The Millennium Bug

OK, so we've all heard about the Millennium bug, but how many of us actually know what it's about or the implications it could have? While some seem to think that the extent of the damage goes only as far as their kitchen toaster, others fear complete havoc, planes dropping out of the sky, millions of pounds going missing in computer crashes at Wall Street and millions more being locked in banks, and to say the least most electrical household goods going mad. But somewhere in between these two extremes lies the truth. Although everything is still not clear, it is thought that the bug has been blown out of all proportion. Some even think it is a complete money making hoax.

First of all just for those who have been living underground for the past year or so, the Millennium bug is not some sort of insect that will come crawling into existence in the year 2000. It is the name given to what happens when computers and electrical equipment can't recognise the year 2000 and read the date as 1900 or some other date instead. The reason it does this dates back to the early days of computers when memory space was very expensive and extremely limited. So to save valuable memory they represented year dates with the last two figures of that year, e.g. 1974 was 74 etc. Computer experts thought that this would be changed long before the Millennium but usually new programmes are based on old ones and so the basic format is kept. For example when DOS was changed to Windows, Windows had to be compatible with DOS and in the same way Windows 98 had to be compatible with Windows 95. So when the date changes to 00, some items will not read the date as being the year 2000. But contrary to popular belief, the millennium bug may not strike the moment the clock strikes twelve on New Year's Day, it could happen any time a computer uses a date in the year 2000.

You may think that with the knowledge of computer experts today they should be able to fix any problem, but unfortunately that is not the case. After all, all they have to do is expand the date to include the first two digits and upgrade any date sensitive equipment. Right? Unfortunately the solution is much more complicated that this. Nowadays society is filled with millions of computers and hundreds of billions of program instructions. It is estimated that there are two billion lines of code that need to be analysed and corrected to eliminate the problem. There is simply not enough time or enough programmers in the world to fix it before the year 2000.

So will it affect you? There are very few things that are affected by the bug, but all things that are, have an electronic date function. Some items that have a possibility of being affected are, camcorders, fax machines, burglar alarms, video recorders, answer phones and electrical goods bought abroad. But not all of the mentioned goods will be affected by it, as most electrical items produced recently are bug friendly. Things that won't be affected are radios, clocks, televisions, stereos, hi-fi, cookers, washing machines, freezers, fridges and microwaves. Computers are another thing that could be affected. As you can imagine this would cause great problems as nowadays most important businesses rely on a computer to operate. Also some important life saving machinery is at risk.

As regards your P.C. there are three aspects to look at . Firstly, the hardware, secondly the software and thirdly any accessories you might have. IBM and IBM compatible computers are more likely to be affected by the bug than Apple Mac computers, because Apple Macs are already set-up to work in the 21st century. However software used on Apple Mac computers will probably be affected in similar ways to software used on PCs.

So what can we do to prevent disaster? If you have a computer, electrical appliance or anything with an embedded chip that you are concerned about, ring the manufacturers and ask them is it Y2K compatible.

Just in case you fear the worst for the turn of the century, here are a few essentials to have:

Aside from all the worry and hype of the Millennium bug, don't forget that after all, an event like this only happens once every thousand years, so enjoy the 36 hour drinking, the parties on every street corner and the ecstatic atmosphere of every city, town and village!