, oil refineries and gas

  • processing, and of course, all those scary-looking nuclear power plants and missile silos.

  • The more the news coverage increased, the more people started wondering: what if everything

  • turned off, all at once, on January 1st?

  • Or worse, what if the glitch made systems go haywire, dropping planes from the sky and

  • launching nukes at random?

  • Soon, Century Date Change bills were enacted at state and local levels, bringing in tech

  • firms to assist in rewriting old code.

  • Former COBOL programmers were brought out of retirement to help fix their own programs

  • from the 60s and 70s.

  • Individual contractors were hired by countless institutions and businesses

  • starting at $1500 a day in 1997.

  • Governments, corporations, and small businesses around the globe were finally taking Y2K dead

  • seriously in 1998, with an estimated 300 billion to half a trillion dollars spent globally

  • once it was all said and done.

  • Of course, that was just the response on an official level: all those large institutions

  • still using decades-old hardware and software.

  • Youll note that personal computers haven’t really been brought up as a major concern,

  • and with good reason: a sizable margin of home computers were never going to be that

  • affected by Y2K, relative to minicomputers and mainframes.

  • Even going back to the early Macintosh and IBM PC systems from the 1980s, those accepted

  • the full 4-digit year 2000, no problem.

  • Granted, there were countless PC clones, many of which used two-digit years in the BIOS,

  • as well as the bigger problem where your computer

  • and OS was compatible but your older software wasn’t.

  • A good number of applications still only recognized the last two digits, but by the late 90s there

  • were very few of those programs still in use, and what remained likely wasn’t controlling

  • anything *vital* to society.

  • Windows, Mac OS, UNIX, even MS-DOS: none of these systems were ever at much risk, especially

  • by the mid-to-late ‘90s when the public finally started caring.

  • And larger companies like Microsoft made sure to let users know there were updates for any

  • of their outdated software, even offering a free Year 2000 Resource CD-ROM to help users

  • better understand the situation regarding PCs.

  • Still, overarching Y2K anxieties led tons of folks to get the wrong idea anyway.

  • The prevalence of “Y2K Compliantlabels all over the place probably didn’t help,

  • leading to a misguided idea that anything remotely computer-related could stop working.

  • Computers themselves were of course labeled this way, but also software that was never

  • at risk in the first place.

  • Bicycle Rummy?

  • Oh sure that’s Y2K compatible, why not?

  • If an item used a microchip, or heck, used electricity in some way, slap a Y2K sticker on it!

  • Cash registers, KVM switches, otoscopes, digital scales.

  • Of course, remember to turn your computers off before midnight too, because reasons.

  • Thanks, Best Buy.

  • Despite the responsibility falling largely on the shoulders of governments and corporations,

  • rather than individuals, this didn’t stop the onslaught of folks capitalizing on the

  • hysteria by peddling personal preparedness.

  • There were countless Y2K books, many of them centered around post-apocalyptic survivalism

  • and off-the-grid living.

  • Seminars were held that pitched the need for prepping at work and at home.

  • Y2K News Magazine got printed for a couple years, detailing Y2K-related facts and rumors

  • on a bi-weekly basis.

  • Outdoor and military supply stores bundled food, stoves, and lanterns together and sold

  • them as “Y2K Survival Kits.”

  • Cleverly named online stores popped up, like Y2Kmart,

  • billing themselves asone-stop disaster shops.”

  • Folks extra-worried about personal safety went into stores asking retailers for quote,

  • “Y2K guns,” leading to a spike in US weapons sales.

  • Amish Mennonite business owners saw a notable rise in sales

  • due to their offerings of analog technology.

  • People began stocking up underground bunkers and fallout shelters in numbers not seen since

  • the height of the Cold War.

  • Cookbooks were released focusing on food preparation in the absence of electricity and clean water.

  • Collectibles were sold cute-ifying the Millennium Bug as a soft, plushie insect.

  • Y2K Survival Shows were hosted on county fairgrounds, providing a kind of end-times family event.

  • Computer hardware makers sold add-on cards promising to make your BIOS Y2K compatible.

  • Software developers released applications for analyzing and updating PCs for potential glitches.

  • Certain religious leaders and churches were hailing the new millennium as the beginning

  • of the end times as written in the book of Revelation.

  • Mock movie posters were sold that combined mid-century horror movie tropes

  • and Y2K apocalypse fears.

  • Actual Y2K movies got made, like Y2K: The Movie, a 1999 made-for-TV disaster flick.

  • Somehow Leonard Nimoy got roped into hosting

  • an hour-long Y2K scare-a-thon released to VHS.

  • Even musicians couldn’t resist making Y2K-themed songs, likeThe Millennium Bugby Terry Breen.

  • And naturally, comedians, comic strips, and TV shows all joined in poking fun at the whole shebang.

  • Happy new -- whaa?

  • Oh no, it’s happening! [electrical zapping]

  • [tires squealing, cars crashing]

  • So with all the years of Millennium Bug silliness and scare tactics, it’s no surprise that

  • many folks were still expecting the worst.

