Who initiated/discovered the Y2K issue and how did they figure it out?

Question

What is all a bunch of propoganda or a serious issue? I had a computer that I bought in 1998 and it wasn't updated at all between 99 and 2000, and it was just fine.

Answer 1

This was a serious problem. It didn't so much effect PC operations with the Windows operating system and such. It more so effected custom created programs running in companies and organizations. Many companies use mainframe computers because of their ability to handle the processing of lots of data and their relative stability. You often hear of pc-based servers crashing. You rarely ever hear that a mainframe has crashed.

Many programs written for businesses in the 70's were still running in production when 2000 came. Hard to believe, I know. Once again, this is because the mainframe environment was stable and could handle the mass amounts of data flowing through it. In the 60's and 70s, memory and data storage were expensive. So, to try to conserve memory and data storage, they would only use two digit years to conserve to the space required for a 4-digit year. I know that this is hard to believe, but it is true. As time went by, data storage and memory became cheaper. Those application were still in production and needed to be fixed come 2000.

If the 2000 bug hadn't been fixed come 2000, for the most part, comapny billing might not go out or orders may not have been fulfilled. But, some computers are in use to handle utilities or government infrastructure. So, you could have had a scenario where the lights went out come 2000 or worse.

HUGE efforts were made by companies and the government to modify code from 2 digit years to 4 digit years prior to year 2k. If you knew the computer language COBOL, you could make a lot of money around then.

Answer 2

It was the computer companies that let us all know it would be a problem. Early computers had little storage room, so they only used the last two digits for the date. the first two were automatically 19. Your computer was made late enough that it was already Y2K compliant. Older computers were probably upgraded by early 1999.

Answer 3

Ares God of War initiated the Y2K scare.