2000plus | Y2K | What is it?

What lies beyond the year 2000?

The Millennium bug (also Y2K) is an error in many computers around the world that will cause computers to crash and have fatal errors.

The problems that cause Y2K started back when computers where in their very early days. Back in the days when a single byte was a lot of memory that could be saved, the creators of the computers back then decided that having a four digit year (like 1999) would take up some valuable memory that could be used for other things. So, they opted for a two digit year (like 99), not thinking that this would turn into a big problem decades later. So, when the clock ticks over to 2000, the computer will believe that the date is 00, hence thinking that it is 100 years ago, in the year 1900. That will cause many problems with programs that use dates. Unfortunately, that includes many large companies and agencies that we are dependant on, including Electricity Companies, Phone Companies and Water Companies. Many government agency's computer systems are dependant on dates as well. Most programs on most computers are. Even just simple desktop and laptop computers will be affected as the BIOS stores the dates and informs other programs on the computer what the date is, including the Operating System. There are now many fixes available, however if all agencies, and all of their computers and programs can be fixed in time is unknown.

There are other lesser known problems that could be caused by variations of Y2K, such as what may strike on September the 9th, 1999. In some computer programming languages, 9999 means end program. So, when it comes to the date being 9999, the program may terminate.

Time Until The Next Millennium