  • But once the day finally arrived and 1999 turned to 2000, Y2K was more or less a no-show.

  • Power kept flowing.

  • Planes kept flying.

  • Cars kept driving.

  • Banks kept banking.

  • Even computers that weren’t turned off before midnight did just fine!

  • There were a number of issues though, even if largely limited to brief, localized interruptions.

  • A building in South Korea lost its heating for a few hours.

  • Several people in the UK were given incorrect medical test results due to age miscalculation.

  • Three dialysis machines in Egypt needed to be reset at midnight.

  • And some credit and debit card terminals delayed transactions by a few days.

  • Not to mention a few more lighthearted blunders, like a guy who returned a rental videotape

  • to the store only to be met with a $91,250 late fee for being 100 years late.

  • But the vast majority of Y2K bugs were incredibly minor, mostly just digital clocks and calendars

  • showing 1900 instead of 2000 before being promptly fixed.

  • According to the US Senate Y2K Aftermath report, despite all those incidents, there were quote

  • no major problems were experienced in the U.S. or worldwide during the millennium date change.”

  • So, hooray!

  • Job well done, crisis averted!

  • Everyone thanked all those skilled programmers, right?

  • Eh, not quite.

  • The skeptics and the defenders alike began sounding off immediately, as exemplified by

  • the January 1st comments section from the BBC’s Talking Point page:

  • This discourse only grew over the coming years, with retrospectives

  • analyzing all the warnings and preparation, wondering if it was all overblown.

  • Make no mistake though, Y2K was a real problem that needed to be fixed,

  • and people put in countless hours to fix it.

  • But the problem with thoroughly fixing something is that, to an outsider,

  • it looks like nothing was fixed at all.

  • So on the one hand, the Millennium Bug was an unquestionably big problem, with a massive

  • quantity of unseen work happening that resulted in a disaster dodged.

  • On the other hand, it’s clear that an unwarranted amount of fear, uncertainty, and doubt was

  • being sown and reaped by those looking to make a quick buck.

  • To quote tech journalist Robert Cringely: “I believe a terrific amount of Y2K fraud took place."

  • "There was a lot of money that was spent and it wasn’t visible."

  • "The question is whether the right work was done"

  • "and my guess is probably about half that money was just wasted.”

  • Indeed, no one knows precisely how much of the prepwork was truly necessary, and how

  • much was at best an honest overreaction, or at worst a cynical cash-grab.

  • And unfortunately, those bad actors often received the spotlight instead of the workers

  • grinding away fixing the actual problems.

  • And thus Y2K ended up being more of a punchline, a cliché “end of the worldtrope that

  • the public was all too happy to move on from.

  • But it wasn’t an all-out hoax either.

  • The Calendar Date Change problem was real and a lot of the fixes were necessary.

  • Additionally, computer hardware and national infrastructure updates made to prevent Y2K

  • chaos ended up having benefits beyond The Year 2000 Problem.

  • As just one example, New York City’s infrastructure overhaul for Y2K has been credited as helping

  • deal with the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

  • The enhancements and failsafes installed to prepare for Y2K ended up being invaluable

  • in helping first responders in 2001 when power, communication, and rail lines were destroyed.

  • On the flip side, some of the Y2K fixes caused issues that only arose decades later, in what

  • became known as The Y2020 Bug.

  • Turns out up to 80% of Millennium Bug fixes relied on a method calledthe pivot year

  • orwindowing,” making computers see years between ‘00’ to ‘20’ as the 2000s.

  • Once the year 2020 came about, anything relying on this temporary fix immediately broke, including

  • parking meters, point of sale terminals, and even the pro wrestling video game, WWE 2K20.

  • So sure, Y2K is easy to look back on and joke about, with all the laughable products and

  • absurd apocalyptic predictions.

  • But it shouldn’t be dismissed entirely as a scam either, even with all the scamming

  • and poor decision-making that occurred.

  • The public perception perpetrated by the media that this was a hoax"

  • "has done a great disservice to the industry,” said Peter de Jager in 2010.

  • Organizations did not spend $300 billion worldwide because someone said"

  • "there was a problem. Nobody is that gullible."

  • "They spent $300 billion because they tested their systems with ‘00’ dates"

  • "and the systems stopped working.”

  • Let’s hope the media, the industry, and the public alike have learned their lessons

  • then, because calendar-based computer problems continue to crop up, and there’s no telling

  • what kind of technological silliness lies over the horizon.

  • [LGR-made synth beats commence]

  • If you liked this episode of LGR Tech Tales, or if youve got some particularly pertinent

  • Y2K memories to share, feel free to lemme know in the comments!

  • Seeing that kinda thing really helps encourage more stuff like this in the future.

  • And as always, thank you very much for watching!

[eerie ambience]

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LGR Tech Tales - Y2K.2000年問題 (LGR Tech Tales - Y2K: The Year 2000 Problem)

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    林宜悉 に公開 2021 年 01 月 14 日
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