What is the “Y2K” problem?
The term “Y2K” = “Year 2000”. It is generally acknowledged by well-informed people that the year change from 1999 to 2000 will cause at least significant and probably quite massive disruptions in our economy and daily lives. These problems center on malfunctioning computers, software, and other automated systems that depend on a correct date. The disruptions will probably begin several months before the year 2000 and continue afterwards for at least several weeks. These problems can have ripple effects on our basic life necessities. If the power goes out, the public water supply pumps also go out, as do computers everywhere. Even as the power returns, it may do so intermittently. Over 20% of electrical power in the U.S. is from nuclear plants, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will most probably shut down these facilities as a safety measure (shutdown being better than meltdown). The loss of the nuclear plants’ generating capacity is far from the most important issue; other power p
• Most computers use the format mm/dd/yy to generate dates, writing January 1, 1999 as 01/01/99. When the year 2000 comes, the computers will write it as 01/01/00. This date will be interpreted as January 1, 1900, creating problems within any computer processes that encounter dates. The problem occurs most frequently with older hardware and software that was not designed to interpret dates past 1999.
• Many computers have stored the year as a two character field, e.g. “1999” is stored as “99.” When the year 2000 comes, these computers will write it as 01/01/00. This date will be interpreted as January 1, 1900, causing mis-calculations by computer programs that processes dates. The problem occurs most frequently with older hardware and software that were not designed to deal with dates past the end of 1999. • Many PCs have a century date change (CDC) problem with their real time clock. The real time clock is a small timer integrated in the CMOS chip(s) mounted on the system board in a computer. When a computer is turned off, the real-time clock keeps counting time, powered by a small battery. When the computer is restarted, the initialization routines build into the computer’s BIOS get the current time from the real time clock.
