Y2k Essay Research Paper The Millennium Bug

Y2k Essay, Research Paper

The Millennium Bug: The Problem of the Century Two seemingly small digits may turn January 1, 2000 from a worldwidecelebration into a universal nightmare. With computers mistaking the year 2000 for 1900,virtually all businesses that use dates will be affected. Not only will the companies beaffected, but they are paying millions upon millions of dollars in order for computers torecognize the difference between the years 2000 and 1900. The year 2000 computer bug isa complex problem that our world must face. In order to explain how to solve the “millennium bug”, it is a good idea to beinformed about exactly what the year 2000 problem is. The year 2000 industry expert,Peter de Jager, described the problem quite well. “We programmed computers to store thedate in the following format: dd/mm/yy. This only allows 2 digits for the year. January 1,2000 would be stored as 01/01/00. But the computer will interpret this as January 1,1900- not 2000″ (de Jager 1). The ‘19′ is “hard-coded” into computer hardware andsoftware. Since there are only 2 physical spaces for the year in this date format, after ‘99′,the only logical choice is to reset the number to ‘00′. The year 2000 problem is unlike any other problem in modern history. WilliamAdams points out some of the most important reasons why. “Time is running out- theYear 2000 is inevitable! The problem will occur simultaneously worldwide, time zoneswithstanding. It affects all languages and platforms, hardware & software. The demand forsolutions will exceed the supply. Survivors will survive big, losers will lose big. There isno ’silver bullet’ that is going to fix things” (Adams 2). “It is too big and too overwhelmingeven for [Bill Gates and] Microsoft” (Widder 3). Separate, any one of these points makesY2K, a common abbreviation for the year 2000 problem, an addition to the obstacle.Combined, they form what seems more like a hideous monster than an insignificant bug. Y2K has an enormous on society, bringing the largest companies in the world totheir knees, pleading for a solution at nearly any cost. “The modern world has come todepend on information as much as it has on electricity and running water. Fixing theproblem is difficult because there are [less than] two years left to correct 40 years ofbehavior” (de Jager 1). Alan Greenspan has warned that being 99 percent ready isn’tenough (Widder 2). Chief Economist Edward Yardeni has said that the chances for aworldwide recession to occur because of Y2K are at 40% (Widder 3). Senator Bob Benett(Republican, Utah) made a good analogy about the potential of the problem. “In the1970’s, oil was the energy that ran our world economy. Today it runs on the energy ofinformation.” He later said, “To cripple the technological flow of information throughoutthe world is to bring it to a virtual standstill” (Widder 3). The potential of the problem in everyday life is alarming. Imagine making a loanpayment in 1999 for a bill that is due in 2000. The company s computers could interpretthe ‘00′ as 1900 and you would then be charged with 99 years of late fees (Moffitt &Sandler 48). If the year 2000 problem isn’t solved, there could be “no air traffic, trafficlights, no lights in your company, companies could not produce goods, no goods deliveredto the stores, stores could not send you bills, you could not send bills to anyone else.Business [could] come to a halt” (de Jager 1). The costs of fixing Y2K are staggering. The Gartner Group estimates that costsper line of code to be between $1.50 and $2.00 (Conner 1). It is not uncommon for asingle company to have 100,000,000 lines of code (de Jager 6). Capers Jones, an expertwho has studied software costs for over ten years, estimates total worldwide costs to be$1,635,000,000,000 (One-trillion, 635 billion dollars) (Jones 58). To put this number intoperspective, if five people were to spend $100 for every second of every day, 24 hours aday, 365 days a year, it would take them about 100 years to finish the task! The year 2000 problem is not only limited to what happens with computersbetween December 31, 1999 and January 1, 2000. There are several other important datesthat are a factor. Last October was considered the last point where a large company couldstart fixing the problem with any hopes to finish before the deadline (DBA 1). Also, allfixes should be done by January 1, 1999. There are two major reasons for having the fixesdone a year early. The first is that there are many “special dates” during 1999 that meanspecial things. For example, September 9, 1999 (09/09/99) has been commonly used asthe “expiration date” for references and data that have no expiration date (Reid 6). Thecomputer required that a date must be entered in, and in many cases, 9/9/99 was it. Also,it has been established that an entire year’s cycle of events should be used to test all of themodifications that have been made to a system. Also, one should be sure to test to seewhich day of the week is 01/01/00. January 1, 1900 was a Monday, but January 1, 2000will be a Saturday. Other possible failure dates: 1/10/2000 (1st 9 character date),2/29/2000 (Leap day- the year 2000 is a leap year), 10/10/2000 (1st 10 character date),and 12-31-2000 (Day 366 of the year 2000) (Martin 15) (GTE Appendix A). With the millennium “bug” coming closer and closer to destroying the “crops” ofthe world’s information every day, experts from around the globe hav