Y2k computer bug

[Guest Wellington]

Hi

I would like to use this forum to sum up what all was about this bug. As far as I remember, it was not a real problem before mid-99: the cause had clearly been known for long. However, 99 saw the birth of many service providers for those wanting to escape a foreseen technological chaos after January 1st. The mass media, as usual, were eager to convey the bad news to each and everyone, and I guess that some gave it a second thought and decided to give it a go before it was too late. In fact, it reminded me exactly of what my studies used to be: a finger crossed sprint when the too-late time mark is over!    I was seriously doubting that any useful action could have been taken in such a short notice.

On the other hand, I think we heard many jokes, or at least many marketing attempts. I can easily figure out that for insurance or bank files a whole century off the calendar may be a bit messy, but the thing about planes crashing and a/c malfunctioning sounded more like a false alarm rung... I have even heard that digital machine tools would stop functioning and I am still wondering where a damn calendar could be of any use in them!

Then, after mayhem day 1, no news about the bug anymore. Of course, it was reported that some crucial systems were able to boot up as usual, but as they were "fixed", nothing less was expected. Until the day before, there were hundreds of thousands of systems to care for, and not one showed any problem? I am pretty sure that some work was done late, so either many systems were not using any time function, or many were not bugged (I think Unix will suffer from it around 2040), or many used recently bought immuned computers, or -easy to think- all the hip about the bug was highly over estimated.

My opinion is that this famous quickly forgotten bug was more of a commercial opportunity. I would like to know the amount of cash that was poured in order to fix something a few people really knew about... I guess that if serious problems were ahead, there would have been more serious measures implemented. I think it could have looked like a treatment for an epidemy. In fact it was "ha yes! the bug!... hummm... of course, the bug". My surroundings then showed no sign of any side effect from the bug (although I prayed hard for Celine Dion's show to be the first victim). Did you hear of any?

Regards