Like other people I know, I left my computers off on New Year's eve, and
started them up again the next day. My 386 running DOS had reset the date
to 1980, which I assume is when the BIOS was created (that was the only
problem). The date program refused to accept any year outside the window
1980-1999. I got a software fix from the American Megatrends web site
(AMIBios) and set config.sys to run it on boot-up, and now I'm Y2K
compliant!
It seems to me that lots of the money was spent to assuage anxiety. In
fact I have a theory about it. I think the whole thing was Misplaced
Millenial Anxiety. If the calendar were rolling over from 999 to 1000, we
might be forgiven for worrying that the world might come to an end. But
since we're hip and modern, such worries are not to be expressed in
public. Instead we're technological and modern, so it's OK to worry about
our gadgets failing. Then the anxieties take hold, and we got all the
nonsense about planes crashing and food and water being unavailable. I
suppose the only thing to do is view it with amusement.
Mike
