what was the y2k scare?

Question

yea i was young when that happened so i kinda missed the entire story. i "know" what its about but does anyone have some good incite, or an article

Answer 1

EVERYONE THOUGHT ALL THE COMPUTERS WOULD CRASH - THEY THOUGHT THAT AFTER 1999, THE COMPUTERS WOULD NOT KNOW WHAT THE DATE WAS AND THAT ALL THE INFORMATION IN THE COMPUTERS WOULD BE LOST FOREVER. PEOPLE WERE WORRIED ABOUT THEIR INVESTMENTS, MONEY, JOBS, HOUSES - ANY LOANS - GOOD CREDIT, ETC. WE WERE GOING TO GO BACK TO CAVEMAN TIMES - NO HEAT, RUNNING WATER, ETC. PANIC - IT WAS KINDA FUNNY HOW SOME THOUGHT WHEN YOU LOOK BACK ON IT.

Answer 2

1

Answer 3

Y2k Scare

Answer 4

Type in Y2K into your search engine and you will come up with some sights that were around then, and are still out there now.
There was a theory that because computers were using a two digit code for the year e.g. 1984 would be just 84, then they would reset at midnight on 1/1/2000 to 1900, and everything that was computer based, or had a computer chip in, would fail - water purification plants, power generators, airplanes' navigational gear, banks, insurance company's and whole governments would fall.
All that was required was to reprogram the computers to a four digit code for the year, but could it be done in time to avert disaster? Simply put - yes.
But some people panicked, they stockpiled emergency goods in case the power, water, phones and governments failed, they chose not to fly, and to stay close to home to avoid disasters.
TEOTWAWKI -The End of The World As We Know It didn't happen - at least not yet.

Answer 5

The best way is to download Ccleaner here http://bitly.com/UrALrK

Or you can go on Windows operating system locate the command prompt and go there to do the following:
Create a Recovery file of system and date it today.

Then begin by;
delete the 'Temp' folders..they have hidden subfolders so you need to set the attributes in order to bypass this. For each subfolder delete all cookies and rubbish left behnd after install-uninstalled programs. Do a 'dir' command to check your progress. Make sure the 'Temp' file is empty.

goto c:\windows\prefetch and delete everything in there..no exceptions

goto c:\windows folder and delete all the '$' files that have been installed by updates. They can all be succesfully deleted and just take up disk space.

Locate the Internet Temporary Files..Check to see how high the saving level is..some have it set at 30 days..but that stores faaaar tooo much data..though it slows down the system overal. Keep this to a minimum..suggest 2 or 5 at most.

Delete all 'cookies' all those you don't need.

Locate the windows directory and go through the folders you know and those you don't need. Check this once a week at least. Some programs will install under XP as NT and older systems where there is no check of systems weight.

Check to see that system files have not changed since last booting. Things like .ini files or .bat are important items.


Check for 'Hidden Directories' all over the disk...do this at the command prompt:

dir *.* /ah wil show these hidden directories

Check the 'dir' command for all parameters

Answer 6

In the beginning of computer era, many information systems stored dates as two-digit numbers - e.g. 12/22/99. That practice continued to a large extent throughout 1980s and 1990s.

As year 2000 (Y2K) approached, everybody rushed to fix their systems to work properly for post-2000 dates.

To better grasp the problem, imagine that if was born in 1969 and some system, for example medical software - would calculate my age in 2000, if the only information it had about my year of birth was '69'. It could produce results like -69, for example, which might have created a lot of problems in real life for me and for others. And if somebody was born in 1900, for example, would he or she be considered one year old or 101 years old in 2001 ?

Any kinds of computer programs using 2-digit dates could potentially create problems like that in the year 2000 and later.

In practice, everybody was aware of the problem, and businesses around the world were spending ridiculous amount of money to make sure that their computer software and hardware would not have any problems in 2000. I personally know people who made a lot of bucks on this.

At the end, it wasn't such a big deal after all, because everybody was over-prepared.

There is another similar problem coming - The Year 2038 Problem.

Hope it helps ;)

Answer 7

Here is a website I found that http://y2k.me has a whole section about y2k

Answer 8

It was because there is alot of data out there stored in computers and often times, the years are stored as "99" instead of "1999". So when "00" comes around, the database will get messed up because it will appear to be earlier than "99" when it's not. They was fear that things would wig out over that. Silly eh?

I was on Y2K duty on New Years Eve. I had a beeper clipped to my party gown. I would have no idea what I would have done had it beeped on me!

Answer 9

When micro chips came out, they were never designed to handle a roll over of numbers. Since these microchips were in everything from clock radios to coffee makers to computers. People were worried that on Jan 1, 2000. When the internal clocks flipped on the chips it would not understand what to do and just short circuit or make the date Jan 1, 1900.

But computers were smarter than we gave them credit for, for they really only speak in 1's and 0's, its all it knows. And to go from 1999 to 2000, its just adding 1. A computer chip is nothing more than a calculator.

Most of the scare was drummed up by computer geeks to sell fake software, books, and such. Plus many computer companies got on the scare band wagon to push newer models and make people buy their products.

Answer 10

A lot of people thought that when Dec 31, 1999 rolled around to jan 1, 2000, a lot of computers would not recognize 2000, but would rollback to 1900. This would create chaos with banking, hospitals, airlines, security, broadfcasting and everything else.
it turns out most computers were programmed to accept the year 2000, so guess what happened??? nothing!

Answer 11

everyone thought the year 2000 was going to bring chaos to the electronic world since computers were only able to count to the year 1999 when they were made. Of course we are talking about older systems that were built between the 1950's and up. What a bunch of baloney.....guess they were all wrong.