Y2K: Was it a hoax?

[Ave Maria]

Hi everyone. I was just thinking about how everyone was warning of the Y2K bug before the year 2000 and how it turns out that nothing bad really happened. Was Y2K a hoax or was it a legitimate threat that we averted through preventative measures? What is your opinion?

 

[fragile one]

You know, I'm not really sure. I do think there could have been a problem had preventative measures not been taken, but I don't think it would have been as catastrophic as some people said it would be.

I was still attending church every now and then at my university town. The pastor believed really hard-core that Y2K was God's way of punishing people for relying on technology so much, and that the world was going to just stop functioning at the stroke of midnight. He did a series of sermons on what would happen: planes would fall out of the skies, cars would swerve uncontrollably and wreck into things, no one would know how to cook without microwaves and electric ovens (yeah, right ), etc. He resigned after New Year's because he couldn't live up to everyone asking him why this stuff didn't happen.

 

[hemis]

The idea that our computers would turn into Hall from 2001 Space Odyssey was the idea at hand, Y2K, so yes, it was a hoax. If you beleive that computers can think for themselves, then no, it was not a hoax.

 

[Glaz]

I do think that some folks took advantage of it and hyped it to be a worse threat than it was, such as Gary North who is forgotten now but led the cries of impending doom. He made a fortune selling and marketing survival gear off it too.

 

[Ave Maria]

The idea that our computers would turn into Hall from 2001 Space Odyssey was the idea at hand, Y2K, so yes, it was a hoax. If you beleive that computers can think for themselves, then no, it was not a hoax.

Doesn't the military currently have artificial intelligence chips?

 

[hemis]

Doesn't the military currently have artificial intelligence chips?

Yes, but these chips at hand will not see a change from 99 in its final recordings to 00 and suddenly act wildly outside its program.

 

[Ave Maria]

Yes, but these chips at hand will not see a change from 99 in its final recordings to 00 and suddenly act wildly outside its program.

Wht exactly do you mean by they will not see a change from 99 in its final recordings to 00?

 

[praying]

Y2K was not a hoax. If you work in information technology you will know this. Some people overreacted and some made lots of money fom it on books and things however if the massive amounts of computer program changes were not made than computer programs that were date dependent would have run afoul.

 

[Word of Peace]

It was over-hyped, but it was not a hoax - it was a legitimate threat.

 

[Ave Maria]

Y2K was not a hoax. If you work in information technology you will know this. Some people overreacted and some made lots of money fom it on books and things however if the massive amounts of computer program changes were not made than computer programs that were date dependent would have run afoul.

I have had one year of Computer Networking training but I have no degree. Does that count? Anyway, I know enough about computers to know that Y2K was at least partially legitimate. Something like that could have caused problems. Possibly major problems. But since we prepared by applying patches and such to computer's, we didn't see what might have happened. I suppose there could have been some very serious problems like missiles launching completely by themselves and major power outages and such. You have to remember that just about every business in modern society relies on computers in some way or another. Computers are a very major part of modern life. I guess what I should have asked everyone is whether you think Y2K was overhyped or not. I believe it was. But then again, I suppose we'll never know. I remember before the year 2000 and before applying the Y2K patch for my old Windows 98 computer, I tried setting the clock to New Years Eve at like 11:59 PM. I remember that when it the computer's clock switched to January 1, 2000 12:00 AM, nothing at all happened. So I just wonder if Y2K was actually a threat or not. I don't remember having any data loss or anything after trying that experiment. Regardless, I did end up installing the patch just to be safe.

 

[Homie]

Yes, it was definately not a threat. But a hoax is someone who plans to fool someone by giving out false information and/or placing fake physical evidence. (Like many fossil findings), so technically it was not a hoax.

I remember believing the whole world except me was a bunch of dumb fools for overreacting like this. I claimed that NOTHING would happen, I delibaretly did not install any Y2K patches or anything, and I left my computer running over midnight while everybody else was turning them off, just to prove how ridiculuos it was.

I hadn't done any programming, but you don't need to be a programmer to understand that programs and electronics that are not date-dependent will not even be effected.

