How the world thought changing the year from 1999 to 2000 would kill electronics

In today's episode of our series return to the nineties, we will look at the threshold of the new millennium. With the change of the year from 1999 to 2000, a curious and unusual problem arose - it was quite difficult to predict how computer technology would react to the change of year. Why did many experts remain calm and the apocalypse unfold?oneWhat didn't she do?

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Letem svetem Applem

6. 2. 2022

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An old problem

Although the general public began to worry about the Y2K phenomenon only after an extensive information campaign in the media during the second half of 1999, potential problems associated with the year change were solved by experts and scientists much earlier. At the time when the print media, television and radio reported extensively about Y2K, also known as the "2000 problem" or "2000 error", some experts were more or less clear that we are most likely not really threatened by a large-scale catastrophe of global proportions. The reason why there were concerns about the reaction of some computers and systems to the change in the year is quite logical. In the early days of computer technology, the development and production of operating memory did not have nearly the same possibilities as today, and it was also a relatively expensive matter. The combination of these factors together with the limited technological possibilities of the time led, among other things, to the fact that the year was written in two digits instead of four in the respective systems. So it wasn't very clear what happens when systems change from "99" to "00".

Profitable panic

Gallery

Computer Y2K CD-ROM

Y2K CDs Microsoft

Y2K website Microsoft

Y2K Books

Y2K newspaper

Y2K Time

Enter the gallery

Few things generate as much profit as a general panic among humanity. So while the real experts were mostly quiet at the end of 1999, from a marketing perspective it made perfect sense to inform about all possible catastrophic scenarios, and also offer profitable solutions. The closer he got toonec 1999, the more willingly the media reported that the transition to the new calendar could lead to a mass collapse of all possible databases, power outages, collapses of air and other transport and other disasters. And indeed, there were those who bought food and bottled water supplies, stocked up on medical supplies, but perhaps also allowed themselves to be tempted to buy literature on the subject of Y2K, and in some cases even purchased more or less dubious software that promised to protect their PC from a global catastrophe. Most important institutions, authorities, and companies were of course prepared for the change of calendar. By the end of the nineties, it was already possible to produce hardware for which the relevant notations no longer posed any problems.

Single errors

When midnight struck on December 31, 1999 and the world gradually began to enter January 2000, 1999, everything went smoothly without any dramatic disasters. People all over the world gradually celebrated the new year, power plants operated as usual, and transport did not collapse. However, the change from 2000 to XNUMX was not without problems. Right from the beginning of the new year, the media began to report on how the new year affected the functioning of systems in various areas. In some places, there were minor problems with some payment terminals in companies, while some accounting systems showed partial problems with the data on invoices. A curious problem occurred on the Swiss Info World Time website, which immediately after the change of year stated ChatThe island of Hana in the year 19100. Fortunately, the apocalypse did not happen, but perhaps the general panic before the new year forced some users to think that even technology may not be omnipotent.