The year 2000 bug arose from the fact that most old mainframe computers still running keep track only of the last two digits of the year. The computer assumes the first two digits are 1 and 9. To the computer, 1999 is just 99. That means the computer will interpret 00 not as 2000 but as 1900, throwing the date calculation off by 100 years.
The problem dates to the 1960s and 1970s, when computer memory was
scarce and expensive. Computers filled entire rooms and cost millions back then, so smart
programmers squeezed every last bit of memory from the systems. They didn't foresee all
the problems that only using two digits for the date would cause in the future.
Programmers who built the old mainframe computers didn't anticipate the problem because they never thought these machines would last 20 years. But today, these mammoth computers are still running great portions of society.
Because the two-digit method for dates became standard for computers, the bug also exists in the software of many personal computers made before 1997, and in the computer chips embedded in many products, ranging from automatic coffee makers to nuclear power plants.
Y2K Cost in Perspective |
| World War II:
$4200 billion Millennium bug (Y2K): $600 billion Vietnam conflict: $500 billion Kobe earthquake: $100 billion Los Angeles earthquake: $60 billion Sources:
Gartner Group and |
To fix the problem, every computer system's software must be checked and tested. Multiply this by the millions of computers around the world and the hundreds of billions of lines of computer code, and you can see how immense the project is.
In the United States, there are about 157 billion software functions that need to be checked, according to Capers Jones of Software Productivity Research. The 30 most industrialized countries have a total of 700 billion vulnerable software functions. Every one of them must be checked, Jones said, and estimated the global bill at around $3.6 trillion.
And it's not just software in large organizations. Billions of microchips have built-in date functions. The chips can be found in chemical and steel plants, food and drug processing, aircraft, oilrigs, health care equipment, communications systems, elevators and security systems.
Many of these chips may fail when 1-1-00 rolls around, so critical chips need to be located, tested and physically replaced if necessary. "The costs of fixing the year 2000 problem appear to constitute the most expensive business problem in human history," Jones said. (Chris Allbritton, AP, 19/8/98).
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