 

[praying]

I have had one year of Computer Networking training but I have no degree. Does that count? Anyway, I know enough about computers to know that Y2K was at least partially legitimate. Something like that could have caused problems. Possibly major problems. But since we prepared by applying patches and such to computer's, we didn't see what might have happened. I suppose there could have been some very serious problems like missiles launching completely by themselves and major power outages and such. You have to remember that just about every business in modern society relies on computers in some way or another. Computers are a very major part of modern life. I guess what I should have asked everyone is whether you think Y2K was overhyped or not. I believe it was. But then again, I suppose we'll never know. I remember before the year 2000 and before applying the Y2K patch for my old Windows 98 computer, I tried setting the clock to New Years Eve at like 11:59 PM. I remember that when it the computer's clock switched to January 1, 2000 12:00 AM, nothing at all happened. So I just wonder if Y2K was actually a threat or not. I don't remember having any data loss or anything after trying that experiment. Regardless, I did end up installing the patch just to be safe.

I am in the Information Technology and was consulting at the time and worked at a couple of companies that were "fixing" all of their software programs.

Y2K was overhyped by those in the industry with enough knowledge to know of the potential dangers that could befall computer processing if left unchecked or not properly patched and tested.

People would be surprised at the number of the things that computer driven and date reliant; certain elevator systems, telephone systems, some really strange stuff.

Windows software has been Y2K compliant since it has been on the market. It was only the older legacy system/applications that were vunerable to date problems. It was more than just the changing of the clock from 1999 to 2000 also. There were 28 key dates that had been established as needing to verified as Y2K compliant before application software was ready to process post 1999 dates.

 

[Swart]

I am in the Information Technology and was consulting at the time and worked at a couple of companies that were "fixing" all of their software programs.

Y2K was overhyped by those in the industry with enough knowledge to know of the potential dangers that could befall computer processing if left unchecked or not properly patched and tested.

People would be surprised at the number of the things that computer driven and date reliant; certain elevator systems, telephone systems, some really strange stuff.

I was the chair of the Y2K committe for the company I worked for from 1988 to 2001. Prior to that the company I worked for was inviolved in Y2K audits which I usually conducted.

Y2K was most definitely a serious problem. However, partly because of the hype and the industry that developed around it; a disciplined approach to the Y2K problem evolved. The problem actually goes much deeper than a simple 1/1/00 problem. We identified some 28 date related problems with software which we attempted to address under the banner of Y2K. Many of these dates are yet to occur and some occurred before 1/1/2000.

Making systems compliant was a truly herculean task. Many of our systems had to be prematurely retired because it was too expensive to make them compliant.\

Rigorous testing in the lab identified over 50 date related issues that needed to be fixed with our systems. If they had not been addressed, we would have had serious problems. Despite our testing, 6 Y2K issues emerged, most of which were rated category 8 or 9 although we had one category 5 which caused a few minor problems until we had a workaround.

Windows software has been Y2K compliant since it has been on the market. It was only the older legacy system/applications that were vunerable to date problems. It was more than just the changing of the clock from 1999 to 2000 also. There were 28 key dates that had been established as needing to verified as Y2K compliant before application software was ready to process post 1999 dates.

This isn't true. Many issues existed include Windows NT4 SP2 and earlier. In fact, SP3 wasn't fully Y2K compliant but only compliant under MS's modified compliancy statement. MS Office 95 was not compliant and MS Office 97 was only compliant under certain conditions. Excel spreadsheets were a particular problem. Each spreadsheet had to be checked for compliancy. MS Access was also vulnerable.

A good outcome of Y2K was that cemented the concept of the Standard Operating Environment (SOE). It also provided a vehicle to get control of the desktops back into IT hands.

Those of us working in the industry knew there wouldn't be problems on the 1st January 2000. We had already identified and fixed the problems. So confident were we that we had no staff on duty at the time - although I was on call and went in on NYD to do a complete system check and critical systems were taken offline.

 

[armyman_83]

Well you know that we might have missed Christ's birth by a few years............so that would mean that we would have it any coming year right.....???????.......ha ha who knows?

 

[HappyMomof4]

Well you know that we might have missed Christ's birth by a few years............so that would mean that we would have it any coming year right.....???????.......ha ha who knows?

Jesus' birthday was 3 years off I think. So that already happened also. But I think people here are referring to computers.
I knind of think Y2K may have been a threat but it became one of those hot topics that people talked into the ground. Newscasters in particular.