Man Made Disaster or Bust

Y2K: Man Made Disaster or Bust

In 1980's a number of experts began to predict a crisis of unprecedented proportion. There was wide scale fear that our dependency on computer that were programmed using a two digit year would result in a catastrophic event when the computer time clock hit the new millennium. There was fear that everything from healthcare to transportation to banking would see system meltdowns. While there were no significant incidents an astronomical amount of money and manpower was used to modify these programs to meet this event. This paper will examine this critical time in history. It will include the following topic: Historical value, cost and final impact.

In the early 1960 when data processing was a new frontier, programmers decided that they could save twenty five percent of space needed by truncating date fields to a 6 digit field instead of the full four digits needed for the year to be storied (i.e. 01/01/60 as opposed to 01/01/1960). There was some concern for the future but most felt that these systems would be obsolete by the time this became an issue. As these programmer retired and were replaced by new programmers this practice was carried forward writing new programs on top of these programs with features that far exceeded the problems that were at the base of these programs. It was accepted practice till 1989 . The standards were to store the year in 2 digit form.

As new, smaller and faster computer and minicomputers were developed this practice became buried deep in the programs and many of the new programmers were not aware that when the new millennium rolled over that the computers wouldn't know if it was 1900 or 2000. This was not only an issue for those computer used in the financial world but transportation, energy, medical and any other business where computers were used in everyday operation. These systems were not only tracking financial transactions(banking, stock market and retail sales), transportation (car, trains and plane), power plants (hydroelectric and atomic), medical records and medical equipment but also extensively used by our military as well as foreign military. By the mid 1980, there were very few aspects of everyday life that were impacted by our extensive use of computers.

When the experts began to acknowledge there were problems with the storage of a two digit year instead of the complete four year date it was believed that this would only impact those large mainframe computers (legacy systems) but as they began to dig deeper it was soon realized that not only were these systems plagued with the Y2K bug but personal computers and embedded chips integrated into every aspect of our live also were programmed with this ticking time bomb. This included everything from intravenous pumps used in hospitals; pacemakers controlling the heartbeats of patients to the air conditioning units that keep us cool and warm everyday .

Until early in 1990s many organizations were still in denial but there were some that acknowledged that there was a problem but took little action. In 1991 many organizations including the United States government began to plan and implement programs that would result in an impact analysis . Many organizations began to realize that either the software would have to be rewritten to accommodate the four digit year or that both the hardware and the software would need to be replaced. Rewriting the software for many of these programs would involve millions of line of software code while replacing the hardware and software would involve many months or even years but also millions of dollars. Many of these organizations didn't have the kind of capital that it would require for these expenditures.

About the same time, the computer industry saw an opportunity to cash in on this event and began to offer Y2K consulting as a line of service. In 1996, the information technology research firm, Gartner Group, estimated that worldwide the Year 2000 problem would cost about $300 billion to $600 billion dollars to correct. These numbers were later estimated to be closer to $1 trillion or more. With the increased demand to replace older systems, it was also estimated that the price of computer and their components would soar .

Many observers including many high ranking executives in the government believed we were not prepared for this event. They began to write legislation and express concern over the impeding event. President Bill Clinton was quoted as saying "The 'Millennium Bug' is a vivid and powerful reminder of the ways we are growing ever-more interdependent. The powerful forces of change that have helped create unimagined abundance also bear with them the possibilities of new and unexpected consequences. This is the way of the new era. No government acting alone can meet this new challenge of the Information Age. No company, or even industry, can