Y2K Bug

The Y2K bug was a “time bomb" that never went off. It was essentially a threat that sent the world into a bit of a spin about major computer applications. Everyone who was anyone in the computer world went into crisis response mode when it was discovered that there was a “bug” in the world’s computer systems, one that had to be dismantled before the turn of the century. IT was like a time bomb because no one knew what would happen if changes in computer systems were not made before time ran out.

During 1960s and on through into the 80s, while computers were still new, computer programs used two digits for representing a year, but experts soon realized this would be a problem when we reached the year 2000. When the century changed, the year recorded as 00, would be read as 1900 messing up all the computing work of the last one hundred years. With these types of microchips being suspect it was thought that everything would be affected including things like aircraft, healthcare products, telecommunications, and security systems. The fear was that such systems, if they contained the bug, would fail, and with so many things running on computer systems, no one really knew the extent of damage that could occur.

As iinformation Technology experts scrambled through their entire application source code hunting down the “Y2K bug” in order to fix it, it was an immense project . It was as if everyone was working simultaneously from whatever vantagepoint they had to get the code right before the century turned over. Non experts spent time wondering if all their invested progress into the computer realm was worth it and many people lost sleep worrying about the potential disaster.

Most of the concern was that this turn of the century into a new millennium would be the end of the world, as we knew it. Some people prophesied that it would be like the dark ages all over again. Others just worried about the distribution of goods and services and so they stock piled food sources and ammunition to ward off their own starvation and hungry people who might become pests wanting some of their food and supplies. Everyone hunkered down and waited to see what would happen....

Y2K came and Y2K went, uneventful, thanks of course, to the hard work of professional computer programmers! Yes, airplanes kept flying, the traffic flowed, medical apparatus continued pumping blood and oxygen too. The world kept turning.

The result of Y2K was that many people had food sealed in airtight containers, enough to last for years.