All computer have a internal clock. When you first buy a new computer, there is a clock installed. However in the old days memory is very precious, so in order to save memory and keystrokes, many computers and programs were designed to use two digits rather than four to calculate the year element of a date. The century is assumed to be "19". Why did they do that? Well, when computer were first invented in 1953 the inventors didn't exactly think that their method or machine will still be in use in the 1990's. So in the Programs and systems that rely on this assumption will no longer correctly calculate the difference between dates when the century rolls over to the year 2000. The problem will cause failures in arithmetic, comparisons and sorting when using data involving dates, and can corrupt databases with erroneous information. These types of calculations are common in systems involving administrative information, planning and scheduling, human resources.

So how can a little date in the computer effect you? Well, since computers are everywhere, including businesses, banks, government, and many other large organization. All these important places rely on the computers to communicate and calculate important things. Since all of these computer are interconnected, if one fails all other connected fails creating a cascding effect. This will effect the everything from money to food. Everything will be misplaced and miscalculated. See chart for more detailed drawing of the interconnection of computer system.

Oh so computer will all get a different date than what it really is, big deal what do I care? Well, with all the computer connected to each other, if one crash so does others. What if you forgot to reture a video. Usually the fine will be few dollars, however when after year 2000, your fine will be in thousands. Also what if a factory producing food is planning to send out food on Jan. 1, 2000. The computer would not process that, so that the trucking company wouldn't know. These are just few examples on how bad this bug could get. If the bug is not fixed it could get much worse, like the bank looses all you money because the computer thought you taken it out. However people have detected this problem early and have begin to fix the bug, but how did this little problem ever travel this far when it could have been fix long time ago? See History of the Bug